How to write a CV that will improve your chance of interview.
There are many channels that companies use to find talent, headhunting, referrals, LinkedIn, career fairs, job boards and more. It doesn't matter how a company finds you, if you decide to put yourself forward then you will need a CV. If you don't have a CV or you have an outdated CV, the thought of writing a CV can be daunting. Formats, length, content, font, flow, skills, underselling yourself, overselling yourself, where do I begin? Put your concerns to the side and use this as your guide to how to write a CV that will improve your chance of interview.
Fact : Hiring managers in many cases, but especially for jobs that have been advertised will spend very little time reading a CV to make first time cuts.. The larger the number of applicants the shorter the period of time a hiring manager will spend reading your resume, under 10 seconds in many cases. When applying to an advertised role you should have the necessary skills and experience clearly marked on your CV or risk being culled. If you apply hoping the gods will help you, don't be disappointed when you get a rejection or worse hear nothing at all. Only apply to job ads you know you can convince the potential employer you can do, because it's on your CV. Use internal referrals for roles you know can do but wont get a look in based on your CV
What is a hiring manager looking for on a CV?
Hiring managers look for four things on your CV.
- Where did you do it?
- What did you do?
- Why did you do it?
- And what was the result?
Use clear, easy to understand language. Sometimes we write with words we would never use when speaking and it complicates the message. Unless your role is highly technical, a layman should be able to understand what you do after reading your CV. Cut the jargon, don't use buzz words and if a sentence or a word is redundant, take it out. Making yourself understood is what this document is all about. Your CV should inspire conversation. Don’t leave the reader with questions for example, if you have a period of time in between jobs, briefly explain it.
A hiring manager reading your CV looking for answers to two questions
- Do you have the skills and experience to do the job?
- What value will you bring to the greater business?
How to write a CV to improve your chances of interview.
Follow these steps to go from a blank page to a complete document that will improve your chance to get an interview.
1. Decide on a format.
Before you start typing, decide on the format. Your resume format should reflect the job and industry in your application.
Resume builders can be useful at this point, helping you organise essential information.
The alternative is to get all of the information on paper and then begin formatting.
Use these headings as you begin putting your information together.
- Name and contact information.
- Professional statement.
- List your competencies.
- Your work experience
- Your non-work experience, including professional organizations, community involvement, or side projects
- Your education and certifications
- Your skills (specifically hard skills) and interests
Organising the information.
Reverse chronological order is the most common format and thus easiest to read by a hiring manager. It is also the most relevant format to describe yourself as it shows a flow to your career and the skills you have built. Skills built recently should be of more importance or at least round out your career and will be the strongest, again because they are recent. As your experience grows it becomes more important to a potential employer than your education, hence education is a section below professional experience.
If you're changing careers you might consider a skills based resume combined with a reverse chronological order which talks to the skills you have gained in your history that are relevant for your future. Highlight relevant skills at the top and set out companies and dates below that in reverse chronological order. From personal experience as a recruiter the latter format can be tricky to master. It's hard to tell what competencies are real strengths for the applicant and how current the skills are.
2. Start with the essentials.
This will become your header and will begin with your name and then follow with your contact information.
- NAME
- Your phone number
- Your personal email address
- You can include more information if it adds to your CV for the job you’re applying for. Your LinkedIn URL is a good addition and will most likely be reviewed anyway. Make sure the dates correspond exactly with your CV. You can also consider your personal website URL, your GitHub (technical roles), your social media profiles (only if relevant to the job and industry) and your address or suburb. Companies like to know that you can commute without hardship, which may add to risk in a new hire.
3. A professional statement
A professional statement is your introduction, a tagline or your elevator pitch. It's the first thing the reader will see and it should encourage the reader that your CV is worth reading. Build your statement so that it is relevant to the job you're applying to, you must be able to back it up with content in your CV.
4. List your competencies in 3 or 4 even columns.
This section is important, mirror the competencies in the job advertisement if you have them. Include soft and hard skills, make sure you include words that may not be in your work experience for whatever reason. This is as much for the applicant tracking system (ATS) as it is for the reader. Often an ATS will do the bulky front end of a recruitment program providing relevant CVs for further assessment. Don't miss out because you didn't put the skills you have on your resume!
Be strategic when filling in your skills. Don’t list things you actually couldn’t do at a high competence level, and maybe cut skills that are completely irrelevant to the job you want.
5. Add in your professional experience
This section will be the bulk of your resume unless you're a new graduate. Employers want to see where you’ve worked, what you’ve done, and the impact of your work to get a sense of your background, expertise, ability to learn and adaptability.
Start with your most recent experience and ensure you highlight relevant experience throughout your resume.
Within your work experience, include your official job title, the company, location especially if you've worked in other regions and the dates of employment. Make sure they are correct, they will be examined and referenced and in industries such as banking I've seen offers rescinded for having incorrect dates. Below that, you’ll add bullet points that explain what you did, the skills you built, the tools used, and most importantly your achievements. If you accomplished a lot during your time, focus on the responsibilities that are most relevant to your future or that you're most proud of. To create the most impact and stand out in a crowd, ensure you provide quantitative or qualitative measurements to your results.
Your resume bullets should be in past tense if you’re referring to past jobs and present tense for your current role. To create impact, start your bullet points with a strong action verb that describes best what you did. As your resume is most likely in electronic format, provide hyperlinks to examples of work (if you can) Showing the reader can be more powerful than words on paper.
To encourage your resume to be read, keep it brief and to the point. If you have years of experience consider taking off the earlier years. Keep your resume to one or at most two pages.
Not sure where to start? Put it all down on paper and refer back to it as you write your CV for the job you're applying for.
6. Include volunteer work and other experiences
Experiences outside of your professional work can help round out your CV and will show extra skills you have and if nothing else will differentiate you from other CV’s. Everything you do makes you you, sport, volunteer work, drumming in a band, stand up comedy, sewing gives away a little of yourself to the reader.
7. Add your education
If you’ve just graduated, your education is the most important part of your history so far and thus can go at the top of your resume. For everyone else your education goes below your professional experience.
List your education chronologically like your professional experience.
8. Finally, edit your resume for the job
Edit your resume for you're applying for, and the (ATS) that’s going to be used to do the first round of sifting.
- Now that you have your written CV in front of you, go back to the advertisement.
- Have you clearly proven you can do this role? The answer must be yes.
- Have you reflected the language in the advertisement in your resume?
Let’s explain further. You’ll want to begin by tackling the ATS. This means combing the job description to see if individual words and phrases line up. What skills are they asking for, and have you listed them (so long as you actually have them)? What words are they using to describe the job and their ideal hire, and have you used similar language in your resume?
Take a break. Come back to your finished paper and notice what your eyes see first. If it is not important for the job you are applying to then reformat so you grab the attention of the hiring manager. It should be close to the top, it may be your statement, emphasise it to increase its visibility.
read the advertisement or job specification and then go back to your resume. Have you shown the hiring manager you can do the job, the value you bring to the business and will they understand your experience clearly?
One final point. Only apply to advertised roles that will progress your career and that you can prove you have skills bringing value to the job and to the greater business. If you can't offer the skills today, build your contacts in your dream company, prove to them you're a worthy hire and get an internal referral. If you want something enough, you'll find your way in.
If you don't have the exact experience
read more here as to why a cover letter could be your best asset.
