CV Tips

We’ve used our years of experience and recruitment insight to put together some useful hints and tips to ensure you’re best placed to secure your next role.

Your CV

Passing on interview and CV feedback from employers is something our consultants do on a daily basis, and so being able to provide useful interview advice and CV tips to our candidates is something we pride ourselves on.

We’ve used our years of experience and recruitment insight to put together some useful hints and tips to ensure you’re best placed to secure your next role.

There is always a lot of debate surrounding the subject of CV writing, and for some people the thought of updating or writing a CV can seem like a particularly challenging task.

One of the most important things to grasp when compiling a CV is to understand what the purpose of a CV is. It is easy to make the mistake of thinking that the CV is an opportunity to ‘tell them about myself’ – it is, after all, the story of your working life thus far. Yet, unfortunately, this is not the best way to view the role of a CV.

Instead a CV should be a device for showcasing skills and experience in the most effective way to a potential employer. It is important to ascertain what the employer might be looking for, both in general and for the role you are applying for. The CV should then be compiled with skills, experience and achievements that are relevant to the role emphasised.

Think about including the following:

  • Profile or Summary – whether or not to include this is perhaps one of the most fiercely disputed CV debates, with another battle raging within the ‘yes’ camp as to whether this should be in ‘prose’ or bullet points. We do feel that a well thought-out set of bullet points (no more than five or six) can work well and instantly prompt a reader to pay more attention to your CV. Use either outstanding achievements or those related to the job spec.
  • Chronological versus Skills-based – there are advantages to both, yet we believe that chronological makes more sense as it gives the reader a complete overview of your achievements during one role. Naturally ‘achieving a 150% increase in x or y’ is more impressive if it is one of many achievements. You can use a ‘Summary’ or ‘Profile’ to outline your key selling points.
  • Include core competencies within each of your most recent roles including skills and any areas of marketing you’re most interested in showcasing as your expertise. Be sure to always position anything you write in a positive way. Talk about achievements and how you got to the end goal.
  • Statistics or figures should be used to support the effectiveness of your marketing work and its ROI, as this is typically what clients are looking at in terms of ‘justifying marketing spend’.
  • Length – the ‘two-page rule’ is the idea that a CV should never exceed two pages. This ‘rule’ is a really common misconception and is definitely not the case. Whilst a good CV should be concise, you don’t need to cut out good experience and skills just because it doesn’t all fit on to two pages.
  • Enjoy writing your CV – This is one thing which is usually overlooked. Whilst some people find it hard to write about themselves, by getting into the ‘story or flow’ of your CV, you should be able to write something more compelling.

If you need any assistance at any point when structuring your CV, we’d be more than happy to assist. Click here to let us know if you’re keen to discuss it.

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