Career Doctor Articles

With the kind permission of the Career Doctor, jfo is able to bring you a series of articles to help you in your work situation and longer term career management

Crafting the perfect CV

Well of course we all know that the perfect CV does not exist, and it is absolutely certain that if ten people all saw the same CV, some would like it and some would think it was useless. So what is the secret of writing a CV that has a better than average chance of doing its job?

Styles of CV have changed over the years, that is for certain. As a former Human Resources Manager I have seen countless CVs and they all tended to be poorly typed and laid out, and followed a similar format - personal details, education, and outline of career. Boring. No imagination.

Nowadays, with the advent of the wordprocessor, there is no excuse for producing a CV that is sub-standard. Yet although I receive new CVs every day of the week, I would estimate that only 1% of them are up to the mark, 99% have missed the point. More about that later.

For the past 13 years I have managed my own career consultancy and over that time I have written many, many CVs for just about every type of person imaginable. Nurses, teachers, secretaries, engineers, police, lawyers, engineers, managers, accountants, HR and IT specialists, senior executives, ex-pats and all ranks of the armed services. And some very unusual ones, such as defrocked clergy, unelected MPs, a Royal bodyguard, a spy-catcher and an airforce “top-gun” instructor.

So, drawing on this vast experience of producing professional CVs, it seems to me that if certain principles are followed, and certain pitfalls avoided, then the resulting CV will stand a better chance of being successful.

THE APPEARANCE OF A CV

Whilst there is no single right way to craft a CV, there are certainly many wrong ways of writing one. But where to begin? There are so many things that people do wrong with their CVs, that I sometimes wonder why they persist in sending out a poor quality CV and then get upset when it fails to generate an invitation to an interview.

The appearance of a CV is a fundamental issue. For example, do not include a photograph of yourself on the CV unless your physical appearance is an essential factor in the work you are seeking. So if you want to be a receptionist, actor / actress or model, then a photograph would help. But certainly not if you are applying for any other sort of job.

I’ve had CVs with photos that were taken 10 years ago, and the applicant doesn’t look anything like the photo. What a con! A worse start to an interview I have yet to imagine.

The most widely held belief is that only a two-page CV is correct. Nonsense. For a 19-year-old person with just one or two jobs, a single page CV would be preferable to two padded-out pages. At the other end of the spectrum, a 50-year-old senior manager with wide ranging experience would be doing him / herself a major injustice if that experience was crammed into two pages. Three pages would be right, but certainly four would be too many. The longest CV I have ever received was 15 pages long, and I have seen many others at six pages and more.

The next thing is printing your CV onto coloured paper. This is fine if you are applying for a creative job, such as graphic designer, but quite un-necessary and indeed off-putting if you are applying for any other sort of job. Using marbled or fancy toned paper looks like you are dressing up the facts and saying to the reader, “never mind the content, look at the packaging”. So best stick to white paper, and choose 100 gsm rather than flimsy 80 gsm copier paper.

Finally put some thought as to the typeface (font) you will use. In general a typeface with a serif (such as Times) is more readable than a sans-serif font (such as Arial). Much research has been put into this, but to prove it for yourself, pick a few books at random and see what font they are set in. I will wager that 99% are set in a font with a serif. Of course some readers will think that Arial is more trendy, but they miss the point about readability.

THE POINT OF A CV

The most common failure of CVs is that they miss the point of what a CV is all about. If you are serious about writing a good CV, the next piece of good advice I would give is to delete your old CV from your computer and then pick up a pen and a piece of paper, to completely re-write your CV - that is unless you are in the 1% category of people who do have a well-written, self-produced CV.

The point of a CV is that it should be immediately clear to the reader what skills and experience you are trying to sell, and what you want. For example if you are a teacher who wants to escape from teaching, then emphasising your teaching experience is an own-goal. Equally if you are in IT you will know that this job market has collapsed and that you will need to widen your job target area. So telling the reader of your CV about all the IT projects you have worked on, and the computer languages you know, will be a sure way of not getting invitations to interview

THE WORDING OF A CV

In general I have found that most people do not know what experience they are trying to sell, and they have no real idea how to go about this task. So I spend much of my time with new clients filtering out information which is un-necessary or distracting, then trying to coax out of them their real selling points, which they have often overlooked.

A good CV should tell the writer’s story quickly and crisply. Increase information and decrease waffle. Decide what you think is important, then write that up in well-constructed English. Use your spell-checker to ensure there are no spelling mistakes.

The key to writing the copy of a good CV is time. Invest plenty of time in writing what will be your message to the reader. Think about every word, every sentence, and apply the “so what” rule. Read each sentence and then ask yourself “so what?” For if the answer is negative, then restructure or delete that sentence.

For example, lathering on about the “O” levels you got and the name and address of the school you attended years ago is both pointless and off-putting. So what if you got a few “O” levels ten years ago, or that you went to XXX school - its what work experience you have gained since then that will interest the reader of your CV.

Don’t mention your salary, or the reasons for leaving your previous jobs (so what). Providing the names and addresses of referees is space that could have been put to better use elsewhere and so fails the “so what” test.

Remember that what you are or were responsible for means nothing, its what you have done that will encourage the CV reader to select you for interview. You might have been responsible for raising revenue by 20%, but if in reality it only increased by 5%, then drawing attention to your failures will be an own goal

TESTING YOUR NEW CV

Having written a more compelling CV, then you need to test it. But not by applying for a job, as your new CV might be fatally flawed. Instead, ask a few friends to appraise your penmanship, and then see what comments you get back. If they all say the same thing, then perhaps you had better redraft it.

Over the years my own way of writing CVs has changed, primarily because I get the feedback of so many people. I learn from my clients and their friends’ comments. As a result the CVs that I write get much praise, and I could paper the walls of my office with the message “the best CV I have seen”, for that’s what my clients tell me, very frequently.

So, the feedback from friends is an essential test for your new CV. One thing is for certain, however, that when it comes to writing CVs, everyone thinks that they are an expert! Judging by the poor quality of most CVs that come my way, clearly 99% of people are not an expert!

Good luck!

The Career Doctor is Eric Hearn, Chartered MCIPD and Managing Director of Milverton Career Solutions Ltd, Ascot, Berkshire, UK.

Contact details:
Tel: 01344 624383
Email: milvertoncareers@btconnect.com
Website: www.careerdevelopment.co.uk