As you move along in your career it’s easy to forget about accomplishments that may attract potential employers. Also as you progress you will have a better idea of what employers are looking for, making it easier for you to tweak you CV to suit the open position. Make sure you keep up to date with what employers are looking for as well, and think of ways to translate your achievements and experiences into something that will stand out for the potential employer.

When going through your CV make sure to take out the fluff, a good way to determine if it’s fluff is to think about if it’s actual making an impact being written in there. If the answer to that is no you should think about removing it to make room for things that will make an impact. You should also consider that your original CV was based heavily on qualifications, while now that you are farther along in your career you now have more experiences and skills, these will make more of an impact when a potential employer sees these.

If you are quite far into your career path and you are having a hard time thinking back on everything you might have accomplished you may want to try and get in touch with some of your old employers to see if they can help you out. This may also be a good method of finding opportunities that you might otherwise not known about.

Getting yourself on the radar

Even if your not currently looking for a job you may want to go ahead and post your resume on some of the online job boards. Another good reason to do this is because often times thing happen suddenly if not unexpectedly, so it’s better to be prepared and ahead of the game.

When posting it on the job boards you may want to check and see if they provide the option for you to block certain employers from seeing your CV. Another bonus to updating your CV every time you have a major accomplishment, is that it often gets shuffled back to the top of the pile meaning that potential employers will easily be able to find it.

You never know when it will hit the desk of the hire manager at just the right time, this may even lead to you landing your dream job if you are lucky enough.

Unfortunately it’s very easy to make mistakes on your CV and is almost impossible to repair the damage done after an employer gets hold of it. This means that you must put in the extra effort avoid this from ever happening in the first place. Here is a list of the most common problems, and some tips to avoid them.

Grammar and Spelling: This is important even if the role doesn’t require you to write anything, this is because poor writing skills will show that you don’t care, and no employer wants that on there team. To prevent this from happening you should type your resume in a computer program that has spell check, but you must also proof read it after you are done. It’s best if you read it aloud this will help you to find the errors easier. If you can you should also find someone that can read over it, to spot any errors that you may have overlooked.

Lot’s of fluff: If your resume has a lot written on it, but is only making a few key points you should try to narrow it down a bit. The employer isn’t looking to read a story about your life or work history, they are just looking to find a few key elements that make you stand out from everyone else.

Tailoring: You shouldn’t use one general CV for every job out there, that’s because this is the CV almost every employer will ignore. Instead you should special tailor your CV and cover letter for the specific position that you are applying for. This will show the employer that you understand what the position is and a little about what it entails.

Highlight your achievements: Instead of just copying and pasting the responsibilities section from your last job description, try to think about what you actually did for the last company you worked for. Think of some of the things that you might have implemented to save money, time, or any other successful campaign that you might have lead while you were there.

Two-page CV rule: Your CV shouldn’t be any longer then two pages, remember that employers are busy people and may not have much time to look over resumes. Try to make yours short and to the point, you will want to just highlight specifics that will help to make your CV standout from everyone else’s. If you make your CV to long, if might get sent straight to the circular file instead of getting looked at.

Leaving out information: Try not to leave out any information, some people may do this on purpose because of there past employment history, or you may just simply forgot to include some things. You should read through you CV to make sure that everything is included and there are no blanks. It will be better to include this information rather than leaving it blank as employers will always assume the worst if they see something empty.

Avoid clichés: Many people use them to try and describe how important they will be for a company. However it’s often better to just leave them out and let your skills and experience do the talking for you.

Avoid being vague: Once again leave the fluff out, get straight to the point, employers are busy people and don’t have the time to try and figure out what you are trying to hint at. Instead try writing something specific that focuses on their company and what they might need from you.

Design: Unless you are applying for a design position you would be best served by a plain style CV. This means using an easy to read text that is printed in an easy to read size. You shouldn’t use a bunch of different font styles or make the print so small that the employer will have a hard time reading it.

Personal Information: Make sure that all of your contact information is correct. You don’t want to spend your time creating a great CV and then include the wrong phone number or email address. Also you will want to make sure that you include a professional looking email address on you CV, rather than one that looks more like a joke.

