Tips for your CV

Many are currently contemplating their future career and what is to come. Are there further furloughs to come or will I perhaps lose my job entirely? This is a tough situation to be in and it might be a long time ago since you actively looked for a new job. One first step could be to review your past experience and decide what you want to do more of going forward. The next step is to identify who in your network can help you and what new connections you could make. This is where having an updated CV becomes a useful tool. For us working in recruitment the CV remains an important piece of the puzzle to help match the right candidate to the right job. And for our clients, it's an opportunity to get a first introduction of potential candidates. So, for those who are actively looking for new challenges, or for those who want to be prepared when the recruiter comes calling - here are some tips!

A CV should provide a quick and easy way for others to get an understanding of your professional experiences. Below are some basics that are good to think about: 

One to two pages usually suffice, but definitely no more than three pages.

Contact information such as email and phone number.
Reverse chronological order i.e. last job first.
Begin with work experience, then education, special training and other relevant information.
Title and company as well as year and month, are good to include.
A brief summary of what the respective roles have meant, responsibilities and then provide more details for the current or most previous role.

If you have had managerial responsibility, please figure out how much staff and budget responsibility you have had.
Some brief information about companies such as sales, scope and the like.
Do not leave any gaps.

LinkedIn tips

This is largely the same as for writing your CV, except that your LinkedIn profile may be slightly more concise. Your CV can be more comprehensive and include more details, so that it is a compliment to send to recruiters and companies to get more information about you. Still, you need to keep in mind that a Linkedin CV needs to be searchable online and therefore it's good to take the following into account:

Write a short summary about your professional profile.
Mention key skills (using bulletpoints, comma or similar. The format doesn't matter so much but these words are those you will be associated with and important in helping you get found).
Write a few rows outlining respective role.
Have you been at the same company for a long time, but have had different roles? Divide them up.

If you're open to recruiters contacting you for new opportunities, you can add this notice in your LinkedIn settings. This will not be visible to your employer or those who have a regular account on Linkedin. Go into "Jobs" on your profile and update according to what you are interested in. You can also enter your preferences and add what location you are interested in working, what form of employment etc.
Have a photo! But do not forget that it has to be professional and up to date.

Good luck!

Register and upload your resume in our database so that we can contact you when we have assignments that match your profile!