5 Tips to Create a Standout CV
Markus Winkler, Unsplash
CVs are not obsolete!
Your CV is your opportunity to tell your story and present your brand to potential employers. Everything you have achieved during your career will have resulted in your unique bank of experience, talents and strengths – that is your career brand.
A CV is skimmed in 6 - 8 seconds. So you have to grab the attention of the reader and ensure that your CV gets you that interview!
It needs to demonstrate how your strengths and achievements could be transferred to a new post and organisation.
It needs to tell your story, have some soul and a tone of voice that sounds like you!
[HBR Article Jan 27 2023, Cathy Wasserman and Lauren B. Weinstein]
“Tell me the facts and I’ll learn, tell me the truth and I’ll believe, but tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.”
Here are my 5 Tips to create a standout CV:
1. Focus on achievements not responsibilities
This is the number one mistake I come across when reviewing CVs.
A recruiter or hiring manager wants to know what impact you had in previous roles.
One way to think of achievements is to think how would you answer an interview question such as ‘Can you tell us a time when you solved a problem at work and how you went about it?’
If you were answering this question at interview you (hopefully) would construct your response using either the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) or CAR (Challenge, Action, Result) methods. Well, describing that achievement on your CV should be no different.
A good framework to describe your achievements is the Google XYZ Formula.
Google describes this as: "Accomplished [X] as measured by [Y], by doing [Z]."
Here’s an example from Google to showcase this formula:
OK: "Member of Leadership for Tomorrow Society"
Better: "Selected as one of 275 for this 12-month professional development program for high-achieving diverse talent."
Best: "Selected as one of 275 participants nationwide for this 12-month professional development program for high-achieving diverse talent based on leadership potential and academic success."
2. Tailor your CV & make it keyword friendly
Work off a base CV and tailor it to suit the role you’re applying for.
This means reading the job description, highlighting the key words used and using those key words in your CV.
For instance the job description might call for ‘An ability to organise own work efficiently, prioritise tasks within a highly dynamic and ever-changing environment’. In your CV you might talk about your organisation skills. If you were to tailor your CV for this particular role you would use the exact words from their job description, matching their keywords.
Another way to tailor your CV is to have a bank of achievements from past roles and use only the ones that are most relevant to the job description.
The more you use the words they use the more chance you have of getting through the automated tracking system and making it to the short list!
3. Put yourself in the shoes of the reader
Make their job easier by ensuring your CV is well laid out and easy to read. Make it concise and relevant, electronically readable, relevant to the job you’re applying for with no grammatical errors!
When reviewing your CV keep asking yourself ‘is this relevant to the needs of the recipient, does it provide evidence of my competence or does it add value?’
Use a professional, legible font of at least 11 point. Use bold, italics and capitals (sparingly) for emphasis. Avoid underlining, boxes or shading – optical character recognition software are not able to read them. Use bullet points and keep sentences short. Put page numbers and your name in the footer on each page of your CV.
Keep the look clean and uncluttered, use white space for a pleasing, visual effect. Keep all important text to the left of the page, as we read from left to right.
4. Give yourself enough time to write & rewrite
The one mistake many of us make is updating our CV overnight! This is an exercise that takes time and is worth putting in the effort.
One great tip in the HBR article (referenced earlier) is to start with a 'back-office' CV.
Throw everything in it when you're starting and then cut back.
Write down an unedited list of your complete work history - include everything.
Then, reflect on your personal and professional strengths and talents and cut back anything that’s not relevant
Use this back-office CV to decide what you want to share on your actual CV and what you are going to showcase to show the impact you've had in roles.
5. Do an emotional litmus test (again from the HBR article)
Ask yourself on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the most energised, ‘how emotionally energised am I by my CV?’
Consider asking yourself the following questions to gauge if the CV makes you feel positive emotions like joy, pride, or hope?
Does this feel true to me?
Does it reflect my strengths and gifts?
Is there an alignment between what I’m saying and how I’m feeling?
Am I proud of myself and my work?
If you’re less than a seven or eight, you’ll want to keep refining it until you feel it represents you. If you don’t feel energised, it’s likely others won’t either.
With these tips, what seemed like a daunting task suddenly becomes much easier. Hopefully you'll feel empowered and freed to share more of who you are and what you have to offer. Which in turn will increase your chances of the right employer connecting with you.
Best of luck and reach out if you need support rewriting your CV. I’d love to help.
