Throughout my career as an international recruitment expert, I have constantly been in contact with talented international professionals across different employment markets.
One of the most common recurring discussions concerns the CV, and the numerous challenges attached to writing a CV that stands out.
Whether preparing for an internal mobility or the external employment market, many people find this task laborious, difficult and sometimes unfulfilling.
Indeed, crafting a new CV is time-consuming, and requires lots of self-examination, soul-searching, positive energy, creativity and professional perspective.
And while there are many solutions on the market to facilitate CV writing, like ChatGBT, EnhanCV, among others, creating, up-dating and customizing the CV content remains a challenge for most people.
As the CV still remains an important part of recruitment application processes, despite an increasing amount of criticism, it’s important to get it right.
What is the CV ?
The CV is a professional “photo” or brief “snapshot”, highlighting relevant experience, skills and achievements, that is easy for employers, recruiters and other professional audiences to read.
Naturally, the main objective is to paint the “best” professional “picture” of your career journey, in a well-structured document, that is pleasing to the eye and easy to follow.
A 1-2 page CV is very acceptable for most employment markets, however, it is important to make sure that your CV format fits in with local requirements.
Without a doubt, the ultimate goal with a “winning” CV is to differentiate yourself from others, and be selected for an interview !
Objective of the CV
The CV remains (for the moment) an important requirement for recruitment application processes and should reflect you and your career journey in the very best light.
The primary objective of a good CV is to get an interview.
It is also useful to open doors for passive career discussions and networking purposes with broader professional audiences.
Whether with internal recruiters or executive search firms, the interview is the first step in the recruitment selection process.
Recruiters spend very little time looking at the CV, so it is important to help them quickly zone in on the key assets.
When the CV is not clear, and overloaded with too many fluffy details, recruiters loose interest quickly and the window of opportunity is gone.
An easy to read “look and feel” CV, increases your chances to interview. The ultimate goal at this stage is to interview, and demonstrate in person or via TEAMS, why you are suitable for the position in question.
Key Features of a Good CV
A good CV is a well-organized 1–2 page document (for most jobs), consistently formatted and clearly presenting contact details, professional experience, education, among other key areas.
In other words, a clean, simple design, avoiding flashy colors, photos, images, with easy-to-read fonts like Arial, Calibri, Tahoma, Times New Roman, consistent bullet points and spacing.
Make sure the contact details are up-to-date (Full Name, Email, Mobile N° with international prefix, if necessary, Linkedin profile). Surprisingly, many people forget to update this part and it’s really important.
The Professional Experience should be in reverse chronological order, with valid dates – Company Names – Job titles – Locations – Cities – Countries. Depending on seniority, the last 10/15 years’ experience is the most relevant. When describing responsibilities, achievements, use action verbs (“led,” “developed,” “managed”), and bullet points facilitate an “easy-to-follow” read for the recruiter/hiring manager.
Educational background is important to share and recruiters want to quickly see the degree, institution name, graduation year, international academic exchanges, if relevant.
As many positions require language skills, it is important to highlight the language levels, for example, bilingual, native, and/or working knowledge level.
Likewise, technical skills are required for many positions, so re”member to share your IT skills, for example, Power BI, Social-Media, MSOffice, SAP, among others.
Certifications & other trainings on the CV are interesting to share, however, relevance is important.
Finally, Interests do provide some insight into passions outside of work. Think about this when sharing interests!
What Makes the CV Stand Out?
- Clean, easy-to-follow, well-organized CV, sensitive to the recruiter’s/hiring manager’s eye.
- Strong focus on TEXT and Void of images/icons for telephone, email, etc
- Well-articulated brief personal introduction of 2 lines max
- Uses keywords from the job description for the position in question
- Shares relevant experience, skills and achievements.
- Presents the most up-to-date professional “photo” of career journey
- Quantifies achievements, for example, “increased sales by 20%“, “reduced cost by 15%”, “hired and trained entire team”, among others.
- Focuses on results and impact, not just duties/responsibilities
- Professional tone and language
- No grammar/spelling mistakes
- Consistent CV career journey & Linkedin Profile (dates, education, job titles, employers, among others). Recruiters /hiring managers verify linkedin profile information, especially when interested to pursue the applicant.
The CV – A Valuable Tool
While many recruiters and candidates question the utility of the CV, we defend it for many reasons. The main objective of the CV is to open the door and get an interview !
The CV is an excellent tool to help job seekers prepare for the interview.
When preparing the CV, job seekers automatically answer career questions (why, how, when, what), in order to highlight relevant experiences, achievements, skills.
The answers to these questions are essential ingredients to build confidence, overcome the undeniable stress in the interview, and successfully share relevant examples with the recruiter/hiring manager.
Additionally, they facilitate the articulation of unique selling points, but also highlight potential weaknesses, preparing for these “recurrent” typical questions in interviews.
People in active job search tend to prepare several CV formats (generic, functional and adaptable), ready to apply when interesting opportunities arise. This is a good idea !
Finally, there is a strong synergy between the CV and the Linkedin profile. It is important to regularly update, as recruiters/hiring managers use both.
Understanding the ATS (application tracking system)
In todays’ world of work, technology, social media and artificial intelligence are transforming how companies recruit and how job seekers apply for jobs. One of the biggest challenges for job seekers is to be selected by the ATS (application tracking system) as an interesting candidate.
When applying for jobs on Linkedin, Indeed, Corporate Career Sites, among many others, the CV enters an ATS and candidates are required to create an account. The ATS scans CVs, the reason why clean text formatted CVs are best, with little, if any images, icons or colors.
How does the ATS systems work?
The recruiter/hiring team enters the job description details into the ATS, identifying key search words to facilitate selection (job title, skills, experience, sector).
The ATS scans incoming CVs (applicants), searching for key words, potentially ranking candidates, and stores the CVs in a searchable database.
The recruiter/hiring managers choose from the ranked candidates, searching the database for strong-fit candidates using the pre-defined key words and skills.
If the CV does not contain any “key words”, the CV will not be selected.
For example, if a company seeks to hire a “Key Account Manager”, with experience in retail and proven negotiating skills, the ATS will search for these words in the CV.
Candidates, with the required experience, should adapt the CV to include appropriate “key words” used in the job description.