‘How to write a compelling CV’ webinar summary and recording
Unlock your career potential and join jobs.ac.uk for an engaging one-hour webinar.
Career Coach Cathy Balfe will guide you through the essential steps to crafting a powerful CV that captures the attention of recruiters in the non-academic job market.
Overview
- Timing is key: Discover the best time to craft your CV
- Tailoring: Understand the crucial importance of tailoring your CV to a role
- Employers’ needs: Uncover what employers are really looking for
- ATS insights: Learn about Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and ensure your CV gets past the digital screening stages
- Layout & Design: Get tips on formatting, length and key sections to help your CV shine
- Common pitfalls: Cathy will reveal frequent mistakes candidates make to help you avoid making these same errors in your own applications
- Final tips for success: Walk away with some final tips to help empower you to create a CV that captures the attention of recruiters
Timing is key
It is important to have a role in mind when writing your CV.
It is difficult to write a CV without one as you won’t be able to model your CV after the job description and ensure you are presenting the key skills and qualifications mentioned.
Cathy shows her ‘Career Development Model’, which are the steps you can take to determine your career path which will then inform your CV at the application stage.
Career Choice
- Know yourself
- Know the world
- Test it out
- Decision Making
Getting Ready
- Skills
- Experience
- Education
Making it Happen
- Job Search
- Applications
- Interviews
Tailoring your CV
Activity 1: How long do you think it takes a recruiter to read a CV?
Recruiters will rule your CV out within the first 10 seconds if they don’t see that you’re meeting their minimum requirements.
You want to ensure you are clearly showing the recruiter that you are a good fit for the position.
Benefits of tailoring your CV
- You are making it easier for the recruiter to see your relevant skills, experience and qualifications.
- It shows your motivation. It can be quite clear when you have not tailored your CV and when you do it shows the recruiter you have gone to the effort of tailoring and are therefore invested in the role.
Cathy shares some additional tips around tailoring.
She suggests you don’t ‘quick apply’ for roles on sites such as LinkedIn or Indeed as you won’t have tailored your CV to the role. Instead, apply directly on the organisations site, where jobs.ac.uk advert ‘apply’ buttons redirect to.
Another key tip is to save all application materials so you can refer to them in the interview as you are often unable to look back on applications after they are submitted.
How to Tailor your CV/Employer’s Needs
Step 1: Find out what skills, experience and qualifications the employer is looking for.
Generally, this information will be in the job description. It is also good practice to read the other parts of the advert as they can also give insight into the job requirements.
Search social media and the organisation’s website, network with current or former employees to find out more about what the organisation looks for in employees, their company values, and culture.
Make a list of everything they are looking for.
Activity 2: Job Vacancy Analysis
Read through a job advert and description of a role you are interested in. Pull out the list of skills, education, and qualifications that the employer is looking for.
Cathy goes through her example job description and highlights key skills and qualifications the employers are looking for.
This essentially creates a blueprint of the ideal candidate.
Step 2: Show them evidence that you meet all (or most) of these.
Once you know what an employer is looking for, now spend time thinking about the evidence you can provide to show you have these skills and qualifications.
Where possible provide specific details or quantitative achievements.
Adding details provides credibility and gives additional insight into what you’ve achieved in your career.
Activity 3: Providing Evidence
Take the list of skills that you developed in the previous exercise when you were going through the job description. Choose one that you can provide evidence for from your experience, include specifics.
If you are finding it difficult to meet the employer’s requirements, think about what you could be doing to upskill and build that evidence.
If you are not being called to interview, think whether it is CV or fit?
Cathy mentions coursera.org, which hosts relatively low-cost courses on a range of topics that could bolster your CV and provide that evidence of skills.
While you are completing a course, you can include it on your CV with the start date and say it is ongoing e.g. December 2024 – Present.
It is also important to think creatively when demonstrating these skills, so you stand out from other strong candidates.
Cathy draws the example of skills attained through academic experience, how it can transfer to professional services.
ATS Insights
“An applicant tracking system (ATS) is software for recruiters and employers to track candidates throughout the recruiting and hiring process. This software can come equipped with capabilities ranging from simple database functionality to a full-service suite of tools that makes it easy for businesses of any size to filter, manage, and analyse candidates.” – Oracle
Cathy recommends that you:
- Use a word document saved as .docx or .pdf, and standard font such as Calibri font & size 10.5-11.5.
- Avoid tables, multiple columns, graphics, icons, lines, boxes.
- Don’t put anything into header / footer (especially contact details).
- Use easily understandable sections titles (e.g. “Work Experience”, “Education”, “Skills”).
- Use searchable keywords.
- Use language that is likely to be searched, based on your analysis of the job description.
- Use the short and long version of the keyword e.g. SEO and Search Engine Optimisation.
See sample CV for guidance.
CV Layout and Design
Length
Your CV should be no more than 2 pages in length.
If you don’t have much experience 1 page is fine, but 1.5 should be avoided.
If your CV is 1.5 pages, think about what else you could add i.e. training, interests or try different formatting that would extend the length to 2 pages.
Academic CVs are the exception, it is not uncommon to see a 7-to-8-page CV as they typically include many sections such as publications, grants, conferences etc.
