Optimizing Your CV

We have a wealth of specialist market knowledge which our candidates can draw on when starting their job search. With this comes our experience and expertise around not only CV layout, but also wording and presentation. There are many templates available online, which of course is always useful, but, we believe that C.V.'s are individual to the person they represent, and so, so like people, no two C.V.'s are ever the same.

Here at Harry Walsh Associates our recruiters will never format, or rewrite CVs. What we do offer is advice and knowledge to take away with you, so you can make your CV the best it can be to represent you, your experience and skills in the best light possible to a potential employer.

Below we have put together a few key points to assist you whatever stage you are at in your career.

• Make sure your name and address is clearly stated at the top - the address isn’t necessarily compulsory, but it gives an idea of the potential journey time to and from work
• Several key relevant bullet points at the start can be a great personal touch and allow you to highlight any unique career experience, highlights or skills. Avoid this being too long – we recommend using a range of the following options:

1. most relevant work experience to the job
2. most relevant experience using S.M.A.R.T. examples
3. most relevant experience with regards to projects, contributions or results

• Job titles need to be clearly displayed and easily identifiable - if you have had several positions at the same company separate them, but keep the time at the company as 1 set of dates.
• Keep your experience easy to read utilizing short constructive sentences in bullet point form wherever possible grouping relevant duties together.

Obvious but important:

• Ensure that you have all your dates in their correct chronological order with your most recent experience first.
• If the role was temporary or on contract basis be sure to mention this
• Check for typing and grammatical errors, auto-spell will not always catch all these errors lurking in your CV. Be sure to manually check through it to ensure all spelling and grammar errors have been resolved.
• Make sure you have all your sections clearly separated

1. Employment
2. Education
3. Skills
4. Other Achievements etc

Make sure your CV does you justice!

It needs to communicate to a stranger that you are worth meeting.

The best way to achieve this is by have 3 or 4 bullet points on the first page that outline your most relevant work experience and your professional contributions.

Download our CV Sample Template

It is so important for you to outline the contributions you made, the results of your work.

To help identify these contributions you might consider...

• feedback on your work
• performance appraisal results
• results you achieved,
• things you improved,
• specific projects you did well
• problems you solved

You want to aim for a document that communicates easily your results at work.

Need some feedback?

Send us a draft of your improved CV when convenient, and we’ll get back to you. Don’t worry we won’t send it anywhere without your expressed permission.

Have you read our articles on Interview Preparation, Auditing Your Social Media, and How to Format Your CV For An ATS System?