It is very difficult to write your resume, because it has to give a macroscopic vision of your life, but life is lived on a microscopic level, becoming obsessed with everyday details that do not find space in a resume. For this, many hire someone to help them. After all, investing in a CV writer is one of the few that will have immediate returns. But if you are writing the CV on your own, the first thing you need to do is fix the mental patterns. You have to rethink the objectives of a CV, and rethink the rules of a CV to approach the project as a professional. It means avoiding common CV mistakes, and not breaking a couple of fundamental rules.
Steps
Step 1. Don't focus on your responsibilities, focus on the results achieved
A CV is not the story of your life. Nobody cares. If your life story were that interesting, you would have published a book about it. The only things that should be included in the CV are the achievements. Anyone can do their job, but only a small percentage of the population can do their job well, wherever they go.
- The best way to show that you did your job well is through successes. The best success is a promotion, because it is an objective way of showing that you have satisfied your employers. The second best way to show objective measures is by presenting quantified milestones. Many people do not think in terms of quantity while they work, but on the CV, it is the only part of the job that matters. Nobody will see your "teamwork" skills on your CV unless you can write "I formed a team to solve problem x and sales increased by x%" or "I joined a team in difficulty and I helped the team to reach the objectives within 3 weeks”.
- Avoid expressions such as "included duties", "position of responsibility" or "responsible for". That's job description language, and not what employers are looking for. Instead, use action verbs, but minimize the use of "I" and articles (il, un …). Prepare a self-assessment, and for each goal achieved ask yourself: "What does this say about me, and what can I do for this employer?"
Step 2. Don't treat your CV as a moral manifesto; it is a sales document
The best sales documents show the product in the best light, which means using the most cheeky tactics available to make you look your best. As long as you're not lying, it'll be fine. Here's an example: You join a software company that just launched a product, and the product has so many problems that they force them to hire someone to answer calls. You start technical assistance, and work a lot of overtime due to back calls. You bring calls back on even and then you start taking long breaks because there isn't much to do, and then you go back to looking for work because this job is so boring. Here is how you summarize this CV job: Managerial Responsibility for Technical Assistance and Diminishing call volume by 20%. How do you know it was 20%? Who can tell? Probably more. But you can't quantify exactly, so round down. But by just saying "technical support for a software company", no one knows if you did a good job.
Step 3. Stay on one page
The idea of a CV is to get someone to call you. Talk to you. Offer you an interview. Therefore a CV is like a first date. You only show the best of you and not even everything. Some fill their CVs with everything they can think of, but a CV is not the only opportunity you have to sell yourself. In fact, the interview is where the actual sale takes place. So include only your best hits on your CV. Sure, there will be more questions to answer, but it'll get them to call you. And that's a good thing, isn't it?
- For those who cannot eliminate those 20 excess lines from the CV, because they think that the employer should see everything immediately, consider that human resources have piles of CVs to read to understand who to offer an interview; each CV gets about ten seconds of attention. If you think you need a longer CV, give someone a page of your CV and have them read it for 10 seconds. Ask him what he remembers; it won't be much. They will no longer remember information by giving them 2 pages to read; 10 seconds is 10 seconds.
- If you have a long career behind you, beware of seniority discrimination. Employers may see you as overqualified (and expensive). If you have worked a lot, list about 15 years of career (no more) and do not enter the graduation date if it is more than 10 years old.
Step 4. Delete the phrase “references available upon request”
It is implied. Of course, if anyone wants to check, you will give them references. Nobody thinks you won't. So by writing that you will provide references, it is as if you have not understood the rules of the game.
- Do not list references on your CV; if they are requested, list them on a separate sheet.
- Bonus Tip: If you have an excellent reference, such as from the president of a company, ask him to call before the interview. It will make you look even better with the employer.
Step 5. Don't overdo it with personal interests
Personal interests aren't there to make you look interesting. I'm there to get you an interview. Each line of your CV has that purpose. So include only personal interests that reveal a quality that meets the employer's needs. If you are looking for a job in sports / marketing, then absolutely include that you can canoe. If you were an Olympic athlete, you should say it, because it shows attention and success. If it's just a mediocre pastime, avoid mentioning it. Personal interests that don't highlight your success don't help you. And bizarre personal interests make you look strange, and you don't know if the employer likes strangeness, so avoid putting it on your CV.
Step 6. There are many specialized sites you can refer to, but don't be a designer if you aren't
If you have more than 3 fonts on your CV and you are not a designer, you have made a mistake. If the style were simple, no one would get paid to do it. Recognize your strengths and keep decorative elements to a minimum. And leave Photoshop out - just because you know how to smudge, doesn't mean you know how to use it well. Avoid too widespread structures (such as those of Microsoft Word) because they do not give you prominence, and indeed make you completely anonymous.
Advice
- Attach a short and concise cover letter / email to your CV.
- By only including the hits in your CV, it will be very hard to fill a whole page. No problem. Anything that doesn't represent a success on your CV is still a waste of space, because you can't know what will catch the employer's attention - and with 10 hits and 3 mediocre lines on your life story, it might read on those 3 lines. - so eliminate them.
- Model your CV based on the job you are applying for. The model-only CV should be avoided, unless you are casting a very broad net (rather than applying to a certain company or position).
- It is very difficult to identify successes from the inside; you may think that you have not achieved it, because your boss does not ask you for successes, he entrusts you with tasks and projects. But you have to figure out when you can't see them and ask for assistance. A professional, or even a friend, can help you see them more clearly.
- List your past jobs if they have ended, and use the present only to describe your current job.
- Print your CV on ivory-colored cotton fiber paper with watermark; it will give you a slight edge over all other CVs printed on plain paper.
-
List the elements in order of importance or relevance to the reader. Many write the dates first, and while important, they are not the most important part.
- Career: position, employer, city / state where the work was carried out, start and end dates.
- Education: diploma / degree obtained, complete with all the details: course, faculty, university, place, year of graduation, followed by additional information, such as the grade (omit it, if it is not high).
If the company you work for is unknown, or the company name is not obvious from the name, describe the professional sphere, the fields and perhaps the date of foundation; otherwise, an employer or HR manager will have to search for the company description, wasting time
- Do not add decorative outlines around the CV.
Warnings
- Employers will almost always use your personal information to search for you on Facebook and Twitter before considering your hiring. You may have very personal information that you don't want your future employer to read, so consider making your profile private, or cleaning it up to prevent it from undermining your job prospects.
- Get a professional email including only a combination of your names and / or your initials! Although it is okay to use [email protected] with your friends, using it on a CV implies a lack of awareness of what is suitable for a work context.
- List your most recent jobs first. Chronological order is a good idea only if you are looking to be hired to go back in time. Otherwise it seems that you are opposing the conventions of hiding something, and it probably is, but you have to be a little smarter.
- Do an automatic punctuation check on your CV. Then read it again for yourself. Then have someone else check it out. Typed CVs are often automatically thrown away. If you are not reliable even for such important details in your job search, what will become of your potential job skills?
