My Road to Success in 7 Steps
You’ve sat at your laptop tapping your pen on the desk, pondering how best to approach enhancing your CV, you glance at your phone, 30 minutes has passed, you shut the lid down, grab the TV handset and promise yourself you’ll give it another go tomorrow. We’ve all been there, haven’t we?
This was me, six months ago, my CV had served me well in the past, I’d landed good jobs with it previously, but the content was looking a little tired and I felt some of its content wasn’t current and relevant anymore.
As a CV writer you would think that I’d find it easy to evaluate the content and impact of my own CV, wouldn’t you?
It was time establish a plan on rebranding my CV and get it into shape.
Here’s how I did it!!
Considered my CV’s age
It was a great refresher to look back on my key responsibilities and successes at previous positions, especially as the sector I was currently working in had changed. My CV had served me well in the past, I’d landed good jobs with it previously, but it was looking a little tired and I felt some of its content wasn’t current and as relevant anymore.
When enhancing your CV, I recommend salvaging all the relevant detail and begin restructuring from there.
It had been over three years since my skills and personal profile had been updated, so I decided to start there. I had previously worked in training and development so the content was heavily geared towards roles within that industry. Although the skills are transferable and valuable the personal profile needed enhancement and the skills profile was too wordy and lacked punch.
Re-evaluated my old CV content
To give me a visual idea of what work lay ahead I used word highlighter to colour code what content I needed to delete or amended. This allowed me to start making the changes required to enhance my CV with my new career goal in mind. Alongside this, I wanted to draw attention to key information, so I added in some cool icons to highlight my contact details and LinkedIn account to give my CV a more modern look.
To learn how to use word highlighter follow How to Apply, Remove, and Find Highlighted Text in Word (groovypost.com) for some insight.
Re-defined the focus of my CV
Here I defined the changes that had to be made and amended the detail to reflect my new career goal. This allowed me to identify what was relevant in my CV and then set out the skills, knowledge, and experiences essential to my new desired role and sector.
I now work in the welfare to work and careers and wanted to include my experience in recruitment and skills relating to social media article and CV writing as well as careers consulting.
Many recruiters now invest in ‘applicant tracking systems’ (more commonly known as ATS) as part of their hiring and recruitment process. This software allows businesses to filter and organise applicants based on experience and skill sets, it’s also worth knowing that approximately 70% of applications in the UK are rejected during ATS screening.
Taking ATS screening into account I ensured that I included key words relevant to my target sector.
Targeted, tailored and tightened my CV content
Tightening the focus of my CV and showcasing my newly acquired skills and most recent employment experience would prove key in optimising its content.
The outcome of most job applications is likely to depend on how closely the content of CV matches the requirements of the role being advertised is. Therefore, it's important to tailor your CV to each job you're applying for, so you can showcase relevant details to the recruiter.
Firstly, I identified the key requirements of the sector I was interested in moving into and then gave my personal profile, skills profile, and career summary the attention it needed. I then ran a CV scan to ensure that my newly crafted CV ranked highly with the applicant tracking system.
The ‘punch the air’ moment came when the CV scan score result delivered a 96% match rate.
Evaluated the look of my old CV
In simple terms, my CV needed a facelift. I found it hard to let go of some of the content in my CV, particularly from when I had been a Training Centre Manager, simply because I was proud of what I had achieved during my time in the role. However, I needed to add in my most recent employment and that part of my experience had to be removed.
I experimented with a new CV template and changed the colour of the font for the section headings to draw attention to the details. I changed the layout of my skills profile, adding in three separate bullet point sections to give it more punch. I added icons to the contact section to give it a more modern feel and I included links to all my LinkedIn articles to showcase my knowledge.
Added my most recent employment and experience
Over the last two years I have acquired some new skills that I felt would significantly enhance my CV. I’d begun to write career articles on LinkedIn and there had been considerable growth in my career and CV consulting capabilities and wanted to showcase this. I added my most recent position with a slight overview of day to responsibilities as well as including key achievements with stats and figures to prove my value and to shift the focus from what I did to what you have accomplished.
I recommend analysing all your role descriptions and adding in key achievements as it can significantly boost your chances of getting hired.
Read Why achievements are so important in your CV (theguardian.com) for further insight into why adding key achievements to your CV is important.
Proofread
Once I had made all the necessary changes to my CV, I checked its readability, format, and flow. I sent it to my friend Darren Pallatina | LinkedIn for some honest feedback and he was blown away with the new document. Darren is a Lead Sourcing Specialist for Alexander Mann Solutions and is also a professional designer. He specialises in Linkedin banner design and comes highly recommended.
If you are looking to raise your Linkedin profile speak to Darren Pallatina Designs: Overview | LinkedIn and he’ll show you the way.
Remember, before you submit a job application It’s advisable to have a friend or family member read through your CV, as they'll be able to offer a fresh perspective on its content.
And finally
With my CV fully optimised and having a fresh and polished look, I was able to start applying for jobs that suited my new career goal. Within the space of two weeks, I’d been contacted by multiple recruiters, I secured three job interviews and finally landed my preferred job.
It's important to remember, if you want to improve your application outcomes you cannot adopt a one size fits all approach, so follow my guide to rejuvenate your CV and watch as the interview offers flood your inbox.
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