How To Write A CV That Will Get You A Job

We deal with huge volumes of CVs on a daily basis as we try to help people find jobs, so we’ve seen more than our fair share of good CVs as well as bad ones. As part of our offerings to candidates, we help you to create a CV that will stand out. To give you a little kick start on the road to your next career, here are a few tips to help you write a CV that will get you a job that you love.

Include Your Personal Contact Details

It sounds simple, but we actually receive CVs without contact details. No matter how good your CV is, you’ll never get a call back if you don’t leave a phone number! Be sure to include at least your phone number (with the international dialling code) and an email address so that you are contactable in multiple ways. In addition to this, be sure to add your personal details because what might be obvious to you is not obvious to someone who is looking at your CV for the first time. This includes your full name, where you are currently living (general area is fine), your nationality, and the languages you speak. Yes, if you are from Sweden you probably speak Swedish, but then again maybe you moved there six months ago and got the passport based upon your heritage. Make everything clear and easy so that whoever is reading your CV can understand it easily and pull out the information they need without searching.

Keep It Short, Simple, and Relevant

There is nothing worse than opening a CV to find ten pages of random dribble, detailing all minor duties in your part time job when you were sixteen and the fact that you once represented your school in a spelling competition when you were six years old. We deal with a lot of CVs every day and we only have a limited amount of time to find what we are looking for, so present the information as clearly and concisely as possible. When we look at CVs, we are looking for key skills and experiences to be highlighted, not long, drawn out sentences that fill space on a page. Similarly, if you are applying for a certain role, try to keep everything relevant to the position you are applying for – highlight the experiences that make you a strong candidate for the position you are applying for rather than listing everything you have ever done in your life.

Be Specific And Use Keywords

Reading generic, mundane statements on a CV makes you as memorable as that distant relative you never met who sends you the same Christmas card every year. If you say that you like to travel, it’s akin to saying ‘I am a human being’ – specify that time you lived in a tree for a month, wrestling Komodo dragons each day, whilst eating nothing but snakes that you caught with your bare hands (see the next point before adding this to your CV). If you have specific skills (languages, SEO knowledge, experience coding in certain computer languages, management experience, etc) include it on your CV. We have a huge database of CVs and when we are looking for candidates we will use keyword searches to find the relevant people. If you don’t include the skills you have on your CV, we won’t be able to find you when we are looking for you.

Be Truthful And Don’t Leave Gaps

A CV is your platform for showing what you have been doing in your professional life. Highlight the positive points, but be truthful about them, otherwise you will get found out. And try to make a full timeline of what you have been doing – if you took six months off work to travel, you can include that in your CV so that we know what you were doing between jobs. Everything will ‘come out’ in the end so make sure that your CV demonstrates (honestly) what you have been doing with yourself.

Now We Can Help You Find Your Next Job

If you follow all of these steps, you will now have a concise CV that highlights your assets and is easy to find in a database when we have suitable positions available for you. If you send a copy of your newly updated CV to jobs@spotonconnections.com or register here, we will take a look at your CV and try to help you take the next step in your career. We look forward to hearing from you and looking over you shiny new CV.

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