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CONTENTS OF YOUR CV
Your CV is your key marketing tool - It is vital that the information is correct and accurate. Failure to produce an error free CV will lead the employer to believe you have little or no attention to detail when it really matters. Remember that the CV is a professional document that should be well formatted and easy for a new reader to navigate around.
Top Tips:
Be professional: Steer clear of using sloppy language or elaborate font styles. These leave scope for the reader to form a negative opinion of you.
Be honest: Create a positive action based CV that clearly demonstrates your abilities and effectiveness. Do not lie about your experience. You will be asked to discuss this at length in the interview!
Summarised experience: CVs should generally be no longer than 2 pages. They serve as a talking point for you to elaborate on during the interview.
Use bullet points: These will help clearly separate out your main skills and achievements under each position. Make sure that each point starts with an action based word i.e. researched, analysed, led, designed, presented. Try not to use passive statements such as assisted, helped etc.
Use white space: Make sure the CV is easy to navigate around. Some recruiters have hundreds of CVs to screen and often spend less than 30 seconds reviewing your CV against their requirements. Avoid large blocks of texts. Use a format that generously lends itself to highlighting your skills and USPs.
Tailor each application: Make sure cover letters are specific to the role and company in which you are applying. Make a connection with them in the first paragraph - Who have you met? What do you know?
Do not lie: If academic grades are incorrect you may well find your offer is pulled after the reference process. HR do not look kindly upon these inaccuracies even when the grades show to be lower than your actual result!