Studies have shown that average recruiters spend just seven seconds looking at a CV before deciding whether a candidate is suitable for the role. First impressions are therefore critical to success and yet too many CVs are poorly written and ineffective at conveying your skills, experience, and personality
So here are seven simple but effective ways to help make your CV stand out from the crowd.
1) Use bullet points
Ensure to use bullet points on your CV that way, your work will appear neater and easy to read. You can use bullet points while highlighting your accomplishments, and skills in many other areas.
2) Cover Letters
Include a cover letter that should be specific to your application. In this letter, you can mention why you want to work for this company specifically or why you’re the best person for the available job.
3) Keep it short and simple
Recruiters hate lengthy CVs. If required, include additional pages but make sure it’s not too long by ensuring they don’t contain irrelevant information such as personal facts about yourself or hobbies. Your cv should not be more than two pages maximum.
4) Check spelling and grammar errors
Ensure you’re extremely careful in avoiding typos and errors because typos are unprofessional and make it seem like you lack attention to detail, which isn’t a good quality for a candidate. Check your CV for basic spelling mistakes as well as grammar mistakes.
5) Clear objective
Ensure to appear clear about your objectives. Try to communicate what you’ve done in the past and the kind of job you’re looking for. List your skill set in order of importance along with details on where you have used them and how many results you were able to impact with your skills.
6) Appear professional
Ensure to use a professional email, that way you can appear professional. If you don’t have an email address that sounds professional, consider using Gmail or Hotmail instead of something like yahoo or AOL.
7) Contact details
Lastly and most importantly, ensure your contact details are easy to find. Imagine after making the cut but it can’t be reached because your contact details are nowhere to be found, that would be tragic. So always ensure to place your contact details in the most visible areas of your CV.