I’m thinking about applying for a new job so need a CV for the application.

I’ve been in work since I left school nearly 20 years ago and only had three jobs so CV writing isn’t something I’ve got the faintest idea about. I’ve Googled it and there seems to be hundreds of sites offering advice on writing a CV, some of it identical, some conflicting.

Can anyone here give me a few pointers, mainly general do’s and don’ts?

What’s the new job? If it’s just the one application, tailor the CV to the job…

Is it really only 3 jobs, or more like 3 employers, but a variety of projects in each place?

make it concise and relevant. I’m not going to employ someone who fills their CV with stuff I don’t need them to do for me. 2-3 pages. I’d want to see experience, history, qualifications.

I’d want some personal stuff on there too, what do you like doing, what makes you tick? Your CV needs to jump out at me from everyone elses, make it interesting.

Write a CV then tailor the covering letter specific to the role you are applying for.
You could tailor your CV as above.

No longer than two pages preferab;y 1.
Have a summary at the top which outlines your key skills as many agencies are staffed with monkeys who cant read more than a few lines!
Look for ways that you have added value, saved money implemented projects on time/on budget etc

Also on the bottom mention what you do outside of work. I (IT) love to read about people who have interesting hobbies/interests as oppose to “I build PC’s” etc.
I recruited Daisy_duke some years ago and IIRC he had just cycled a long way across the USA which was interesting. Turned out to be a top bloke all round but it got him the first interview.

Apart from any other specific advice, make sure that:

a) All your dates match up, no big gaps or overlaps

b) All the stuff on your CV is true (and a listed skill is not so rusty as to be useless)

c) Spelin is improtant. And a spell checker is not always write.

Get a second opinion, ideally from someone who works in HR or is a professional in the sector you’re applying to.

2 pages max
mine is
Name + contact dets (name + email + mobile)
Qualifications (Degree + professional, training certifications etc as applicable AND relevant)
Skills summary (Job Roles/Tech Keywords, as I suspect most people do keyword searches/IT lookups)
Reverse job history (where, to/from, brief para – less detailed for earlier jobs

I would try to ‘tune’ to required job – ie include suitable previous skills/experiences etc

**re ‘truth’ – imho you need to sell yourself as best you can and there is (imho) a ‘grey area’ between marketing and porkies, at the very least be positive about your abilities and skills, but expect anything you have put to be tested/verified.

What’s the new job? If it’s just the one application, tailor the CV to the job…

Is it really only 3 jobs, or more like 3 employers, but a variety of projects in each place?

The new job’s just one application for one job and it’s direct with the employer rather than through an agency.
I’ve actually realised that it’s four jobs with three employers, not three jobs. As for projects, that’s not something I’ve ever had anything to do with!

make it concise and relevant. I’m not going to employ someone who fills their CV with stuff I don’t need them to do for me. 2-3 pages. I’d want to see experience, history, qualifications.

For the online application, I fill in all qualifications separately as part of my profile so I’m not sure whether I need to duplicate this in the CV?

Get a second opinion, ideally from someone who works in HR or is a professional in the sector you’re applying to.

I don’t know anyone who works in HR or the likes but I might be able to run it by someone who works in the job which may help.

My understanding is that I should cover employment history, professional qualifications and relevant experience then have a personal statement which is tailored towards the job profile. Does this sound about right?

YGM
sent you some info, some handouts and examples
might end up in your SPam but some useful stuff for you

I don’t know anyone who works in HR or the likes but I might be able to run it by someone who works in the job which may help.

At the very least run it by someone else, your partner, a friend, whoever. Someone with a decent command of English who uses formal written communication on a regular basis.

My understanding is that I should cover employment history, professional qualifications and relevant experience then have a personal statement which is tailored towards the job profile. Does this sound about right?

You could stick the personal statement in your cover letter. If you’re going to put it in the CV stick it somewhere at the top.

Another thing, don’t forget to put your contact details in your CV somewhere! And if you’ve got a stupid email address (for example “notmyrealname@gmail.com” 🙂 ) now’s a good time to set up a more professional/neutral sounding one, something like “john.smith.work@gmail.com” for example.

Depending on the job it might be a good idea to check your online profile, make sure you haven’t got any embarrassing photos on Facebook (or they’re well hidden behind tight privacy settings), not too many “ha ha ha I’m tweeting from the toilet” posts on Twitter, etc.

gusamc – Member

2 pages max
mine is
Name + contact dets (name + email + mobile)
Qualifications (Degree + professional, training certifications etc as applicable AND relevant)
Skills summary (Job Roles/Tech Keywords, as I suspect most people do keyword searches/IT lookups)
Reverse job history (where, to/from, brief para – less detailed for earlier jobs

Pretty much my format too. Never go more than 2 pages. Fiddle with the margins, spacing and font size to get it all on, but make sure it’s still legible and not crowded, and will print out correctly too! Took me a while to get this sorted.

