Writing a successful CV

In May 2024, a DAAD scholar[1] who took part in our LEAD! programme[2] at the University of Cologne asked me for advice on his CV and I documented the process in a series of videos. The student's real name is not Anthony Barasa Chepkwony (ABC) and he never worked or studied at any of the institutions mentioned in the CV - but the real Anthony and his CV are really, really close to our pseudonymised case.

The resulting CV is a compromise for an international student in Germany:

• We don't want to shock the German recruiter, so it is pretty conventional for a conservative labour market, including items that may be considered out-dated or offensive in other places, like a photo and the signature of the candidate.
• On the other hand, Anthony has some nice references that I didn't want to eliminate. In Germany you'd rather ask your referees for a recommendation beforehand and send a copy/scan with your application.

When we worked on his CV, Anthony didn't have a specific position in mind to apply for. So, the CV is quite unspecific. Anyone who may be looking for a job in the foreseeable future should have such an unspecific draft on his/her computer. As soon as there is a job opportunity Anthony can adjust focus and tailor the CV towards a concrete job description.

Each video is two to six minutes short and typically adresses two points, click on the captions to watch the videos.

Introduction

• What's the attention span of an HR person scanning my CV?
• What length of CV are we aiming for?

Priorities

• What are recruiters looking for?
• Clean up the chaos!

What goes where?

• Meta-meta review of eighty studies on CVs
• Education first or job experience first?

Reading Patterns and Details

• What's the F-Pattern, and why does it matter?
• How can I keep the HR person happy?

From here we'll just go step by step by step through the CV:

The Header

• First things first
• Give a clear idea of who you are (not a multitude of potential future yous)

Education

• Summarize efficiently
• Spotlight on your achievements

Work Experience

• Consistent formatting
• Summarize and prioritise

Awards

• Focus on the achievement and reward (not the purpose)
• Keep it short and simple to read!

Skills and Certificates

• Structure, structure, structure ...
• Cut out the ornamental descriptions

Basically, all recommendations in the content sections above are variations of "Leave out anything unnecessary!" and "Follow a structure that is easy to read!"

Download the sample CV to see how it's done and work on it.

The easiest way to have a separate column for dates on the left is to use a long table in MS Word or in LibreOffice[3]. To me, tables in a CV look a bit clumsy - unless you make all the lines disappear. Now, when the lines have disappeared it is difficult to work with an "invisible" table. There is a simple solution for this, called "View Gridlines"

Consistent formatting is very important for a decent output. Some super simplified rules to follow:

NEVER change ...

• the font family manually
• the font size manually
• the font colour manually
• the horizontal spacing by adding blank spaces or tabs
• the vertical spacing by adding empty lines

INSTEAD

• Familiarise yourself with the "Design" tab in Word
• Adjust font and colours in the "Design" tab if needed
• Use the predefined "Styles" (in the "Home" tab)
• Adjust "Styles" if really needed

LITERATURE

This little exercise gave me the opportunity to move from common sense and hear-say to evidence-based CV writing. There is quite some interesting literature out there on how CVs are actually read by recruiters and HR people. Some "studies" are more of a DIY home made experiment; some have a better foundation and more rigorous design.

If you don't want to read dozens and dozens of CV writing recommendations, there is an excellent overview - basically a meta-study.

Did any of this fundamentally change the way I'd write my CV? No, but it is reassuring to see that it was not all wrong what I've been teaching based on hear-say and common sense. You don't need to go through any of this to write a great CV, but hey - you could, so here you go:

Cole, Michael S., Robert S. Rubin, Hubert S. Feild, and William F. Giles. 2007. ‘Recruiters’ Perceptions and Use of Applicant Résumé Information: Screening the Recent Graduate’. Applied Psychology 56 (2): 319–43. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.2007.00288.x.

Soussan Djamasbi , Marisa Siegel , and Thomas S. Tullis . 2011. ‘Visual Hierarchy and Viewing Behavior: An Eye Tracking Study’. In Human-Computer Interaction. Design and Development Approaches, edited by Julie A. Jacko, 6761:331–40. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21602-2_36.

Ladders . 2018. ‘Eye-Tracking Study’. https://www.theladders.com/static/images/basicSite/pdfs/TheLadders-EyeTracking-StudyC2.pdf. -- this is where the 7seconds attention span comes from. Not a well-documented study, actually.

Lee, Jerry. 2024. ‘Exposing Recruiters w/ Hidden Eye Tracker’. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veFlfYjRo1Y. -- just for the fun of it :-)

Sayaka Osanami T?rngren , Carolin Schütze , Eva Van Belle and Markus Nystr?m . 2024. ‘“We Choose This CV Because We Choose Diversity” – What Do Eye Movements Say about the Choices Recruiters Make?’ Frontiers in Sociology 9 (March):1222850. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2024.1222850. -- As a side-finding of this study we find, what recruiters discuss about when considering a candidate.

Angel Pina , Corbin Petersheim , Josh Cherian , Joanna Nicole Lahey, Gerianne Alexander and Tracy Hammond . 2023. ‘Using Machine Learning with Eye-Tracking Data to Predict If a Recruiter Will Approve a Resume’. Machine Learning and Knowledge Extraction 5 (3): 713–24. https://doi.org/10.3390/make5030038.

Steve Risavy . 2017. ‘The Resume Research Literature: Where Have We Been and Where Should We Go Next?’ Journal of Educational and Developmental Psychology 7 (1): 169. https://doi.org/10.5539/jedp.v7n1p169. -- This is the biggest overview of CV recommendations - great overview!

As you see, I tried to attribute the authors here in Linkedin as well, but I couldn't always find a reasonable match. Please let me know, and I'll be happy to correct any mistakes.

[1] DAAD Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst

[2] LEAD! is a programme developed at Dept92 of the 德国科隆大学 , offered to students who do their master's with funding through the Leadership for Africa Programme of DAAD

[3] LibreOffice is a cool open-source alternative to MS Word! Free DOWNLOAD