Let’s take a quick look at what your CV is designed to do. It’s designed to do pretty one thing and one thing only; get you a job interview. The problem is that most recruiters only spend about 30 seconds glancing over your CV, which means that you need to make it stand out and grab their attention quickly in order to sell yourself.

Without any farther ado here are five tips to make your CV stand out from the crowd:

1. Personal Statement

It’s important that you add a personal statement about yourself, to simplify this think about it as a news headline or the opening of a movie. It has to grab the attention of whoever is looking at it, in this case the recruiter. You will want to have something written up there that will grab their attention and make them want to read on and find out more about you. However a word of advice you will want to avoid writing something cliché on there that they have likely seen many times over, instead come up with something original about yourself.
It may farther help you if you think of it as an advertisement about yourself, as with advertising agencies that pay large sums of money to create headlines that will grab peoples attention. This is what you should be going after when creating your “headline”. Use language that will outline and explain what benefit’s the employer will be able to look forward to if they hire you.

2. Layout of your CV

First of all you will want to limit your CV to a maximum of two pages. On the first one you will want to focus on your strengths and demonstrate what you will be able to offer to the company as this is the most important page being that employers will see this one first. If you choose to your CV two pages the second one should focus on your career history and your personal details. Most of the time you will be advised to structure your CV the other way around, however it’s important that you let the employer know what you offer right away so they know if you offer what they are looking for.

3. Skills

If you are posting your CV online, it’s important for you to know that many are being placed directly into a keyword searchable databases and there are three key skill types:

• Transferable: these are skill learned in one field that can easily be taken into a different field easily.
• Job-related: these are skills that are directly relevant to a specific job.
• Adaptive: these are skills that are often difficult to substantiate because they cannot be proven by experience rather they have to be proven by personality traits.

You should definitely include the transferable and job-related skills in your CV as these are the most desirable skills any employer will be looking for. You will want to include that ones that will make you stand out the most, here are a few of the most popular skills: communication, teamwork, initiative, problem solving, flexibility, computer skills, and technical skills. Keep in mind that it’s best to keep your list short and sweet, you may even want to specially tailor your list depending on what position you are applying for, having a CV that is targeted will be much more effective than a lengthy one.

4. Employment history

This is the section that employers will spend the most time looking at, so you will want to structure this to quickly convince them that you are right for the position. There are different formats that can be used to communicate your employment history to the employer, and depending on what stage of your career you are in will determine which type you will use.

Chronological: You will want to use this style if you are applying for a position that is similar to the one that you already have and can show a track record of gradually advancing your career, this CV is ideal.

Functional CV: This format is recommended for those who have been out of the workforce for a prolonged period of time or those seeking to change careers because it focuses on the experience and skills you have that are relevant to the job you are applying for instead of employment dates. Replace the traditional ‘Company,’ ‘Job Title’ and ‘Date’ headings with the ‘NAME’ of the most important skills and experience that you have developed through paid employment, voluntary work of general life experience.

Combination CV: Although redundancy and job hopping have become more commonplace today, but having several employment dates will still signal red flags for potential employers and may harm your chance of securing the job that you want. Counter this by ‘dividing and combining’ your employment history. To setup this style of CV:

Split your Employment History into two sections: ‘Relevant Work History’ and ‘Other Employment.’

In the first section, you will want to list the positions that you have held which demonstrate your ability to do the job you are applying for, do this in chronological order. Also include a brief paragraph that enables you to quantify what you have done. For example, “Significantly increased revenues and grew client base by 35%”.

Then you can include the ‘Other Employment’ section underneath where you may list the details of your other previous employers.

5. Education

Depending on your situation while dictate where you place your education section, if it will enhance your CV you will want to place it closer to the top. If you have recently graduated, obtained excellent academic results or even if your still studying towards your professional qualification, you may want to position this right under your personal statement.
However if you are already out in the workforce you will want to include your employment history over top of this section. This will give you the chance to highlight your career achievements and experience.