CV Writing Services

Current Trends In CV Writing- Recession Recovery Update

We write CVs for people all the time. In the time we have been trading (last 3 years), we have seen a trend in the way that people write their CVs. More and more free advice is available over the internet and people are genuinely confused by what is correct and what is spurius advice. The old adage of the value of advice being worth the price you pay for it has never been more true- indeed, we do also offer a free Ebook through our website in an attempt to give people some solid advice in place of some of the absolute rubbish out there. The most recent trend is a variation on the theme of making your CV stand out.  We get CVs for review and the most common mistakes are fancy fonts, highlighting, sending the CV in .pdf format, coloured backgrounds and boxing/ highlighting text and boxes, supposedly to make the CV stand out. The bottom line is that the more professional, the less cluttered and the clearer the CV the better. Whatever you do, please don’t make the background of your Cv purple like a hopeful job seeker just sent to us- this is a real no go area. The next thing that we are seeing is for recent graduates, particularly those mature graduates who are now newly qualified and returning to the work place. There is a new phenomenon in UK Universities called a placement officer. They are civil servants, employed by the Universities  to try and get students work when they leave University. As well meaning as these individuals actually are, they generally have no clue about what actually works in a CV. They insist on majoring with the academic qualifications; however what an employer really does want to see is how you can bring extra value to them- it is imperative that you show the potential employer what you have delivered, achieved or in some other way brought benefit to your employer- in the end, that’s why they employ you in the first place. So the message is pretty simple really- keep your Cv really simple, avoid gimics like the plague and don’t listen to University placement officers unless they really do know what they are talking about. The next element that we are seeing all the time is a pre-occupation with everything that they do every day. Just why people think that a new employer will be interested at all in what duties you carry out are beyond me. Do you know what an employer really wants to see in your CV? The answer may or may not surprise you- employers really want to see what benefits you have delivered for a previous employer- the reason is that is you deliver value for one employer, the chances are pretty strong that you will also deliver significant value for a new employer. Think through the benefit that you have given to previous employers- the best deliverables (my word) are the ones that are financial. For example- have you made your employer money through increasing profit, increasing sales, improving margin, reducing costs, reducing complaints, negotiating better prices from suppliers, improved productivity, reduced errors, you get the idea? Next thing- quantift the amount of money that has been saved, the amount of additional margin, the value of new business, the number of reduced complaints. Be creative in how this is expressed- maybe you could look at actual pounds, dollars, Euros, etc- possibly look at percentage increases, figures expressed against the average for the company, industry averages, against last years figures, budget, etc. Find the way that shows your achievement in it’s best light- sometimes it will be the actual amount of money, sometimes a percentage that is most impressive- think about how an employer will view the figures- don’t use the same values all the time but vary the way in which you present the figures. Whatever you do, don’t bore your future employer with what you do- of course they need to understand the function that you carry out but please don’t insult their intelligence- clued up employers know what their employees do so don’t waste valuable space on your CV by regurgitating the job description- you will be wasting your time writing, your employers time reading and the bottom line is that it definitely won’t get you that all important job.

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