Your CV, also known more formally as your curriculum vitae, may be all a prospective employer has to go on before they decide whether or not to call you in for that fateful interview. If your CV doesn’t stand out, chances are good that you are going to get bumped to a lower priority or excluded completely! How can you make sure that your CV tells your prospective employer what a good match you can be for their needs?
Look Up a Template
If you are not a CV professional, start by making sure that you have a template to work from. There are dozens of different templates out there, and while they basically convey the same information, they convey it in different ways. If you have worked with prestigious employers, you of course want to make sure that their names are prominently displayed on your CV. On the other hand, if you have many skills but fewer legitimate positions, consider listing your skills first.
Cool It Off
After you have written your CV, you are likely eager to get it out there. However, the thing that you need to remember is that it is by no means perfect yet. Put the CV away for a few days or even a week. After that, come back and look at it with fresh eyes. You’ll find that a rest period can go a long way towards getting you the kind of perspective you need. At the very least, it can help you pick out egregious errors that might otherwise have gone unnoticed!
Keep It Simple
There are people who feel that their CV should be decorative and attention-getting, but unless you are in a graphic design field, this is mistaken. Avoid the urge to use fancy fonts or images on your CV. This tends to make you look unprofessional in the extreme. If you are a graphic designer or someone who works with visual effects, you need to consider things like weight and symmetry, but even that is something that is more of an extra. All that should be on your CV is text.
Run It By Other People
Ideally, you will run your CV by people that you know in the field. However, even if you do not know anyone in the field that you are entering, you can still share your CV with people that you know and trust. Ask them how they feel about it, and whether they see any errors. Having a fresh set of eyes on your work is always beneficial.
This guest post was written by BCL Legal – Providers of recruitment services in the Legal field.