Do you know what is common between many management-level candidates who do not frequently change their work? It is how their CV looks like!

 

Ironically, in most cases of consulting management level candidates, we encourage them to work on their CV or improve it for them. Successful projects, disruptive changes within the organizations or departments, sales increase, valuable leadership competencies, etc. - all are buried under confusing format, excessive information, small print...

A CV is a business card. Its purpose is to get invited to an interview, precisely to the companies for which you want to work. No more, no less. To achieve this, the reader should be able within seconds to see the uniqueness of your experience, critical skills, facts and figures that prove your effectiveness, “read” your personal traits, leadership skills. Why within seconds? Because time is the most precious resource of those, to whom you are sending your CV. The first two lines of too small print about nothing lead to further brief cursory screening or closing the file.

So, how to improve?

 

First and most easy - structure and format.

 

Structure:

Personal/ Contact details. The necessary minimum only. Phone number, e-mail, other relevant contact details. Nobody is interested in how many children you have or what is your home address.
Important: your e-mail structure. The optimal one - a beautiful combination of your name/surname/initials. “This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.” - is not the best variant for a manager. “This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.,” “This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.,” “This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.” - look for variants. A bit of creativity, and you will find them.

 

Photo. You decide whether to include a picture in your CV. Important here is that it works for you, not against you. A professional good quality one, or no photo. The ideal variant - a picture made by a professional photographer, reflecting your personality, character.

 

Summary. The quintessence of your experience, skills, knowledge, and achievements. At the beginning of your CV. 5-7 bullet points or sentences about you, which induce the reader to read the rest of your story attentively. It is one of the most critical parts of your CV. It should be unique. How to ensure it? If you see a nice sentence, which someone can easily copy-paste in his CV - delete it.

 

Professional experience. Start from the most recent. The company, position/role. Start/ end dates should be with months. Include or not include all your companies/ positions depends on their quantity, relevance. The general recommendation is to include 8-10 recent years or 3-4 roles. As for the contents, focus on key achievements, results -- with facts and figures. What exactly you managed to do, to achieve? The long list of standard job responsibilities should be left out. Leave only the important ones.

 

Education, additional education. Relevant to the role you pursue. Higher education, professional certifications, further general or specific education. No one reads long lists of attended pieces of training. A makeup or massage course in the CV of a manager questions his adequacy. You won’t believe, how often we meet that.

 

Additional information. You can bring all together in one section or split information into several parts. It depends on the contents. Below are the variants.

Languages. Foreign languages -- only languages with working proficiency. State the level (fluent, upper-intermediate, C1, B2, etc.). “Average” - tells about nothing. All languages stated as “with a dictionary” or “basic” - are to be removed.

Information, ERP systems, programs. Relevant systems and applications you work with. “Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Internet”...-- Hmm, you understand :) — only those which create added value.

Additional information, as memberships - depending on relevance.

Hobby, etc. - up to you. If this information adds to your portrait, personalizes the CV - why not.

 


Format:
Believe, details matter.


Length. 2-3 pages! If you want to give a detailed description of a project/ projects, it is better to do it in a separate document.

Important: Cutting the length should not influence the overall legibility. Good example - Arial 11-12, line spacing - min. 1.25.

Still too long? Step 1 - remove ALL information adding no value (words “Resume,” “e-mail,” “phone,” “responsibilities” after each position, name of the company, which duplicates, etc.) Step 2 - repeat step 1 until there is not a single excess dot. Still too long? Then work with the contents.


Style and formatting. Have common logic, identical throughout the CV.

You have chosen the print/ prints for headers, rest of the text. -- Check whether they are identical throughout the document.
You used round bullets for achievements. -- Do you use them in all the positions?
Paragraphs. -- Is there common logic throughout the document?
Each bullet point ends with a dot. -- Is it always so?
Dates format. -- Consistent?
Are there double spaces? Omitted spaces?
You understand the logic…

 

Language. Is the text readable? No too long sentences? Tautologies? Is it easy to understand what you mean? A friend’s help could be useful here.

Typos, spelling mistakes. You check, then turn on the spell-check. Check once more.

 

Technical elements.
The format of the document -- pdf! The CV may be viewed on different devices, in various applications, the format can get “broken.” Use of the pdf format guarantees that the reader sees what you want him to see.

Name of the file. Any nice combination of name, surname, word CV, or analogs. Example: “MykhayloGontcharov_CV.” “Resume_last,” “MyCV_Engl2019,” are bad ideas. Tipp: The name of the document you work with may contain any helpful explanation. You delete them when saving the file as pdf.

 

So, we are done with the format and structure as of now. But this is only part of the job. Hard work with the contents is next. What is meant by that? We will discuss it next time.