Tips to make your CV stand out!!

Today I share some tips for your better CV!

The other day, I joined the workshop “Make your CV stand out to recruiters, employers, and AT Software!” at the “Feel at Home Fair” for expats in the Netherlands. This post is based on the material from the workshop, delivered by Ms. Simona Giancola, an expert in job coaching and life coaching. She offers various kinds of personal coaching session and workshop in Leiden. Please check her website if you feel interested!

So, let’s begin with the very basic idea. We all should know that our CV is a professional advertisement targeted toward your future boss. The CV has to be appealing and easy to digest. Especially it should demonstrate “what we can do for you (the reviewers)”.

How can we advertise ourselves? The main 5 contents are as follows (you write these things in this order):

1. Contact information

2. Profile (Summary of your background in 4-6 lines, including skills, experience, industry etc.)

3. Core Skills (Bullet points that highlight your main skills, strengths, and what you can offer. Do you feel a “skill” should be something special? I don’t think so. Something common such as communication, teamwork, and time management can be your important “skills”!)

4. Roles (Company, Role title and Dates. Summarize your resposibilities and achievements. Impress your future boss with specific facts and figures!)

5. Education & Qualifications (Simple list, including only something relevant and important.)

Now you’ve got an idea about the main contents on your CV. Then, how can we make it more appealing?

The point is “Success verbs + Numbers”. Success verbs can help us to show our achievements. The examples of success verbs are :

Achieved, Awarded, Changed, Decreased, Expanded, Increased, Introduced, Maximized, Minimized, Produced, Soled……

We can make it even better when combining them with specific numbers or examples:

– Increased by 〇〇%

– Reduced by $〇〇

– Introduced new 〇〇 that led to ××

– Achieved the removal of 〇〇

I know some works cannot necessarily be measured by numbers, but the important thing is that we make things specific and easy to understand.

In the end, we have to check basic items.

– Max 2 pages

– Professional font (Arial, Calibri, Times New Roman…) in size 10-12

– Check your spelling and grammar

– Clear to read? Easy to find information?

As I said before, the CV is our advertisement, which means we have to care about how it looks, as well as what the content is. So, please do not forget to check basic items so that the CV gives a good impression to the reviewers.

Alright! This is the essence from the CV workshop I joined. Did you find it helpful? To me, at least, the workshop was really useful.

The lecturer Ms. Simona offers personal CV and Cover Letter check, or interview training for people wishing to start working in the Netherlands. You can see the details here. Actually, I am very interested in her coaching session. I think I’m going to book a free trial session.

I hope this post will help you to make your CV stand out, and we can keep on sharing information!!