If you are coming from an academic background but applying for a professional services role, follow the standard 2-page CV.
Another exception is jobs that require ongoing CPD, such as a solicitor.
Cathy recommends utilising an appendix, so you can still follow the 2-page standard but if the recruiter wants to read more, they can go to the appendix.
Sections
Typical sections include:
- Contact details
- Profile
- Work Experience
- Education
- Skills
- Interests (optional)
Other sections might comprise of training, volunteering, CPD etc.
A common question Cathy gets asked is ‘what order you should present education and work experience?’. She advises to put whatever is more relevant to the role you are applying for first. For example, if you are a recent graduate in the area you are applying to put education first or on the other hand if you have many years of work experience.
Cathy then goes on to discuss these sections in more detail.
Profile Section
First 1-2 sentences, summarises relevant education, experience and a few key strengths.
Following sentences, pick a few key skills (approx. 3-4) and provides evidence.
Think back to the job description analysis and highlight the skills the recruiter is looking for.
Activity 4: Write your own profile
Using the job description used in earlier activities and the format above, pick out three key skills the recruiter is looking for that you can clearly demonstrate.
Sentence 1: Summarize relevant experience, education & a few key strengths
Sentence 2: Discuss one of skills, try providing evidence (e.g. link to where demonstrated)
Sentence 3: Discuss 2nd skill, try providing evidence (e.g. link to where demonstrated)
Sentence 4: Discuss 3rd skill, try providing evidence (e.g. link to where demonstrated)
Sentence 5: Discuss 4th skill, or provide brief statement around motivation / future career goals in a way that is strategic & authentic
Common Pitfalls
Avoid superfluous language. Be clear, simple and concise in your writing. Be factual, provide evidence where possible and quantity achievements.
Make your CV unique to you and don’t just give the job description back to the recruiter.
Cathy gives a critical ChatGPT warning, while it can be useful to rewrite sentences and give you a starting point for a CV, it can only give you what you give it, and it can read like a job description.
Ensure you provide evidence for your skills and make sure they are aligned with the role.
Include your current course/role. This is something that is often forgotten or people think they can’t include it.
Another common mistake, is not giving the appropriate amount of ‘weight’ to the most relevant parts of the CV. If your course is the most relevant part to the role you are applying for, expand on it. Write about the modules and projects you were involved in.
Be strategic, you do not have to include the same amount of bullet points for work experience you did many years ago as your most current/relevant role.
Don’t give unnecessary information such as DOB, marital status or photo. Check country norms for more guidance but in the UK, it is advisable to not include this information as it conflicts with anti-discrimination laws.
Use bullet points instead of large pieces of text, it is easier for the recruiter to read and therefore more likely they will keep reading.
Avoid giving long description of what companies you worked for did – waste of CV space and the recruiter can search it themselves if they are interested.
Final Tips
There are benefits to using ChatGPT or other generative AI software.
If you are struggling to find a starting point with your CV, you can feed the AI a job description and it will provide a rough outline to get you started. Ensure that you edit it to make it unique to you and that it does not read like a job description.
Further, if there is a sentence or bullet point that is not reading the way you want to, you can ask the AI to rewrite the sentence for a CV.
Use AI sparely, as Cathy has warned it will provide you generic information. See her sample CV for guidance.
If you are including your LinkedIn profile on your CV, ensure the information is the same and up to date and there are useful instructions on how to shorten your profile URL, so it looks more professional.
Finish your CV with ‘reference on request’.
There are three reasons Cathy recommends this:
1. It clearly signals to the recruiter this is the end of the CV.
2. It is important not to include reference’s contact details on your CV as your reference would likely not be happy for their details to be shared so widely. It shows the recruiter you are aware of this professional norm and GDPR compliance.
3. It gives you time to reconnect with the reference, confirm they are still happy to be contacted, and it gives them time to think about what they will say about you to the recruiter.
Finally, resources on how to treat visa status on your CV (UK) (Ireland) and how to handle gaps on your CV.
Conclusion
Timing: Figure out what you want to do first & find job want to apply for.
Tailoring: Take time to tailor your CV for each opportunity.
Employers’ needs: Read job specs, research company values to understand what they are looking for in candidates (also, talk to people in organisation).
ATS insights: Use simple CV formatting, use keywords (long & short).
Layout & Design: 2 pages, key sections (contact details, profile, experience, education, skills).
If career development is taking up a lot of your time or you need to focus on it more, use the Timeboxing technique.
Meet the Host
Cathy Balfe, Career Coach
Cathy has a background in academia and professional services, starting her career in Economics research before retraining as a Careers Advisor. She completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Career Guidance with the University of Warwick and is a Registered Career Development Professional with the Career Development Institute. Cathy worked for 3 years at the University of London, helping hundreds of students navigate their careers. She then relocated to Limerick, Ireland where she started her own Career Coaching business called Career Coach Me. Since starting her business she has worked with over 400 individuals across different industries and seniority levels, helping them identify their future career goals, write strong CVs and application materials and prepare to do well in interviews.
You can find more information about Cathy and her Career Coaching approach on her website and connect on LinkedIn.
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