almost 4 years ago
There has never been a better time to look at your CV than now, a lot of you may have extra time on your hands. In between doing all the jobs around the home that you may have been putting off for a while- cleaning out cupboards, sorting out wardrobes, gardening (if you’re lucky to have one) experimenting with new recipes, virtual workouts, etc. How about taking a good look at your CV. Does it really showcase your skills and experience in the most positive way?
With a large portion of our industry who have already been furloughed or made redundant now is a good time to rethink and update your CV for when things change for the better and companies recruit again. You need to ensure that your cv does your career justice and highlights your key achievements and stands out so that potential employers will notice you, and from reading your cv think why they would want to hire you.
As an agency we see several hundred CV’s a week and post Covid 19 competition will be even greater.
Here are our 10 top tips to help you stand out from the crowd.
1. Keep your CV simple and ideally, max 2 pages, use a good clear font that is easy to read, and ensure you use the same font throughout.
2. Do put dates on when you worked for companies and explain any large time gaps ie if you went travelling, were off on maternity/ paternity leave, relocated, took time off for personal reasons. Most employers do question long gaps in candidates career history.
3. Avoid formatting your CV with text boxes, tables, columns, pictures, graphics, and fancy bullet points, often when applying for a job your cv parses through an ATS application this ( is an automated software system )and not all areas of your cv will be picked up, it could also lead to your cv being rejected from certain applications as it cannot read it properly.
4. Ensure you put what product areas you have covered during your career and if you have a specialise area make it clear where your strength s lie. If you work on the supplier side do include the names of retailers you deal with and where production was.
5. Quantify your achievements and success -sell don’t tell – this is your time to showcase key achievements demonstrate what impact you can bring to the company that you are applying to.
6. If you want to include an introduction on your cv, a summary about yourself then we would recommend you talk about yourself in a powerful and confident manner highlighting your skills and your passion – this is where you can sell yourself and shine
7. You do not need to include your date of birth, marital status, how many children you have, place of birth and ethnic origin, In regards to education highlight if your grades if they were good, if you didn’t get good grades but have worked for several years and had a career then don’t worry about putting your grades on your cv just list them. If you are open to relocating say you are and where too, also make it clear if you speak any languages fluently, I would highlight these facts on page 1 not at the bottom of page 2 which so many people often do, these are points of difference that can make you stand out from other applicants
8. When applying for any Design roles please ensure you include your most current and relevant design work from your portfolio, this will demonstrate you understand current catwalk, fabric, and colour trends. Obviously, under the current situation with Co-Vid you can access this information from many of the trend online websites such as WGSN and Trend reports.
9. Latterly what tends to be at the end of CV’s are interests and hobbies. Be prepared to talk about these in an interview, as often employers will pick up on this, be realistic and don’t over exaggerate here Make your interests meaningful for example running the marathon, volunteering, in the current climate many of us will have done something to help in any way we can so this would be worthwhile putting on your CV.
10. When putting together your CV this is the order that we believe is most effective
- Personal details – Name, Mobile, Email Location (full address is optional )
- Personal Profile – 1 paragraph -keep it relevant and to the point
- Key skills and achievements
- Career History – Start with most recent employer working backward – include Name of Employer, dates Months and years and your position
- Education and training
- Professional memberships
- Interests (only if worth shouting about) not cooking and socialising with friends!
- Referees
We hope these tips have been helpful and if you would like some additional help or advice please email info@trprecruitment or call.