You want to write a successful CV – but where on earth do you start?

More realistically, start writing your CV with the end in mind. Still confused? Stop thinking about yourself for a moment and give some thought to the poor soul who will have to wade through the mass of CVs that they will undoubtedly receive for every advertised position. The response could well be in the hundreds, so unsurprisingly, the recruiter’s first task will often be to lighten their load and the easiest way to begin this is to spend a few seconds with each one before deciding to reject it or select it for further consideration. It really is unrealistic to expect a recruiter to read each CV in full, particularly as the majority of them will appear to have been constructed with the aim of making the reader’s task as difficult and joyless as possible.

So, with this in mind, how would you perceive that a poorly formatted CV with information randomly spread across several pages would be received? Or, against this background: how would a clear, concise and visually appealing CV be viewed? Remember, we haven’t even started to think about content, experience and qualifications yet: we’re thinking about the vital first impression and what your CV’s look and feel says to a recruiter.

Does it say: “I’ve dashed this off in a few minutes because I really can’t be bothered with presentation or relevant detail; it’s all in there, somewhere, so just work it out for yourself”.

Or does it immediately portray an impression that the candidate is professional, understands how to present complex and important information in a clear and concise manner and has made a great deal of effort to either write their own CV or have been professional enough to understand that unsurprisingly, CV writing is not a core skill that they have and they have therefore commissioned a professional CV writer to produce one on their behalf.

This was the meaning of “starting at the end”: the end being that at some stage, a recruiter has to spend a very short time in assessing your CV and hopefully placing it in a very select group that will be considered in detail.
So give your current CV a 20 second appraisal: can it clear the vital first hurdle that is outlined above or does the “look and feel” say “please reject me”?

(This blog was originally written by Successful CV Writing to feature on a guest blog for a recruiting company)

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