With this in mind we thought it would be useful to pose a simple question:

How important is your CV?

The answer is, quite simply, extraordinarily important. Your CV is most likely the first contact point you have with a recruiter, hiring manager or the organisation, so it had better be impressive…

Errors

The Cpl Group recently conducted a survey finding that 89% of CV’s contain spelling errors. In our conversations with recruiters they have repeatedly stated that poor layout, grammar and spelling will cause them to lose interest in a candidate that might have otherwise potentially been successful. The CV with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes is at a significant disadvantage to the candidate with a well laid out and grammatically correct CV.

Content

One of the recurring issues we face at Career Consultants is candidates who are concerned about their skill set and how it applies for the job or field they want. More often than not the issue is not their skills or achievements; it is that these skills and achievements are not on the CV.

With any CV it is worth checking that your content accurately portrays your skills and experience to a potential employer. Your content should be efficient, economical and show every applicable reason why you’re the best person for the job.

Tailored

Each position is different (though some only marginally), and this should be taken into account with your CV. Having an excellent template is a good start, and will allow you to tailor your CV to the specific job. In this way you can emphasise your relevant skills and place less importance on irrelevant skills.

Your CV is typically your first point of contact with any organisation. The average time spent viewing a CV is approximately 30 seconds, so this presents a very narrow window for you to sell yourself. In order to get your CV to the top of that pile you need to ensure every part of it is correct, accurate and specific for the position at hand.

The post The Importance of a Great CV appeared first on Career Consultants.

So basically, yours had better be to the point.

Cramming your life’s experience into 2 sheets of A4 paper can seem like an incredibly difficult task, and siphoning out the unnecessary from the important is even harder. In my own experience I had initially tried to cram everything I possibly could to persuade, nay, force a hiring manager to pick up the phone.

The truth is that in today’s market 30 seconds to view a CV is more than you’re likely to get. The reality is that you are probably dealing with someone who has a few dozen CV’s to get through and not a lot of time to do it. If yours is lucky enough to get 20 seconds you can consider yourself extremely competitive in an increasingly difficult marketplace.

This may seem daunting however it’s an opportunity for you to gain an edge over other competing candidates.

Knowing that you have only 20 seconds (probably a quick scan over your 2-3 most recent roles) allows you to be brutal in cutting unnecessary terms. Most CV’s contain some form of clutter or focus on insignificant details that don’t sell what you can bring to the company to a prospective employer. Keep it focussed on this job, not you in general.

Remember that a CV is not a summary of your life, just your career. Any details which are not relevant to selling your experiences to an employer should be examined carefully and you should consider whether or not they should be there at all.

Using the right keywords can allow your CV to be picked up during searches, and a well organised CV can be the difference in you making a shortlist, or being passed over.

The post CV- 30 Seconds to Impress (actually it’s closer to 20) appeared first on Career Consultants.