Your CV is like your Passport
In a world where you can easily be judged on a piece of paper, your CV is something that you need to get right.
It can be your passport to a new job.
A good CV defines who you are, what you do and why you do it.
Although I’m the first to admit that I don’t like people being only defined by their CV, it is often the first touch point for prospective employers and more often than not, can be the deciding factor for an interview.
Therefore, let’s break a CV down to a simple formula.
Top of the Page
Make sure you have your name at the top of the page along with your occupation. You don’t need to include a photo but if this is something you feel is important you can. I personally feel that a lot of focus can be placed on photos, and quick judgements can be made unnecessarily.
Contact Details
I’ve seen lots of interesting details on CVs. Having a date of birth, weight, height, whether you are married etc doesn’t need to go on your CV.
What is needed though is your mobile phone number and private email address so that you can be contacted. Your home address isn’t necessary.
Now we’ve covered the easy part, let’s talk about the main event – who you are and what you’ve done.
Introduction/Summary
This needs to be a punchy summary about you, in a neat tidy package.
It should include succinctly who you are, what you do, when you’ve done it and what you want to achieve, in about three sentences. To help I’ve given an example below.
I’m a Structural Engineer who has senior level design and project management experience working on projects in the commercial consultancy market. Over the last five years, I have managed x number of projects working alongside clients and managing project teams of up to x people. I am now looking to take my design, project and people management skills toward a management level position where I can help shape and define effective project teams for the future.
Key Skills
Bullet point your key skills/areas of experience/expertise. Best to not be too generic here and define what you bring to the table.
Commercial project management skills – 5 years
Technical design experience within the commercial sector
Client relationship management – 5 years
Cross discipline passive fire experience
Etc...
Experience
This section doesn’t need to include every single job you’ve had since graduating. Stick to what you have done within the last ten years.
If there are gaps, put that detail in as well. You will be asked this if it isn’t included. Taking time away to travel or look after family members etc is common so don’t worry about being judged. It’s just best to be up front.
A good way to lay out your experience is to start with your most recent job and work backwards, adding your key responsibilities underneath each role.
October 2018 – present
(job title)
(insert company), (insert location)
Key Responsibilities
Underneath each job, describe what you were responsible for in this role. You need to be clear about what your role was and what you did.
Key Achievements
Also, include what specific outcomes occurred whilst you were in the role. For example, any key projects where you were involved in key achievements or learnings and the positive outcomes that may have occurred. Also, include any awards or commendations for the work you or your team received.
If you have had multiple roles in one company, make sure you list those as well.
Education
List your education from the most recent and work backwards. education institutes need to be listed – the years you were there and what your degrees or certificates achieved were.
Certifications
You may have gained additional certificates, for example, Site Safe, leadership or project management certifications etc. These are helpful to provide any context around any additional experience. Also don’t forget to include any institute memberships.
Hobbies and Languages
Understanding what interests you have outside of work helps to form a picture of the type of person you are and can often be a good way of engaging with others when you first meet with each other.
Also, prospective employers like to learn a bit more about you, and any languages you may converse with, form part of this picture. Also, as NZ is a multi-cultural country, it is often helpful to converse in another language in your job.
Referees
These aren’t necessary to include on your CV as they can easily be supplied when/if you get to the interview stage. If referees are listed here, they can be contacted before you are contacted yourself or they have had a chance to be advised.
Although this can be helpful it can also remove the opportunity for you to engage with any prospective employer first.
The best thing to put here is “references will be supplied upon request”.
Finally
Once you have typed up your CV, spend some time reading through it. Reading it out loud helps as you want to understand how it sounds and how it may come across to someone who hasn’t met you.
If you are still unsure, have a friend or family member read through it. They may pick up on things you haven’t spotted as often we can’t see things when we have been too focused on one thing.
Also, I cannot stress enough the art of the Spell Check!! I’m often picking up on spelling mistakes when I receive CV’s and it's important that these are corrected.
One last thing to add is to make sure your CV is visually interesting to read. This doesn’t mean using lots of colour and clip art (please don’t use clip art). Keep it clear and simple using headings, bullet points and white space around the page. You want to make it visually easy to read so that all the hard work you have put into your CV doesn’t get lost on the page.
About Simone Storey
Simone is an experienced Recruitment Consultant who specialises in recruiting intermediate through to management-level consultancy engineers, particularly in the structural, and civil sectors. These particular sectors provide unique recruitment challenges, something with which she is very familiar.
Her background also brings a results-oriented and people-focused perspective, along with a solid understanding of the needs of both employer and employee. Simone has a focus on building these relationships to add value for both candidate and employer alike, for her recruitment is not merely a transaction.