A powerful CV is the first step to increasing your employability and landing the next career opportunity.
Contrary to popular belief, working in flexible roles does not make it harder to build an impressive CV.
GIG work offers vast opportunities and flexibility, providing an unbeatable chance to develop new skills. Here are our top tips for crafting a powerful CV, no matter your career goals.
- Highlight your transferable skills.
A well-crafted CV is the first step to increasing your employability and landing the next career opportunity. Whether you are changing jobs, entering the workforce for the first time, or have had a lengthy gap between positions, having an impressive CV highlighting your advantages is essential for success.
Your CV should emphasize transferable skills you’ve developed from past work or life experiences, such as communication, leadership and teamwork.
It can be especially advantageous if you are transitioning into a different career or applying for an opportunity that requires specific skill sets, such as marketing management. For instance, if your volunteer experience has given you strong leadership and planning abilities, these can be useful when applying for project management jobs.
When showcasing transferable skills, take into account your hobbies and interests. This is an excellent chance to demonstrate other talents and abilities which apply to the role you are applying for and could make you stand out from competitors.
For instance, if you are applying to work at a charity organization, you might include your interest in an art exhibition or community engagement activities. These topics would be relevant to the role and of interest to you and the employer.
- Make it easy to read.
Making it effortless for recruiters to read your CV is crucial to creating an effective document that will help you land the job of your dreams. To accomplish this, use consistent font sizes and colours, eliminate unnecessary words, and provide plenty of white space on the page.
When listing your accomplishments, use bullet points instead of long sentences. This will make it simpler for a reader to scan the information and quickly pick out the most pertinent details.
It can also be beneficial to utilize different fonts for the same information, such as bolding or italicizing it.
Additionally, keeping your font size around 12pt may be beneficial. This makes the text easier to read and less distracting for readers, even when small.
At the top of your CV, make sure to include both your name and contact information. While this can be challenging to get right, getting this right will make it simpler for recruiters to locate you quickly and may also boost your chances of being hired.
- Highlight your achievements
When applying for a new job, your accomplishments are one of the first things recruiters take note of. This demonstrates your capacity for making an impactful contribution.
Candidates often make the mistake of listing only their responsibilities in previous roles instead of outlining any successes achieved during those positions. This is a costly error since it implies you are more of a doer than an achiever.
Write about the achievements that have benefited your business, such as improving customer satisfaction rates or increasing sales by a certain percentage.
When applying for a position, you can highlight different types of accomplishments. For instance, if the job requires marketing experience, you could highlight that you managed a new social media strategy or developed a website.
When applying for a job in IT, you might mention your leadership of a project to increase digital security or monitor emerging UX design trends and practices. When outlining each achievement, highlight its specifics so you can tailor it to your target employer.