You sign up for many job offers and they don’t call you for any interview , and you begin to doubt if your CV has something wrong or not.
It is difficult sometimes to know if you are making a serious mistake without knowing it. If you haven’t thought about it yet, raising it is correct, to do an analysis or review of your CV.
Although the CV is not the only document analyzed in a selection process , it is an important tool.
A quick way to verify your CV is by checking the following 5 elements:
- Structure
- Contents
- Design
- Message
- Coherence
Some tips will come in handy as a guide for you to review your CV step by step.
1. Structure
Your CV should maintain an organization and order that, at first glance, is easy to read. Each extract of the Curriculum must stand out, have margins and that the data is correctly distributed to attract the attention of the selector, and to promote your application.
In this structure, consider the following important points:
- At the beginning, the most remarkable : Your best qualities that fit the professional profile sought by the company, must be at the beginning of the CV. This will grab the recruiter’s attention
- Your professional summary is essential : It will be essential that you have added the professional summary extract to your CV. There you will write a short text about your work career, including the highest points of your professional career and the contribution of value that you provide as a candidate for the position you are applying for. In some way, you should be able to make explicit or implicit those skills that make your profile stand out from the rest of the candidates.
- What comes first, experience or training? Continue with the same criteria as above. The most relevant will always go first.
If you have extensive work experience, this may be more relevant than training. If you just finished university, and you have no or very little experience, the training extract will be the most transcendental.
2. Content
In relation to the content of your CV, the most appropriate thing will always be to clarify your skills and qualities. A SWOT analysis could bring you closer to a more precise knowledge of yourself, and be clear about your strengths and weaknesses .
Next, I will tell you what this analysis is about, and what questions you could answer to carry it out on your profile. This will make it easier for you to upload the information to your CV later.
WEAKNESSES
What are the weakest points you have when working? What important skills could you improve?
THREATS
What are the threats you face when looking for a job ? What are the disadvantages of your professional or work environment?
STRENGTHS
What are your strongest skills to work with? What skills do you have as the greatest strengths in your personality and related to the job that you want to sign up for?
OPPORTUNITIES
What possibilities does the professional or work environment offer you that you could benefit from to find a job ?
When you have obtained all the information about yourself that you need, prepare an impressive CV. That it is not just an enumeration or a list of the functions that you carried out previously. That CV model will not make you stand out from the rest. You need a plus for your resume, and therefore, consider the following keys to prepare it:
- Include the achievements obtained in the companies for which you worked
- Mention how you contributed to the company’s objectives
- Detail how you solved a specific problem or your participation in a major project
- If you have the possibility, provide figures and quantifiable and concrete data that give credibility to your story
- The resume should not exceed two pages in length.
- Discard everything that is not relevant to the vacancy you are applying for.
3. Design
The format and design of your CV will be a fundamental point of the image that you give to the recruiter. If it is attractive, you will create interest in the interlocutor.
Of course, a professional design that visually attracts will be an important hook, and will make you stand out from the rest that a recruiter has to evaluate.
So that your CV has an attractive design, we recommend the following tips:
- You can use a CV template. Make sure it’s attractive enough, but not overly so. The idea is not that the recruiter’s attention is diverted or that you use old models. A template that is attractive and preserves shapes and colors will give you the balance you are looking for.
- Use the same color for the titles: This way you will break with how monotonous a CV can be, and you will see the text separated between each extract.
- The photo will have to communicate the same as your profile. A suitable photograph is one in which you have clothes that you could wear on a normal day at work.
- Use bold to highlight your skills or keywords related to the job posting
- Incorporate some visual elements, which make your CV stand out. For example, by including your LinkedIn URL , you could embed the icon for that social network. Or you could bar the level of your skills for employment.
4. What message do you communicate?
When reviewing your CV, it is important to consider what you are conveying with it to the recruiter or recruiter. You should do a role-playing exercise, occupy the recruiter’s “chair” for a few minutes, and empathize with the analysis that he could do.
If you are a recruiter, and they send you your CV, make assessments regarding the job you are looking for the ideal candidate. You can ask yourself the following queries:
- Do you have my resume and my potential profile to adapt to the position that the company has?
- Do I detail what are the virtues of my professional profile?
- Does it seem long to read my CV?
5. Resume consistency
Although this point is in line with what we said you should analyze in the previous point, we suggest that you also identify possible inconsistencies within the CV in this analysis. For example, if you are a person who indicates attention to detail as one of your main skills, and your CV is not very elaborate, your credibility would surely be questioned.
Another case could be that you indicate that you have an average level of use of a specific software, whose name is misspelled.
On the other hand, for example, if you are a graphic designer, you would not be expected to send a resume in black and white. That way you would not be showing creativity.
Even if you have a very high level of English, which applies to the position you are applying for, maintaining consistency would mean submitting it in that language.
Although it may not seem like the details of coherence, they are fundamental in the final image that you will give of yourself. Although it is not something that candidates often do, the CV review exercise will come in handy to visualize, as well as how consistent you are with your resume.