The dos and don'ts of effective CV writing

Hello everyone, my dear readers of this blog and new visitors! As you may know, I am a manager in a major technology company, so every day I give you tips on how to become an effective leader and be able to work with any team. But very often people ask me how to get a job in my company or a similar one. Often, I tell people that the process of hiring a job and an interview are a crucial step in getting their dream job. But, apparently, this answer is not enough for people and they continue to ask how they can be sure that the interview will be successful and how to increase their chances. Today I begin a series of articles with recommendations on how to get the job that you desire with greater likelihood.

In this article I will focus on CV writing, that is, your portrait for a future employer. The information that you provide in your CV is the only information that your potential employers have, so you must be sure that your CV is effective and will attract attention. To be honest, I often work closely with the HR department, as it is important for me to take part in the recruitment process, and I noticed that a bad CV can cause a failure for a candidate, even if he or she has all the necessary skills. Such a strange tendency is explained by the fact that if a person is not able to make enough efforts to create a good CV, then such an employee is more likely to not be the most responsible and hardworking person. In addition, I also noticed that people, especially young people, very often do not know the structure of a CV and what information it should contain, which as a result leads to the fact that their CV contains meaningless information and limited information about a person and their experience.

First of all, Robert Williams, a well-known hiring expert, claims (and I absolutely agree with him) that your employer will have about 30 seconds to familiarize yourself with your CV, that is, you have about 30 seconds to impress your future prospective employer. I recommend that you reduce the amount of information so that your potential employer sees only the key information about you, which should characterize you as a person and as an employee.

I also recommend that you position yourself as a problem solver who is willing to help the company in a difficult situation and solve their actual problems. Often, companies need new employees when their previous employee was fired or left the workplace and the company must fill out a gap so that their absence does not affect the team's performance. Before submitting your CV, analyze the company's current position in the market in order to understand what problems they may have at the moment, to know what they are looking for to solve problems. If you can understand the reasons why the company is looking for new employees, and understand how much value you can bring to solve problems, pay attention to it in your application and more likely you will receive priority.

As I said, on average, potential employers spend no more than 30 seconds to get acquainted with your CV, so I recommend that you highlight the most important information in bold in order to draw employers' attention to this or that information. If you have any specific skills that are necessary for the effective performance of your work, write about it in your CV and focus on it, which will allow you to significantly increase your chances. How easy can it be to pay someone to write my paper for me? It's simple enough! In addition, you must separate the different types of information so that all the information is more readable. Very often, my team and I have come across the fact that the CV contains too much information, or it is in the wrong order, which greatly complicated the reading process.

As already mentioned, you should prepare for each company individually and each CV should differ from the previous one, depending on the specifics of the company. You need to understand that if you apply to several companies at once, which have different specifics of work, which means that information that has value for some employers may be completely meaningless for another employer. Before sending your CV, make sure that you know exactly what the company does and what it requires from you and it will be much easier for you to understand what information is of value to them. Spend a little of your time and thoroughly prepare for the interview, and believe me, you will have a much better chance of getting a job than your competitors.

Sometimes candidates make regular identical mistakes and I would like to draw attention to them. First of all, never indicate in your application the desired salary and your expectations - you can discuss these details during the interview, but you do not need to create the impression of an employee who is solely interested in money. Moreover, you do not need to specify information that describes you in a negative way, that is, you don’t need to mention exam failures, business failures and more. Remember, you should not lie in your resume, but you can keep silent about some details so as not to spoil your first impression.

In addition, I would also not recommend you to use non-standard parameters, as reduced text or extended borders in order to fit more information in your resume. As I said earlier, you should limit the amount of information in order not to disorient your potential employer - try to make your resume as readable as possible. In order to reduce the amount of information, you do not need, for example, to indicate absolutely all of your workplaces, as most likely some of them are not even relevant to your current position. Finally, never use jargon, technical terms, and acronyms - only in cases where it is extremely necessary.

All of these recommendations are just my advice to you on CV writing, based on my experience. Always remember that your potential employer is the same human being like you; provide only the information you would like to receive if you recruited employees. Moreover, do not send the same resume to all companies - try to analyze the activities of the companies and create unique resumes for each position to increase your chances. Remember that you must provide the value to the employer that they are currently looking for. Finally, always believe in yourself, be confident and you can get the job of your dreams.