If you had only 15 seconds to sell yourself, what would you say? This is how long a busy recruiter or employer might give your CV. There is no time for personal mission statements and lofty ideals. A CV's job is to get you in front of the people that matter.
For Andrew Tallents, a consultant with Spencer Stuart's Manchester Office, the CV's core function is to help a recruiter size up a person as a candidate. “If you strip out what we're looking for, it's about the facts,” he explains. “Have you achieved the things that the client is interested in?”
While this may sound straightforward enough in principle, getting a résumé right can be difficult. Advice on writing the perfect résumé is plentiful but, unfortunately, there is no one right way to write a CV. Even within Spencer Stuart, consultants express varying preferences for different styles of CV. The following text, however, should offer some useful pointers.
Structured for success
The most familiar type of CV is written in reverse chronological order. Starting with the most recent role first, this type of CV implies that everything about your career has been leading up to this point. It is, therefore, ideally suited to careers that have shown a logical progression.
As career paths have become less linear, the functional CV has become popular. This organizes your career history by skills and experience headings such as “communication skills” or “change management”. It is useful for haphazard career histories or if you want to change sector, as Adam Kovach, consultant with Spencer Stuart in Stamford, notes. “This is a helpful way to present your qualifications if you're looking to change industries,” he says. “It helps a recruiter to see your skill set without making judgements based on the industries where you have experience.”
More recently, as employers become highly specific about the skills they want to hire, a new type of CV has emerged that combines chronological and functional elements.
Can you demonstrate a good fit?
Whichever format you choose, the first rule of the résumé is to keep it relevant. “Always tailor your CV for every job you apply for,” advises Tallents. This means re-working your CV where needed to improve the “fit” between your achievements and what's being asked for.
This fit should be apparent right from page one. Remember, you don't have much time. From a recruiter's perspective, says Tallents, the ideal CV is no longer than three pages and should be structured to offer the most important information first. “The first page should have all the personal details at the top,” he says. “Then qualifications, then career summary. The remaining pages are in reverse chronological order.”
Start with a summary
The career summary brings together your unique skills experience, qualifications and achievements in a single passage. It should provide a précis of what you offer that makes the recruiter want to know more – and read on. “Keep it factual and extremely focused on relevant skills, not a sales pitch,” says Tallents. It should also be original – everyone can say they're a great leader – and highlight points from later in the CV if necessary. Kovach recommends including specific qualifications – such as a graduate degree – in your summary if they are relevant.
Treat qualifications with care. “The more qualifications the better,” says Tallents, “but these should be mentioned separately and not in an exhaustive list of all the training courses you've ever been on.”
Professional qualifications that add substance, prestige or relate directly to the vacancy should be listed. While qualifying as a lawyer might not obviously relate to a senior management position, it demonstrates a strong academic background and an ability to think quickly and laterally.
Do include job-specific skills, as well as those skills and characteristics that carry from one job to the next. The ideal number is between three and six core skills/traits that tie in with the skills/traits required by the employer.
A good story told well
Once your summary is tuned to your audience, you can devote the remaining pages to your career achievements. Taken as a whole, your career experience should come across in a way that it supports your application.
The career history itself has to tell a story rather than read like a procession of jobs in reverse chronological order. “Start with your most recent job title, listing years in job, and responsibilities covered in a small paragraph,” says Tallents. At each stage you should be able to demonstrate more skills and responsibilities.
Be as specific as possible. Recruiters don't want to know what you were responsible for, they want to know what you did – how the responsibility manifested itself.
“Use lots of metrics, such as budgets and turnover, and then list up to six achievements under a separate heading,” says Tallents. Don't undersell – if you built a new IT system for the company, then say so “ but don't oversell, either.
And given today's volatile economic climate, it's important to put your achievements in context, says Kovach. “Recruiters can make judgements about someone's background based on the number of moves they have made in their career,” he says. “So it's important to note when a company you were working for was merged, sold or acquired.”
Kovach recently saw a CV for a candidate who had had four jobs in six years for the same employer. At first, he thought the candidate was a job-hopper. “However, on further review, this person was actually a superstar who survived two mergers and an acquisition,” he says.
School's out
As a senior executive, your educational history should be at the end of your résumé, says Kovach. While “you should always state whether you have a degree and what class it is”, according to Tallents, as a rule, the more senior the position, the less important your education. What you've achieved in work is far more important.
So unless you attended a prestigious school, list only your college/university postgraduate education, in reverse order.
Stick to the point
Write your CV in a straightforward and direct style – even if it means suspending normal rules of grammar. Stick to the facts without having to pad out with adjectives or adverbs. “Flowery language doesn't mean anything,” says Tallents. “We were handling a senior marketing role and received several laborious, long-winded CVs that we knew would put off the client right away. We had to ask, ‘Are these people capable of putting together a succinct presentation?‘”
Designed to be read
While the main aim of your résumé is get the facts across, don't overlook visual impact.
Layouts should strike a balance between white space and text. The standard practice is to set headings and text hard to the left with a small margin. Bullet points break up the look of the page for a skim reader, while sensible spacing can help prevent the CV looking like an instruction manual. Remember some scanning programs automatically “wrap” lines above 75-80 characters.
Keep the typography simple, using common typefaces, such as Times Roman or Arial, consistently across headings and body text.
Resist the temptation to create more visual interest. Graphics should be avoided, together with any pictures of yourself, however photogenic you are. This is a trap otherwise credible people fall into, says Tallents. “No one will earn themselves an interview because they put their photo on a CV. If anything, it works the other way. Anything that might exclude you should be removed from your CV.”
Full marks for presentation
Whichever format you use for your résumé, remember how it will be received and distributed. “Most CVs are e-mailed, so test that yours is printable and prints out correctly,” says Tallents.
With electronic mailboxes bulging, you may want to go one step further. If there is time and your recipient agrees, provide a hard copy. Print it out on a good-quality laser printer rather than an inkjet. Then mail it, flat and unfolded, in a cardboard-backed envelope.
Your résumé is a major asset in your career management inventory. Its job is to provide the evidence that you are the candidate who should be seen. Make sure it does you justice.
Creating a CV to get you seen
- While there is no single template for a perfect CV, structure it to be read quickly; mention key points first.
- Unless it has been very haphazard, present your career in reverse chronological order.
- Stick to the facts and quantify your achievements, outlining them in context.
- Be succinct.
- Keep the layout simple and compatible with common e-mail and word-processing programs.
- Never include anything on your résumé that might exclude you.