CV Writing Tips!
September 6th, 2021
CV Writing Tips
Having a well written CV is very important. This is your chance to make a good first impression and first impressions count! Structure and layout are very crucial to a well written CV. There are many ways to layout a CV but here are a few tips on what we would recommend as a starting point.
1) Name and contact details – It’s important to ensure your personal details are clearly added to the top of the CV to include full name, email address, mobile number and home address. You may wish to include your linked in URL profile. In addition, if you have a qualification, you may wish to pop this by your name right at the top! Be proud!
2) Personal statement or profile – This is a brief paragraph ‘about you’ professionally. You may wish to highlight what you are good at here or what you are looking for? Remember to tailor this paragraph depending on what you are applying for? Some people create more than one CV, depending on what role they are applying for; therefore, this section will also need to be either generic or tailored.
3) Key skills – Here add your key skills in a bullet point form highlighting your areas of strengths.
4) Employment – This section should include your work history, or work placements or maybe any relevant volunteer work? I would highly recommend adding your key achievements per job. They do not have to be ground-breaking but things that you are proud to have achieved.
5) Systems or IT skills - Pop these at the bottom of the CV. Remember to mention if you are an advancer user or a trainer on the system?
6) Education – This is very important and should include the dates you were in education, subjects and grades achieved. If you have a professional qualification, it is helpful to state where you are with your studies or maybe when your next exam is booked for, or what year you qualified?
7) Hobbies and interests – Highly recommended as this is a talking point and is your chance to tell a future employer a little bit more about you!
8) References – It's standard to write “references available on request” but there is nothing wrong adding details of the referee (check with them first).
9) Non- essential but useful information for example language skills and to what level? Eg. If you have a full driver’s license.
Other points and considerations:
- Finally, don’t forget if you have had a few temporary jobs or a long career history it is a good idea to add this information in the form of a sentence (as a “one liner”) rather than a whole paragraph explaining where you worked, the role and dates employed – as this can make your CV very long!
- Remember to be truthful on your CV
- Explain any gaps. Do not leave people wondering.
- Include any relevant training course attended – add this at the bottom on your CV
- Try to keep your CV to 2 pages max 3. Change the Font size to help with this and aerial is a good option for the text.
- Work backwards from your most recent job first
- My recommendation would be every few years to look at your CV. Critic it yourself, or ask an agency for their opinion
- Keep it to the point, tidy and up to date and most of all relevant to the role you are looking for at that time!
Vardey Recruitment offers a CV revamp and career support service to Accountancy and Finance professionals.
We would love to hear from you!
Contact Clare at clare@vardeyrecruitment.com or call 07816 873747
by Clare
September 2021
Picture credit to everydayplus Istock.