How to Create a Winning CV

A recent study by Australia At Work reveals that the average job tenure of Australian employees is seven years, which is by far the lowest in developed economies, for example, the European average is approximately 11 years. This means that the typical Australian employee with a working life of 50 years, could expect to change jobs 7 times in their career.  Since it is your CV which will get you the interview for each of the new jobs, your CV will be a crucial factor in your career progression. This is why you must become an expert in art of CV creation – and to that end, here are 5 tactics that you can use to help you write a great CV.

1.)  Consider the length of your CV; too short and it may look you have not put in enough effort, and too long and may appear as if you lack the ability to effectively summarize your work history. Worse still, if it’s too long, you may find that today’s typically time pressurized manager’s may not have time to read it all – which is a disaster in job application terms. So, what is the correct length? Well, it should really be proportional to your experience, but your typical mid-career professional would be expected to deliver a 2 page CV, a graduate might be able to present a 1-1.5 page CV and a technical specialist or candidate with 20 years experience might deliver a 2-4 page CV.

2.) One Size Does Not Fit All –  Gone are the days when you could produce one CV and e-mail this out to multiple employers, the ‘scatter-gun’ approach. Today, the competition is so fierce that to stand out from the crowd, you need to tailor each CV application to suit the company/role that you are applying for.

You can tailor your CV by firstly identifying the pertinent skills for that role in the job description, following which you can then accentuate those relevant skills in your CV.

3.)  Make Your CV Readable – In most industries the CV should use black text on white background with a conservative highly readable font such as Arial or Times New Roman. Also, adopt an effective CV layout as this is likely to have a greater impact on your reader. If you look on-line you will be able to find many good quality sample CV layouts.

4.)  Work History –  When describing your work history, ensure that you include the following headings, for greatest effect: Job Title, Job Purpose, Key Responsibilities, Achievements. Ensure that both your Responsibilities and Achievements are listed as bullet points for increased impact. Write achievements in SMART format, e.g. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bounded. An example of a SMART achievement might be ‘Increased sales by 33% during 2011′, or ‘Reduced Production Times by 10% in 2009′. Also, tailor your key responsibilities and achievements by including or prioritising the ones most relevant to the job description.

5.)  Prioritise your most relevant skills and achievements in the first third of the resume.  You can do this in two ways. Include a 4 to 6 line profile which summarizes your key skills and qualities and ensure this is tailored to the job description. Include a highlights section of 2 to 4 bullets points which outlines your most relevant and outstanding achievements. Once again, ensure this is tailored to the job description.