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1 Identifying your goals and your key skills
If you’ve not written a CV (curriculum vitae) before or haven’t updated one for a while, making a start can seem daunting. It needn’t be like that, though, and some time spent in planning at the beginning before you put pen to paper or boot up your computer, will be time well spent. Don’t worry yet about how to set out all you want to say and what style of type you want to use, but think instead about your ‘marketable’ skills—in other words, what will make you attractive to a prospective employer.
Most of us tend to think too narrowly about the skills we have to offer and as a result tend to undersell ourselves when we are looking for a new job or promotion. Here is a step-by-step guide to examining your life and work experiences, so that you can assess what your strengths are and ‘sell’ yourself more effectively on your CV.
Start by thinking about your personal and professional goals. What educational, career, and leisure experiences have you had that will help you in your future job? Do you have a realistic picture of the match between your skills and your overall career goal?
Step one: Understand the real purpose of a CV
A winning CV is not one that gets you the job—it is one that gets you the interview and so helps you get your foot in the door. Some people think that a fantastic CV alone will get them their dream job, but that is rarely the case. For most recruiters, advertising a job and asking for CVs acts as a preliminary ‘sifting’ process, whereby they can look out for the people with the right skills, experience, and suitability for a given role, and then fix a time to meet with them in person.
You need to create a CV that stands out from the crowd and that interests a potential employer enough for them to want to meet you in person. The employment market’s never been more competitive, and a personnel officer or recruiter can receive hundreds of CVs for every job opening. Even if you’re not applying for an advertised position, but are instead hoping to register with a job agency, you need to make sure that your CV looks impressive and well planned. Remember that you’ve only a few seconds to capture someone’s attention, and you don’t want it to be for the wrong reasons!
All of the above may sound daunting, but don’t worry: the advice outlined below will help you put together the CV that you need to make a big impact, whatever job you’re after.
Step two: Begin at the end
Your CV is your chance to advertise your most marketable skills. Preparing a list of these may seem like hard work, but it is well worth doing. This list will help you to write a more powerful CV, as well as to present yourself more professionally to a potential employer. It’s also excellent preparation for an interview—you will feel confident about what you have to offer and will sell yourself better.
To best help you identify your marketable skills, you need to know what kind of a position you’re looking for as it will help ‘frame’ your job search. This will make you focus on the skills that you will need in your next job. This is the time, then, to work out what you want to achieve in your future career.
Generally, people tend to submit speculative or targeted CVs. If you have just graduated, you are working but unhappy in your current position, or you were recently made redundant, then you are probably planning to contact a large number of potential employers in different organisations. In this case, you are conducting a general or speculative career search. In this case, you will need to use several different CV formats. For instance, if you have a background in both electronics and photography, you might have one CV that highlights your photographic skills for one set of employers, and another CV that highlights your electronics skills for another set of employers.
If, on the other hand, you are currently working and someone contacts you about a specific job opening at another company, or perhaps you learn about an opportu...
