When it comes to creating a CV it can be challenging to highlight your key skills and experience. This is why we have created a couple of top tips to help you along the way. From dealing directly with clients HR departments we know what they are on the hunt for and this will help your CV stand out from the crowd.
Due to companies getting high volumes of CV’s, sometimes for one position depending on how many agencies they use. It means CV’s get scanned for a short period of time so it’s important that you draw their attention immediately to your key skills that are relevant to the position.
Where you have worked for the last seven years are always scanned first so we feel this is number one priority on the list. Always start with your most recent position and work backwards from here. See example below:
Employment History:
Employer: Akira Recruitment
Job Title: Electrical Project Manager
Dates: January 2019 – March 2023
Project: Data Centre
Location: Ireland
Company description: Mechanical & Electrical Sub Contractor specialising in Data Centre and Pharmaceutical projects.
Reason for Leaving: 4 year project that is now finished.
You should include between 5-10 bullet points highlighting your tasks, contributions and successes on the project. I know it can be hard to include so much information in a couple of points but you want this to be short, sweet and straight to the point.
Can’t stress enough how important it is to have the location of your roles/projects. Some companies will only consider experience from certain parts of the world due to different regulations in other countries.
If you have very short periods of employment include the reason for leaving. If an employer sees your job hopping every 3 months then this will immediately raise concern with them. If you have a valid reason as to why then it can help them understand why.
As always you will want to tailor your CV to the specific role and project. The about you section should cover the position that is most suited to your skills, qualifications and experience.
People with a large work history, your CV should be no longer than 5 pages at most. Any experience over 10 years ago is not as relevant so concentrate on your most recent positions. People with no experience yet maybe just completing education. Do not cram everything into one page. You can easily have a good about you section, highlighting your skills, character and the type of roles you want to start off in. Then include your education section and below this have a section with additional training (Like forklift licence or IPAF, manual handling etc). Include any volunteer, charity, work experience or skills you have developed from certain situations in life. Including this information should give you 2 good pages and help buff out your CV with good quality information.
CV’s with crazy formatting, tables, multiple different sizes of texts, fonts and colour are not good. When you upload your CV to some sites it might rejig everything, making the CV a mess without you even knowing at times. We advise you to use the examples above. Your CV should be easy to read and understand and not filled with random images.
Again this is just a quick guide for you to make your CV straight to the point. You want it to do what it says on the tin. We hope this helps, good luck and happy job hunting!