5 CV Tips To Get Noticed

Your CV (which stands for Curriculum Vitae) is your biggest opportunity to land an interview for your dream job. But what makes a good CV? A good CV should highlight your skills, achievements, experiences and qualifications, and show recruiters and potential employers that you’re the ideal person for the job.

Presenting your best self on paper can be tough. In this article, we will be sharing our CV tips to help you stand out and increase your chances of a job interview.

Tailor your CV to each job you apply for to maximise your chances of being shortlisted by recruiters, employers, and Applicant Tracking Systems.

Applicant Tracking Systems (or ATS) are used by larger companies to automate the screening process. ATS scans hundreds of CVs for specific keywords and shortlists ones that are a match.

Read through the job description and take note of the keywords and key skills mentioned, include relevant ones in your personal statement, work experiences and skills section. This will help optimise your CV for search engines, so that you are easily found by recruiters and employers.

Recruiters spend a mere 6 seconds reviewing a CV to determine suitability before moving on to the next. Your personal statement or opening statement is a career summary at the top of the page that summarise your character and career goals. Here’s how to write a strong personal statement:

Include your most relevant achievement in your personal statement – this immediately conveys success and portrays you in a positive light.

Mention personal and professional achievements under work experiences, instead of listing responsibilities. This could help you land an interview so that the employer can learn more about you.

• Personal achievements: receiving an award, winning a competition, volunteering, achieving high grades in studies
• Professional achievements: saved the company time and money, increased performance, met and exceeded work targets

Remember to include metrics to help communicate success to the reader, see our next tip.

Position your experiences underneath your personal statement. Ensure an accurate description of your employment history, prioritising the most recent work at the top. Additionally, adhere to the two-page limit, and use bullet points to keep things clear and concise.

Transitioning to the next section, emphasise accomplishments over duties. Steer clear of a merely listing your job responsibilities. Instead, showcase your positive impact by incorporating Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Present noteworthy results in numerical or percentage form, providing a comprehensive view with time frames, scale, and outcomes.

By effectively communicating success, quantifying achievements, and aligning with measurable metrics, you enhance your likelihood of securing an interview. This strategic approach sets you apart and strengthens your candidacy.

Strengthen your CV by using action verbs in your list of accomplishments.

What is an action verb?

It’s a verb that conveys doing.

Take an IT professional, for instance; they might opt for powerful, industry-specific verbs like “configured,” “engineered,” or “converted.”

The objective is to persuade the recruiter that you’re the right fit for the position.

Using action verbs at the beginning of sentences makes your contribution clear and impactful and can increase the reader’s interest.

If you’re unsure about integrating action verbs into your CV and interviews, explore Indeed’s Career Guide featuring over 150 examples!

Finally, our last CV tip: first impressions count.

Your CV should be concise and neatly formatted so that recruiters and ATS can find what they are looking for. We recommend creating a CV in Word or in PDF format as both offer readability and are ATS-friendly.

Before you start applying for jobs, check that your personal information is up-to-date and consistent with your LinkedIn profile. Any inaccuracies between the two sends a red flag to recruiters!