How to create a stand-out CV
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“It’s not what you achieve, it’s what you overcome. That’s what defines your career.”
A great CV gets you a foot in the door for a shot at the job that you want, at the organisation of your desire, and takes you up the achievement ladder in your career. You are the product and your CV is the brochure/website that hooks the prospective employer into wanting to know more and perhaps even buy. If you have a great CV, then you have options, and knowing you have options gives you a strong sense of freedom and being in control of your destiny. Even if you are currently in a great job, this could all be changed by forces outside of your control and trying to create a new CV at a time when you are desperate to change jobs is never going to yield the best result. Believe me, I've lived through this experience. I am currently recruiting very senior people in my team and having seen what must be hundreds of CVs already, I've compiled together with feedback from several recruiter friends, the key things to put into your CV that will make you stand out.
1. Talk about achievements not duties
This becomes more important as your move up the career ladder. Too many times, I'm recruiting for Senior Managers and the CVs I get is a literal dump of responsibilities the candidates have had in their jobs. The reality is, I don't care what your responsibilities were. I care about whether you can deliver on outcomes, whether you can think outside the box, and whether you can coordinate various stakeholders.
Think about it this way. What sounds more impressive? (1) Telling a potential employer that you were in charge of managing the budget for the team or (2) telling the potential employer that you managed to identify efficiencies and was able to deliver an extra 20% of output from the same budget?
Of course, (2) sounds far more impressive and will hook the reader's interest. Look at your own CV right now (if you've kept one up to date) and ask yourself whether you've just listed a whole bunch of responsibilities (i.e. your daily task list) or you've highlighted your achievements.
2. Include details but keep it brief
Another important point is to ensure there are sufficient details in your achievements, but not too much that it takes up a whole paragraph. The best way to do this according to Amazon's Head Recruiter is the use of numbers or data. This makes so much sense. Psychologists have long discovered that stories sound more real when they are supported by details. Compare the two achievements below and you can easily determine which one is better:
Version 1: I achieved efficiencies in the reporting process and improved customer satisfaction.
Version 2: I achieved an 18% efficiency improvement in the reporting process, which improved customer satisfaction by 7% as revealed in the quarterly surveys.
You can see that version 2 is much more robust and will give you a greater chance to hook the reader's interest to at least want to read on. Can you see how this is much better than just a list responsibilities.
3. Triple check spelling and grammar
My recruiter friends work for global recruiting firms Hudson and Morgan McKinley. This biggest turn-off to any recruiter and one that usually gets the CV thrown into the reject pile straight away is a CV that contains spelling or grammatical mistakes. Again, the more senior the role you are applying for, the higher the expectation that there should be absolutely zero spelling and grammatical mistakes.
Why is this important? Many reasons but predominantly:
99% of the time, a job will have lots of applicants. The first response of recruiters and potential employers isn't to find the best candidate for an interview but to eliminate as many of the applicants as possible. It's just human nature, that when faced with a mountain of CVs to trawl through, the first response is to eliminate the "noise", and spelling or grammatical mistakes puts you into that category.
Senior roles are accountable for outcomes. Getting the job you want is an outcome. Therefore spelling and grammatical mistakes tells the reader that you didn't put as much effort into your application because you allowed those mistakes to slip through. Don't get me wrong, even I make mistakes in reporting to the Board. But during the CV review process, the standards are extraordinarily higher than normal, because I want to find the best candidate and I'm trying to eliminate noise.
4. Do a Cover Letter
Do people still read Cover Letters? According to my own experience and my recruiter friends' honest opinions, the answer is a big fat NO! There's enough to read already without having to read a Cover Letter. So why do a Cover Letter? Think about it this way, if everyone else's CV comes with a Cover Letter and your CV didn't, you will automatically go into the reject pile or at least there will be a bias to put your CV there. This is game theory at its best.
Also, not doing a Cover Letter is considered rude. Even if it's not your intention to be rude, not having a Cover Letter creates the impression that you don't respect the process and can't be bothered to put your best foot forward. Should you choose to do a Cover Letter, keep it short. No more than 1 page single sided. I received a Cover Letter that was four pages in length with a CV that was eight pages. You can guess where that CV went.
5. Tailor your CV to the role
This seem so obvious but I'm always surprised by how seldom this happens. Let me illustrate by way of a recent example. In the role I've advertised, I made it clear that I'm looking for people with an insurance background and can demonstrate innovation in the achievement of outcomes (yes, don't judge the cliche). Yet, I received a wonderfully formatted CV that told me how structured the candidate was and how much experience they had in the Mining industry.
Now, you can apply for roles in industries that you don't have exposure to. But at least attempt to illustrate how the experience and exposure you have in one industry can be utilised in the industry you're applying for.
Another thing is to at least use the key words in the job ad in your CV. If the ad talks about people with strong Excel skills, then your CV should at least mention the word Excel and how well you can use it. Do yourself a favour and help the reader to decide to bring you in for an interview by using the key words they have specified.
6. Format your CV to stand-out
When I first started working, I was told to keep my CV simple. So my CV for the first few years of my career were probably just a series of dot points with some bold text here and there. It looked pretty much like all of my friend's CVs. But guess what, if you stick with the generic advise that's dolled out, you won't stand out. Don't forget, for every job, you are competing with potentially hundreds of other applicants. So help yourself to stand out by using different formats and colours.
Don't splash it with all the colours of the rainbow and fill it with images. But a little mixture of colours, images, shading, and text boxes that help the reader to see how your experiences line up with the job advertisement is going to put you at the top of the pile. Or at the very least, make the reader read on for just a few more seconds to be hooked.
7. Make use of social media
Finally, it's 2018 people. If you really want to stand out and give more information (your CV must not exceed four pages) then your CV should contain links to either your LinkedIn page or your own website. Don't give links to your Facebook page, and definitely not your Snapchat page. Unless you're applying for jobs in fashion, don't give links to your Instagram page.
On your LinkedIn page, make sure the details line up with your CV and for goodness sake, get a professional photo taken and upload it onto your page. DO NOT crop a photo you have from your college days with scruffy hair and people sticking their tongues out in the background.
So there you have it... seven steps to create a CV that stands out. Of course, if you already have a stand-out CV, then focus on your interview preparation. Because the process isn’t over until you’ve established a method of making yourself memorable and make your CV come to life.
Blog Photo by Bram Naus on Unsplash
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