What to include on your CV to land an interview!
Whenever you’re applying for a new job, or switching careers, job seekers are always faced with the same question – what to include in my CV?
People with extensive or little working experience can struggle with this question. Persons who have gained much experience aren’t sure how to filter and organise all their years of working within one or two pages.
Conversely, people who are at the beginning of their careers typically, find it challenging to put together a proper CV. Primary concerns include, “What do employers want to see”, “What information is relevant”, “How do I structure the information to fit the page”
Other modern concerns about crafting a CV include, “Should I download an online template”, “How do I write a professional summary” or “What skills should I include”?
What is a CV?
Before putting a CV together, it is important to have a proper understanding of what this document is and its relationship with your career. Your CV is a summary of your skills, education, experience and overall marketability. It summarises your academic background, degrees, awards, achievements, work experience and credibility, through your references.
There are two critical things you must understand with your CV. Firstly a CV is a professional snapshot of you at the present moment. Employers use this snapshot to build a profile of you which determines if you’re the right candidate for the job.
Secondly, the main goal of a CV is to get recruiters to notice you. Many people assume that the purpose of their CV is to get them a job. Your CV does not get you the job. There’s more to the interviewing process than just submitting a CV. The main goal of this document is to get recruiters to notice you and secure a first interview with them.
How to write a CV?
Your CV needs to be a concise, yet detailed document. It should include just the right amount of relevant information, yet be easy to navigate and understand.
When writing your CV, for easy navigation, use headings to structure your information. This helps the recruiter to understand your information in an organised way. It also helps your marketability. If your CV is easy to read and interpret, your chances of getting an interview are greater.
With modern technologies altering the recruitment process, you should craft this document using specific keywords. When applicant tracking software scans the document, it searches for specific keywords to identify whether a candidate is qualified for the position.
To qualify your CV within the tracking system, search your job description for keywords to include. For example, if the job description mentions skills such as “selling”, “leadership”, “project management” or “social media marketing”, these words should also be reflected in your CV. In this way, not only would you be deemed as a qualified candidate, but to the recruiter, your CV would appear as the perfect matched answer to the job description.
Another important detail to include, is writing your CV only in Standard English, if applying for a job within an English-speaking Caribbean territory.
Writing a professional summary
Your professional summary is the opening of your CV document and should consist of three to four sentences. Within these sentences, highlight your skills and competencies, which aligns with the job description. Focus on your skills and capabilities that allows you to do the job well. The purpose of this section is for the recruiter reading it, he or she will believe this job position was meant for you.
Work experience
If you have extensive work experience, you don’t need to list every job you’ve previously held. Ideally, you should focus on the positions you’ve held within the last ten years. Your work experience should reflect your skills and tangible or measurable benefits you brought your previous employers.
These include increasing revenue, decreasing operating costs, securing lucrative client accounts, boosting brand reputation, leading projects, coordinating events or improving workplace culture. Minor responsibilities such as photocopying and taking phone calls should be omitted.
Education
Under your education heading, include the school attended and the qualification received – e.g., Associates, Bachelors or Masters degrees. If you have a lengthy educational history or multiple tertiary-level certifications for example, you do not have to include A’ level or O’ level qualifications.
What is important under this heading is highlighting your applicable degrees, awards or certifications that would provide a sufficient knowledge base to perform this job well.
Skills
The crucial thing about skills presented on your CV, is they are essentially your selling points. The recruiter matches your skill set with the job description to determine if you’re the candidate they’re searching for. Keywords are therefore, also important to incorporate from the job description into the skills section. This gives your CV document marketing appeal to score an interview. Skills should be listed as bullet point on the first page of your CV.
Contact
Your contact section should simply include a working contact number, such as your cell phone number as well as your home landline number (if applicable). Candidates should also include a valid, professional sounding email address. Your email address should simply be your name or a slight variation of. Email addresses with crude humour, nicknames or coarse language should not be listed at all on your CV.
Additional Sections
A ‘References’ section lists persons who can provide a good recommendation. Note that these should not be family members. Instead, include individuals such as previous employers, community leaders, past teachers, former colleagues, previous clients or anyone in good social standing that knows your well enough to vouch for your professional merit.
Tips on writing a CV
Further considerations to writing your CV include:
- Keep personal information limited to your name and contact details.
- Use a simple and clean template. It can be tempting to download a fancy, creative template off the internet. A little creativity is fine but keep the graphics and visuals simple. If using colour palettes, utilise corporate colours such as navy blues, charcoal greys and black.
- Watch your font. Nothing distracting or hard to read should be used, Stick to Calibri or Arial, sizes 11 or 12.
- Have your CV proofread for grammar and spelling by a third party.
- If you require more assistance, you can enlist the services of a professional CV writer to give your professional snapshot that polished and marketable appeal.
