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Having your skills and knowledge formatted down correctly on your CV is vital in ensuring you secure an interview for the job role you’re applying for. Your CV is your first impression to employers, so you need to make it count.
Five common misconceptions
There are some common misconceptions when it comes to the content and formatting of CVs, the five most prevalent blunders are listed below:
The longer the CV the better
This is not true, in fact, the majority of CVs are too long. The average person has 12 jobs in their career. If you begin employment at the age of 21 and retire at the current state pension age of 66, that means by the time you are 40 you will have around 5-6 jobs worth of experience to write about. This can quite quickly add up to a lot of writing, and a lot of pages. It’s a common misconception that having more pages looks good to employers because it shows how much experience you have; employers expect to see your experience (no matter how much or how little) in a concise format on 2 pages at most. If the type of job you are going for requires further information, employers will request it, and you can bring along any additional information you may need in a portfolio.
A fancy font/layout will impress employers
It’s another misconception that having a different font or an obscure layout will impress employers. This will have the direct opposite effect on employers in most cases. Fonts should be clear and as easy to read as possible. Some fonts employers like to see include Arial or Calibri. Fonts should be sized at around 11 or 12 for normal text, and 14 or 16 for headings. The text should never be bold or in italics, as this will make the text less reader friendly. The only time you should use bold is for headings such as Personal Statement, Qualifications, Experience. And if you are going to put one heading in bold, make sure the others are in bold too for consistency.
“Can work well independently or as part of a team”
This exact sentence is stated in more CVs than it’s worth thinking about. It’s not that it isn’t a good sentence with a solid statement, it’s just not very original or creative. Employers want your CV to stand out (in a good way) so re-wording phrases like this or highlighting these skills when describing your experience could be a better way forward.
List every qualification possible
If you have a never-ending list of qualifications, then you need to trim them down. Half a page shouldn’t be filled by a list of grades you got in each subject in school. If this is your CV currently, perhaps take off your oldest qualification lists (like GSCEs) and put them down as one, with the range of grades. For example, 11 GCSEs grades A*-C. Or 4 A-levels grades B-C. If you’re currently working through a qualification, don’t be afraid to put that on there and put your grade as “pending”. This can be very encouraging for employers, as it shows you are carrying out independent study in your free time.
Which leads us on nicely to our final misconception…
They need to know I like walking my dog in my spare time
This is something that employers definitely don’t need to know. Hobbies and interests sections are widely debated, some people argue that employers like to see what you do in your spare time, while others prefer a strictly professional CV. To make it less of a debate, you can include hobbies and interests that link up nicely with applying for a job.
A hobby is essentially some kind of activity you do in your free time, so if you are studying a course (that is relevant to the job you are applying for), you can categorise this as a hobby. This shows to the employer that you are using your free time productively. Getting involved with fundraising events for charities can also be good to have on your CV, as it demonstrates interpersonal skills, good values and philanthropy. If you are interested in international travel and the job requires a lot of travelling, you can note this as an interest. Can’t think of anything that can link quite obviously to the job? Then it would be worth considering leaving the hobbies and interests section out of your CV completely.
Three top tips to improve the contents of your CV
Now that we’ve addressed some common mistakes, here are three top tips for writing a great CV:
Research roles and tailor your CV to suit a particular role
You need to keep your CV in line with the job that you are applying for. This might mean that you need to chop and change your personal statement and highlight different skills within your experience to reflect industry relevant skills. If you’re applying for lots of very different jobs, this can be a bit more time consuming, but the likelihood of securing an interview will significantly improve. It would also be beneficial to try and narrow your job applications down to certain areas and industries so you can focus your attention. It’ll come across much better on your CV when you do this.
Make your personal information look professional
At the very top of your CV you need to provide your name, phone number and email address. It’s beneficial to include your LinkedIn profile, this gives employers further opportunity to look into your key skills and achievements. You can add your address, but this isn’t a requirement. Employers will usually contact you via phone, email or LinkedIn. As this is key contact information, make sure your email address is professional. For example, john.smith@email.com is much more professional looking than jsmithy2k5@email.com. If your email address does give some resemblance to the latter, I would recommend that you create a new one. Immediately!
Write in a way to highlight your impact
When writing about experience, you need to get across the positive impact you had on the business you worked for. You could explain how your work increased sales by 30% for the quarter, or reduced outgoings by 20% for example. Whatever roles you have had, understand the impact on the business and work out the measurable success you have had. Employers like to see this and will ask you to elaborate on your skills and how this resulted in your achievements in the interview. There will be several skills that you could mention, but always make sure you are discussing the skills that can be transferred to the role you are applying for.