1. Make sure your email address looks professional
Make sure your email address doesn’t have any nicknames, slang, or unprofessional language. Create a new email address with your first and last name. If that email address is taken, try adding your middle name, or the year of your birth. Having an email address specific to your information shows employers that you are the real deal.
2. Be specific
When applying for a job you should always display your experience in the most specific way possible. This can look like including figures or explaining what your actions brought to the company. For example, if you worked as a cashier, you didn’t simply handle money, you interacted with over 100 customers per day and were responsible for handling over £1,000 per day. Being specific helps an employer see what you’ve done, and how it can value them.
3. Tailor it to the job you’re applying for
Each job will come with a job description which usually details what skills the employer wants to see. Use this information to change your CV to fit the role better. If the job requires someone with care experience, talk about your professional or personal experience doing that task. By doing this you are showing the employer that you understand what they are looking for, and that you have the skills needed for the job.
4. Not every achievement needs to be on your CV
Part of your CV being tailored and specific is only including relevant information. As you progress through your life, or go through a career change, it can be overwhelming to see all the things you’ve achieved. If the job isn’t relevant, or it was a long time ago, you shouldn’t include it on your CV. The same goes with education, the employer doesn’t need to know every qualification you’ve earned. List the most relevant and if they want to know more, they will ask.
5. Use bullet points to expand on your skills
Recruiters will read through hundreds of job applications, and one of the best ways to stand out is by making your CV simple and condensed. A good way of doing this is to highlight roughly 5 points for each job role. By doing this through bullet points you are condensing the key successes in your job in an easy-to-read way. This is a great opportunity to put in the specifics that we spoke about in point 2.
6. Format your CV in reverse order
When writing a CV, it’s important to consider what the employer is wanting to see first. By ordering your achievements in date order, with the most recent being first, it will display your most up to date skills which are relevant to the role first. This format should be used for all sections of your CV including professional experience, personal experience and qualifications.
7. Keep your CV short
A CV should never be longer than 2 pages of A4. Recruiters see hundreds of applications, by keeping yours shorter it’s more likely that they will have the time to read it all. It can be hard to summarise your life’s work onto 2 pages, but it's important to ensure that you are keeping the information specific and tailored to the job you’re applying to.
8. Make sure to export your CV to a PDF
By exporting your CV to a PDF, it makes the document harder to edit. Once your CV is done and the formatting is correct, using a PDF can make sure that the formatting doesn’t change, or the content of your CV stays the same. It is also a good idea to do this because most online job submissions allow PDFs.
9. Look at other people’s CVs
CVs are hard to write, and it can feel unnatural to talk about your accomplishments so frankly. By seeing other people’s, it might help give you ideas on how to present your personal or professional success. If you feel uncomfortable asking to see your friends’ CVs, or if it isn’t an option, try searching the internet for job specific CVs. For example, if you’re applying for a teaching assistant role, search ‘teaching assistant CV examples’ and you can see what the industry standard CVs are like. Please make sure you don’t copy another person’s CV or use AI to write your CV as it is easy for an employer to recognise and will result in you not getting a job.
10. Use our CV creation guide
We have a free guide which covers everything you need to include in your CV. This guide also has extra tips and advice on how to prepare and present your CV. Download the free guide here.
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