CV Services Blog

A recent statistic I read stated that employers spend an average of 10-15 seconds on each Curriculum Vitae before making their decision over whether to take the application further. I’m not sure if it’s quite as bleak as that, but for the purposes of someone applying for a job, this is not a bad assumption to make. If you assume that your CV is going to be looked at for 10-15 seconds, you can start making plans to ensure it makes the most of this limited eye-time. In an ideal world, they’ll spend a lot longer staring at your delightful prose, but it really does no harm ensuring your CV is ideal however long they spend looking at it.

It’s important to realize that the Curriculum Vitae stage is not about giving them a good knowledge of who you are - it’s simply about being placed in their “yes” pile, rather than their “no” section. You’ll have plenty of time to prove how personable, friendly and enthusiastic you are at the interview stage. At this point you need to keep it brief, factual and promotional Here’s some advice and CV writing tips to give you the edge:

Keep your CV short, simple and to the point

The most important piece of CV advice I can give is this: keep it brief. If you’re working on having 10 seconds to be seen in, you can’t waste time with verbosity. Get to the point quickly and outline your achievements, past roles and skills clearly. Pass the first test of having the skills, and the rest may be (depending on how much time they devote to this stage) immaterial. The CV should be no more than two pages, and the really important stuff should be on the front page (to ensure even the really lazy HR staff can’t miss it!).

It goes without saying too, that your contact information should be clear, correct and up to date. It’s no good you making it into their ‘yes’ pile if they have no way of contacting you to take the application further.

Outline your key achievements early

At the very start you can make a useful summary of who you are to ensure you get your positives known from the very start. Your main achievements should be backed up with evidence to support them, and a short career history will give them a clue of the kind of experience you can provide. My advice: the CV should show your main selling points right away, so make it stand out at the top.

Tailor it to the job you want

A generic Curriculum Vitae is a great starting point - after all, your skills and experience will always be the same - but to really stand out, a good CV writing tip is to tailor each version for each job. Take a look at the advert and try to match your skills to the ones required. It really is simple, but your CV is not worth the paper it’s written on if you discuss skills relating to sales for an IT job, yet the skills may be transferable - you just have to prove it.

Avoid samey, empty descriptions of yourself

A favorite CV tip of mine is to not be scared of being unique. Think about it: if you want to stand out, you have to make yourself different than the others. Almost every applicant I’ve ever seen describes themselves as dynamic, creative or enthusiastic in their CV - it all becomes white noise. Stick to the facts, let your achievements do the talking and you should be given opportunity to prove all these personality traits exist at the interview.

Proofread, proofread and proofread again!

If there’s one thing you should take away from this it’s that HR people can be brutal, and it won’t take much for them to cross you off the list. The fact they’re looking to narrow down the candidates as much as possible, so make yourself hard to rule out. One obvious thing that will make your CV a prime candidate for removal from the pile is poor spelling and grammar. If they’re spotting mistakes from a 15 second assessment, then something is seriously wrong! My CV writing tip here is to spell check it, proof read it, and get someone else to take a look - just make sure you don’t seem careless come decision time.

Don’t be Cheap

Cutting corners on a job application is never a good idea, and although this shouldn’t make a difference, we’re all guilty of judging on appearance from time to time - so don’t give them the ammunition. Using cheap paper won’t impress your interviewer much; likewise a shoddy photocopy suggests you’re sending the CV to anyone with a postal address. Spend the little extra on some good quality paper to make sure the rest of your effort doesn’t go to waste.

When it comes to writing a Curriculum Vitae, you really should ensure that everything is perfect. I hope this advice on how to write a CV that stands out is helpful: Don’t cut corners, get to the point quickly and stand out as the star you undoubtedly are, and your applications to interview ratio should dramatically increase.