Make your CV stand out to snag that interview.
Your job search
This is all about mapping out a plan to ensure that you are in the best position to identify opportunities and capitalise on them as you progress through your search program.
Good candidates can be eliminated from contention for a role due to:
- not investing enough time in researching the opportunity.
- a lack of consistency in their communication with the employer/recruiter through the recruitment process.
- their underperformance in the interview process.
- referees providing underwhelming feedback regarding their capabilities and performance in their previous roles.
To increase your chance of success you need a focused and flexible strategy that provides you with the tools to capitalise on your strengths and avoid unnecessary pitfalls. The first step is to prepare your CV.
Making your CV stand out
Your CV tells the reader a great deal about you, especially if it is well thought out in terms of effectively communicating your capabilities, achievements and motivations. It is important that the content is relevant and succinct. Candidates often make the mistake of thinking they must include the details of every position they’ve held in a great deal of detail. Those with long careers often have tome-like documents that cover outdated and irrelevant information.
When reviewing your CV it is important that not only is the information relevant and up to date but that it doesn’t contain any anomalous information. This maybe something that you didn’t think important, such as only listing the years of employment in each position when you should include the months as well or listing a university course without stating whether you have completed it.
Lies by omission are common in CV’s and employers and recruiters will react negatively when they come across them. It is not unknown for candidates to doctor their histories in terms of length of employment, altering their position titles, responsibilities and achievements academic qualifications and have even embellished their contribution to volunteer work.
TIP: The golden rule here is to be totally honest and thoroughly cover all key areas included in your CV as incorrect information will often be discovered at interview or during the reference process. Also, any lack of clarity will make it harder for you to convince a potential employer that they should hire you.
The CV checklist
Executive Summary
Keep your executive summary to a paragraph positioning it at the front of the document. You need to convey your career focus, what motivates you and what you can provide an employer in terms of skills and capabilities. Avoid platitudes and corporate speak. This is your chance to position yourself as a highly committed and effective candidate who will add significant value to a company.
Dates of Employment
Ensure dates of employment are continuous. If there are gaps between roles, ensure you have a plausible explanation. Don’t ‘smooth’ dates of employment. This involves covering up periods of unemployment by altering the dates or only including the years employed and omitting months.
You may have overlapping positions in a given time period. This may be due to a transitional arrangement where you have moved from one role to the other or where you took on the responsibilities of another role and had two position titles. Ensure that you explain this including how you managed both roles and/or made the transition.
Responsibilities
Ensure you include all responsibilities for each position and ensure your description is an accurate account.
Achievements
Where possible, achievements should be quantifiable, for example, increasing clients/revenue, opening up new business channels, improving efficiency, reducing costs – giving figures where possible.
Non-quantifiable achievements, such as implementing workplace culture change programs, can be harder to quantify, as there may be no measurable outcomes but you may want to include formal feedback from stakeholders if available.
Academic Qualifications
Ensure that the courses you list in the CV are shown as completed stating the year of completion or if you haven’t finished a course the units of study you have completed.
Industry Memberships
When listing memberships in industry associations ensure that they are current and haven’t lapsed. Also make sure you level of membership is accurate.
Interests
Over the last five to ten years there has been an increase in the number of candidates who volunteer their time to not-for-profit organisations and list these activities on their CVs. Employers and recruiters look favourably on this commitment and you should include all your voluntary work in short form.
The Interview
The first interview is like being the lead actor in a play. You shine and the play will be successful; you trip over your lines and the critiques will be unforgiving and the play will close soon after opening night. It is therefore critical that you prepare your interview strategy which includes anticipating questions that may be asked and having a thought out response. It also means making sure that you are across everything in your CV as the interviewer will use it to ask you questions about the roles you have held and the achievements in each role.
Some of the key interests of interviewers are how you went about what you had to do, what you brought to the table in terms of new ideas and how you achieved what was expected of you in your role. If you have been responsible for quantifiable targets make sure that you have the numbers accurately embedded in your brain and how in each case you achieved the targets. Also if you have managed teams make sure you are able to clearly articulate your management philosophy and style. Be ready to provide concrete examples about how you dealt with high achievers in your team and those who may have proven problematic.
You need to be engaging and show consistent interest in the role throughout the interview process. Additionally, you should be at all times positive in your remarks, particularly if you are addressing issues about a past employer (even if you would like to sink the boot for justifiable reasons). Negativity is a deal breaker as it reflects on you and how the employer may see you fitting in to the existing team.
It is not unknown for interviewers to put a great deal of emphasis on curve ball questions using follow ups to chase down particular motivational or values based issues. However, they can be also problematic for the interviewer unless they have considerable experience in interviewing and understand how the questions can be best formulated to illicit responses that will provide the information they are seeking.
For the candidate it is important that they take a cautious approach particularly when asked questions that they are not comfortable with. Navigating your way around some of these questions may also reflect negatively on you as the interviewer might think that you are trying to avoid giving a truthful response.
If you are not sure how to answer a particular question then tell the interviewer, explaining your reasoning. If he/she is not able to assist then either tell them that you are not comfortable with the question or answer to the best of your ability without compromising yourself.
The key to success in managing your job search is contingent on the time you invest in preparing a methodical and disciplined campaign. Your job search, however, should not be conducted as a standalone process but should form part of your career strategy. This will provide you the focus you need to ensure your career path gives you the challenges and fulfilment that are the cornerstones of a great career.
This is an abbreviated extract taken from It’s not just a job it’s your career by Peter Dawson written in conjunction with Susan Rochester, a senior HR practitioner.
By Peter Dawson