Mine goes,
Page 1:

-Name and Contact details
-Short summary/statement on what I do and what I’m looking for. E.g. I’m a software programmer with X years of experience. I am looking for new challenge etc. This is like a v. short covering letter and I think it makes the CV more robust as a document on it’s own. This is good if you’re using recruitment agencies as they never seem to ask for/take a covering letter to pass onto potential employers
-Qualifications and training
-Key skills (tweaked for each job)

Page 2:
-Work Experience, I split this into “professional” and “other”, e.g. summer jobs/year out travelling etc. First section is obviously more in depth than second in descriptions, but the second section helps fill in the gaps
-Hobbies/Leisure Activities “MTB obvs innit”

Pretty much my format too. Never go more than 2 pages. Fiddle with the margins, spacing and font size to get it all on, but make sure it’s still legible and not crowded, and will print out correctly too! Took me a while to get this sorted.

I couldn’t disagree more. People get hung up on ‘x pages’, I don’t know where this hoary old trope came from but it’s nonsense.

A CV is as long as it needs to be, and that’s dependent on experience, qualifications, and of course the type of job you’re applying for. I’ve seen CVs where skillsets and professional qualifications run to two pages on their own. There’s absolutely no point in compromising readability just to attain some mythical page-length goalpost.

By all means get to the point. There’s nothing gained by being verbose when a sentence would suffice, and this I think is perhaps where the ‘length’ thing comes from, but it’s lost its meaning along the way. But turning in a CV that’s four pages of information crammed into two using a 4pt Flyspeck font and no white space achieves nothing.

Thanks for all the advice guys.
Junkyard, thanks for the email, there’s plenty there to be reading through to give me an idea of what I’m doing.

More than two pages is fine IMO as long as it’s relevant, key (for a technical role) is getting the technical skills on the front page (and formatting it well). Once you have their attention they’ll then want to quickly see evidence of these skills in your job history. If you have an extensive and relevant job history (lots of projects etc.) then it’s worth going over 2 pages IMO, it’s up to the guy reading it if he wants to carry on reading through the history.

Oh and don’t put walking, socialising with friends or reading books on your hobbies (in fact I would leave hobbies out altogether, 99% of the time they’re just irrelevant although you could get lucky with an interview ice-breaker if the recruiter is an MTBer to).

Obviously make sure spelling and grammar is OK to, when I was having to read through piles of CVs I’d just flat reject ones with too many mistakes in them. Either the person can’t be bothered making an effort or they lack the communications skills the role requires.

Cougar – Moderator ……….
I couldn’t disagree more. People get hung up on ‘x pages’, I don’t know where this hoary old trope came from but it’s nonsense.

One reason is because it fits on one back to back printed sheet. No pages can be lost then. But I suppose its relevance is on the wane, as career changes are more common so people may have extensive experience and there things like LinkedIn for presenting yourself.
But if your CV ends up being 2.4 pages long say, I reckon you could easily tweak it to 2. For a start MS Word margins are quite conservative so can be reduced, some fonts are smaller but just as easily read, line breaks can be reduced in height. 3 full pages would be better than 2.4 too.

FuzzyWuzzy – Member ………..
Oh and don’t put walking, socialising with friends or reading books on your hobbies (in fact I would leave hobbies out altogether, 99% of the time they’re just irrelevant although you could get lucky with an interview ice-breaker if the recruiter is an MTBer to).

Evidence of a healthy work/life balance is good, but socialising is often read as going out on the razz!

Think of it as a product sales document and you are the product,

List early on what the key features are and the benefits they bring.

Quantify what you do, list your achievements like ‘grew GP by 90000% over 3 years’, ‘recruited 4 new sales specialists to hit target of xxx’.

That works well.

Personally,

When I was involved in recruitment, I liked to see personal details like hobbies; it makes you stand out as a person rather than an D&D character sheet. When we’re discussing candidates, you’ll stand out as the mountain biker rather than the guy with the Degree in Sociology.

I would recommend also as well as all the above, always always call and ask about the post before applying. You will get far more info, you get to talk about your real experience and they may just remember you from the call as opposed to “another” paper only application.

But… make sure you know your own stuff, can talk coherently about yourself in terms of what you DO not what you ARE plus, note any questions you would like to ask before the call…

PM me if you want any more info as I used to do this career schnizzle as a profession..

HTH

Having just gone thorough this for a promotion I really want…. Covering letter was 2 pages specifically targeting every single point the advert requested evidence of, not just rewriting the skill or experience but with specific examples…. “When I worked at x…” Cv was a further 2 pages stating a short personal statement, career summary (roles, key achievements, staff and budget managed), education (professional and school) and personal interests (make sure you write something here you are truly passionate about, if someone writes about cycling or martial arts I always ask them, in depth as I’m interested too.)

Good luck 🙂

Edit: if you can find out the hiring managers name, offer to buy them coffee and try to get a 30min chat. Treat it like an informal intereview ask them want they see as the main challenges of the role and what sort of person they are looking for. Write your cv answering those questions.