There are loads of organisations, individuals, agencies and outplacement consultancies who will gladly advise you on how to put together your CV but are they really sufficiently experienced to do this?

Who is best qualified to help you to put together a CV that is an effective tool for marketing your experience and skills?

A: someone frequently involved in recruiting for their company or who works as an extension of a company’s HR department. So e.g. HR professionals, senior managers with a good deal of experience recruiting people and Specialist “preferred” consultancies.

What of Recruitment Agencies in general?

A: Possibly. But bear in mind the majority of them are paid to “make placements”. They are easily identified: they work mostly from a database of CVs to which you may be eagerly added, however many of these consultants are unlikely to have had much, if any,direct recruiting experience.

As mentioned, Specialist Consultants who act as “virtual hiring managers” can be recognised by the quality of meeting and the interview that you have with them, but first you have to get the interview. They may be willing to help in improving your CV. As a rule they do not keep a database as all their work for their client companies is bespoke.

My advice is be selective in whom you put your confidence.

So how should your CV be laid out?
A: Well, for a start, you need to put yourself in the place of the recruiting professionals who are going to be reading your CV and trying to ensure you have a document to put in front of them which contains the information they are looking for.
For the last few years many CVs have followed the fashion of inserting a “Summary” at the top of the front page, of skills, personal attributes and talents. In our view they have little value because, for the most part, they are entirely subjective.
Professionals deal in “fact” and are not positively influenced by such statements that in many cases have been composed by somebody else. They will make their own assessments of you, following a meeting, therefore the first impression you make with your CV is critical in the decision as to whether to invite you to interview or not. My advice is to omit the “Summary” and concentrate on making it as easy as possible for someone to get straight to the information they are looking for.

All too often I receive applications accompanied by CVs that fall well short of providing the basic information on which to base a decision to invite them to interview and…. if it’s “borderline” I will take the trouble to get them on the phone to clarify. So not a good first impression and not good for the credibility of the applicant. In the case of busy recruitment professionals, there may well be no phone call and “no invitation to interview”.

The basics:

After putting in your name, contact details, address etc. Go straight to details of:
Who was/is your current/past employer?
Where are they based?
What products and services do they market and, to whom? (–not everybody can be an internationally recognised brand)
Your role:
Simply put: What are you paid to do?
A concise but brief description of what your key accountabilities and responsibilities are.
Dates and months of start/finish.

If you have already left — Why did you leave?

Insert previous positions you held in the company and repeat the above procedure for, duration, accountabilities etc.
Previous employer — same again.

The recruiter will want to go through your work history for the last 2 to 10 years dependent on your seniority, so as to gain an understanding as to where your principal skills, knowledge and experience lie.

Education, qualifications and any trade related qualifications, membership of trade bodies/associations are all of interest and so should be included at the end as should a statement about references.

Next: a few lines on your “interests/hobbies”.

That’s it.
Now all you need to do is put together an introductory letter outlining why you are interested in working for that company in the particular position. No more.

One more thing:for an experienced career minded person, sending your CV out “willy-nilly”, for every job that is advertised, without marrying up your experience with the job descriptions, invites rejection which is not good for morale. So stay focussed on applying for all those positions where your skill set is relevant.

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