More CV Tips

Help improve your CV by following these basic tips

Keywords

If you are targeting a specific job or industry, try to use keywords or power words that will grab the recruiter's attention. Also, don't forget to highlight your transferable skills. These could include: communications skills, computer skills, management skills.

Clichés & Abbreviations

The world is full of clichés and abbreviations. Some good, some bad.
In regards to clichés in CVs, they are bad. Clichés like "flexible team player", "result oriented", "good communicator", "highly motivated", etc are often used and read time and time again by recruiters. Give your reader some courtesy by trying to cut down or even avoid those clichés altogether.

Personal pronouns

Do not write your CV using subjective personal pronouns such as "I...", "He...", "She..." or "John..." to address yourself. These are already implied in a CV and are not required. For example, instead of writing "I was responsible for managing a marketing team of 5 people", you could change it to something like "Managed a marketing team of 5 people".

Avoid repetition

Try to avoid repeating words or information over and over again. If you have a specific skill or responsibility that you want to highlight then do it only once. Repetition just clutters the CV and could overwhelm the reader. Don't repeat details and keep the extra space to expand on the more relevant details.

Past to present tense

Do not switch from past to present tense (or visa versa). This is a very common mistake and can make it hard to read.

Quantify your achievements

When listing achievements, where possible, use figures to help back up your claim and make it attract more attention. For example, "Helped increase the yearly revenue by 30% in 2008" sounds much better than "Helped increase yearly revenue".