- Numbers! So many CVs I have seen have an individual’s intangible skills listed line by line. Instead of writing that you lead a project or managed a particular business unit. Go into the numeric details for example “Upon joining General Electric my business unit generated $5million, with profit of $3million across a headcount of 40 with the key revenue channels being the automotive industry and top clients were companies X, Y and Z. After 3 years revenues were up to $10million, profits up to $6million and headcount up to 75 and I lead top-to-top sales and account management to support continued build out into a new revenue channel whilst broadening our key client base to also include companies A and B”
- Tell the story – Your career will most likely be going in an upward ark, is that clearly visible on your CV? Can someone with no knowledge of your job type or industry understand clearly see how you have progressed? Remember, often the first person to read your CV will be a HR professional who often has to source for all job roles across the business. He or she may not understand the intricacies of your job function and jobs vary enormously company to company. Also job titles can be misleading. There are a lot of “managers”, “Directors” or “Managing Directors” out there managing 1, 2 or no people altogether
- Process and Systems – How you grow, improve or innovate your business and team? What processes and systems you implemented that enabled you to have an impact. during the interview, its also fine to admit some that didn’t! Humility and resilience are core behaviours all employers look for
- People – Demonstrate how you improve your people’s performance, this can be carrot and stick. How did you support your top performers, get the most of the mid range (typically through systems) and take decisive action on the bottom performers (help them become high performers or move them on)
- What achievements are you most proud of in the last 3 years, again make these tangible
- New business units, countries, offices started up, turned around or built further on
- New clients you were able to win business with and how you were able to do this
- Ensure you are able to demonstrate you are capable of both thorough strategy development with a Go-To-Market plan as well as effective execution. What exactly did you do to ensure revenues were increased whilst you ensures costs were controlled
- You! Make sure it is clear what YOU actually did on the CV. Don’t over exaggerate your role in a team’s success, similarly don’t leave ambiguity around your role in these cumulative successes
- Don’t have an enormous summary, no one reads it, keep it simple
- Two pages max, beyond and you will be overlooked as there is a high correlation between long CVs and “all talk no action” type of people. Fair or not.
- Keywords – Similar to a website SEO, you need to ensure you have all keywords listed on your CV so you can be found by a recruiter where your CV will be added to the system (agency and in-house). If you want to get into a new type of role make sure you have the keyword on your CV you want so you can found. Even though you may not have the skillset. Fun fact, do this for LinkedIn too and you may get some interesting job opportunities sent your way
