Top tips for creating a brilliant CV

John Lawton, Director at Ezek - one of our partner organizations, has produced the first part in his “How to create a brilliant CV” article. Here is a flavour of what he has to say.

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Some advice for anyone thinking of re-vamping that old CV – a few things to consider first...

1. Don’t re-vamp an old CV! Start from scratch and really think about who you are and what you want. The process you go through in creating the CV is perhaps more important than the document itself. There are questions about yourself that you need to know the answer to before attending any interviews. The creation of a new CV is the ideal time to do this.
2. Have a clear identity! Only include the information that is relevant to what you want to do next. You don’t have to appeal to a wide audience, just the employer you want to work for. If you think you have more than one identity, have more than one CV. Send it to people that will be interested! It can be very frustrating for employers to receive many irrelevant CVs.
3. Give your achievements. Express what you have done in the past tense – then I am sure that you actually did it. Illustrate the benefits of what you did and quantify this if you can.
4. John gives an amusing list of his top bad CV categories. If you find your CV falling into one of these, it may be worth speaking to a professional. Here are the ones from John’s list that we at EcoSearch see most often
   a. The ‘I followed a system on the web’ CV
   b. The ‘cut and paste job description’ CV
   c. The ‘let me tell you my life story’ CV

For more from John, you can subscribe to the Your Career articles at www.yourcareer.co.uk/articles and receive all future instalments direct.