Everyone knows that you really don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression. A lot of job seekers don’t realise that a CV is the very first impression that you make, and if yours isn’t up to scratch then you may be doing yourself more harm than good and in some instances, it may even ruin your chances of being hired altogether.

Your CV is a Record

It’s so important that your CV is the best that it can be because it’s essentially a record. It helps you to keep track of any minor achievements and it also gives you a chance to show off your accolades too.

Demonstrating Professionalism

Skills really aren’t everything when it comes to the job market. It isn’t all about what you can do, in fact, sometimes it’s actually about how you do it. Companies are always on the lookout for people who can present themselves in a professional way.

Reference

A CV helps employers to keep track of candidates and it also serves as a point of reference too. This helps to keep you visible and it also helps everyone during the hiring process.

What do Recruiters Look for?

Successful CVs stand out for a huge number of reasons. Recruiters in general however tend to pay special attention to the following traits when they are given a resume.

Presentation

The way that your CV looks is very important. Your resume should follow a standard template so that it isn’t confusing, and you also have to make sure that it is easy to read at a glance too. If it isn’t then this could make it very difficult for a potential employer to get the information they need. Inconsistent formatting, strange file formats and even typos are also to be avoided, as this is the best way for you to present yourself in a bad light.

Relevance

Employers tend to be interested in the various aspects of your history. They probably don’t care if you worked as a car washer part-time, or what you did after college. They only need to know anything that pertains to the job that is available. If you fill out your CV with every little bit of career history you have, then this could distract from the experience your potential employer is looking for.

Experience

Employers want to know what experience you have in the profession and they also want to know what skills you have too. This will help you to stand out as being the best choice for the job.

Key Skills that You need to Highlight

When you put together a CV, you'll soon find that it's difficult to know what skills you need to include and what you need to leave off. To make it easier, here are some of the skills you should be highlighting:

Administrative skills

If you arranged meetings with management, distributed paperwork or even contacted customers and/or suppliers to try and arrange deliveries then list this on your CV. You also need to include whether you handled any transmission of data between systems, and if you are experienced working with cloud-based servers.

Communication Skills

Communication skills that you should list, include whether you mediated any conflict and whether you distributed/drafted memos within your department. It’s also good to include if you read market reports, evaluated candidates for new positions or even recorded minutes at executive-level meetings.

Managerial Skills

If you worked in a managerial position, then include whether you oversaw customer service or financial operations. You also need to include whether you trained assistants, and if you ordered raw materials/confirmed amounts/managed the receipt of orders. Experience managing shop floor staff and staff rotas should also be included, along with coordinating deadlines and completion estimates between both staff and customers.

Interpersonal Skills

Interpersonal skills include managing and training new staff or taking charge of account management. You might also want to include whether you coordinated business lunches or worked with key clients. Planning annual holiday parties and even hosting employee lunches are skills that should be listed too.

IT Skills

IT skills can range from coordinating social media campaigns to building company websites with various elements such as CSS and HTML. If you oversaw the backup of files, installed software or managed scalable SaaS systems then these points should also be listed on your CV, especially if you worked with analytics or Excel databases.

Problem-Solving

Problem-solving skills should range from identifying issues with IT systems and providing alternative solutions. If you have experience in drafting reports, streamlining office functions or even addressing customer complaints then these are also great points to include.

Creativity Skills

Creativity skills include setting up a company blog, drawing up designs for products, designing new labels or logos for the company and creating invitations.

The STAR Method

When you are creating your CV, it is very important that you keep the STAR method in mind. This will help you to convey your talents and your skills in a way that employers can understand, and most importantly, remember.

Situation- You need to define a situation where you faced some sort of challenge in the workplace.

Task- Explain the task that you undertook to try and address the situation at hand.

Action- Talk about how the task was effective and even about how you implemented it into the situation.

Result- Talk about what happened and what you learnt from the challenge. Mention how this could be applied in future challenges.

All in all, you have to make sure that you present yourself professionally. A well-constructed CV will give you a huge advantage over your competition during the hiring process, but ultimately, it comes down to you as a professional too.