“Free” is my favourite price and it’s probably yours too but sometimes you do get what you pay for and pretty much all of the Free CV Templates that proliferate the internet are of a pretty low quality. On a recent trawl through I failed to find any that did anything other than suggest you use a layout that has been around since before jobs were invented and submit your details in a style and format that could send a glass-eye to sleep.

Typically, they begin with suggesting that most of the first page is occupied with unnecessary headings  (CV, Curriculum Vitae, Resume) and that you progress  in a manner that ensures that you miss a vital opportunity to actually engage with the reader from the outset.

Some cheerily suggest that after this less than gripping start that you now include a section that is often called something like “personal objectives”. You can seize this opportunity to add some comments about your personal aims and aspirations, maybe adding your strict criteria that you will exercise before even considering a position. Why not expand on this golden opportunity and ask if the recruiter wouldn’t mind sending you a cash donation or maybe pop round and do  a bit of light gardening for you: after all, your application is going straight down the drain at this stage so there’s little left to lose.

Now you can add your career history, in a strictly “reverse chronological format”. This almost certainly guarantees that issues such as a wobbly recent employment history have a very bright light shone on them and that perversely, key data is completely under represented.

The very “best” of these Free CV Templates often suggest that you close by adding a list of your hobbies and interests: this should confirm for the very few readers that have arrived at this point that you truly are a loner, sociophobe, deviant or have other characteristics that should make the recruiter very wary indeed of even speaking to you over the phone, let alone risk being in the same room with you.

This guest Blog has been posted by David Boxley at Successful CV Writing. Successful CV Writing provides outstanding CVs for every sector and every level of experience or seniority. There are masses of free CV writing guides and articles to read at www.successfulcvwriting.co.uk or contact them at:

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How not to get your message across (click)

Recruiters are looking for high quality staff that they feel will be able to add some real value to their organisation and importantly, will stay long enough to make a worthwhile contribution. This clearly presents problems for candidates that have a fairly volatile career history and it is even more difficult if that volatility was in the recent past. This gives the candidate two possible options. The first is to have a bout of severe amnesia and start missing out jobs and doing all sorts of creative stuff to stretch details to cover the gaps. This is not recommended for many reasons, all of which will see you either squirming at an interview when it becomes apparent that “something doesn’t add up” or possibly ejected from a new position when an unexpected reference check is conducted and the information doesn’t match your CV.

So: what’s the strategy for overcoming this?

The very best advice here is to avoid using the classic “reverse chronological” CV format. This is the one that seems to feature in all of the “free CV templates” that are available and using this will make it really easy for the recruiter to reject your application as the very first thing it will highlight will be your unstable career history.

Don’t be tempted to try to explain away the reasons, although: “company ceased trading”, “made redundant”, etc may be appropriate as events clearly were out of the candidate’s control. Even more damaging is to highlight reasons, however true or plausible, that refer to conflict or disagreement: “couldn’t get on with new Director”, “Company reneged on bonus payments” etc.

It’s far better to relegate the “chronological” aspect of your CV to the second page and to write a “skills/achievements” CV. This will mean that you write the first page with 3 basic sections. Always use a well crafted “profile” for the first paragraph and then use two other paragraphs, choosing from: “Key Skills, “Key Achievements” or “Education/Qualifications”. Time spent thinking and writing these in a meaningful style will still represent your very best assets on the first page and will mitigate the possible negatives that may appear on page two. If done to a great standard, the recruiter will have formed such a positive impression initially that it will outweigh any perceived negatives.

This Guest Blog has been provided by David Boxley at Successful CV Writing. Successful CV Writing specialise in producing outstanding CVs for Professionals and Directors. Does your current CV need a health check? – use this link to upload your current CV for a full and frank appraisal. Free CV Review or visit the website at http://www.successfulcvwriting.co.uk and discover dozens of free CV writing tips and articles.

How important is the correct choice of words?

A great CV is a crisp, clear, concise and relevant document that compels the reader to pick up the phone and insist that you attend an interview. That’s what a great CV would do but most CVs have been written without due regard to content and editing.

A CV should ideally be two to three pages long, well laid-out and correctly formatted. All of the content should actually do something positive: it should strengthen the chance of the candidate being interviewed. Unfortunately, many people who choose to write their own CV understandably lack the skills to complete this task effectively. After all, it’s not an everyday task and this drives candidates to employ a CV writing style that is either “conversational” or slightly better, to use a “report writing” style.

The conversational style drives the writer to produce a CV that reads as though it’s a transcript from an interview. “I spent 10 years at Pratco and during that time my duties meant that I was responsible for ensuring that all of the office report procedures were……….”  The reader has probably dozed off at this point or more probably, is selecting the next CV to read.  Your CV needs to be relevant and prove successes. Recruiters do not want to read a list of duties: select a few successes and include these in the relevant sector of your CV, telling the reader in as few words as possible what benefit it delivered to your employer.

How about “Hobbies and Interests”?  A great opportunity to ensure rejection. “I’m an avid Untied fan”. Excellent: the recruiter’s a City season ticket holder – so “bye bye”.  “I love reading, photography, and model making” – this may send a message that you enjoy your own company far too much and will never fit into the dynamic environment that the recruiter has.

If there is a simple way to summarise what a great CV should include it may look something like this. Only include relevant and supportable information that offers proof of success and achievement and ensure that its inclusion enhances your prospects of securing interviews. Anything other than this should be excluded or subject to a re-think and re-write.

Be mindful that the further back in history the employment or achievement, the less space should be devoted to it. For jobs over 10 years ago, it’s perfectly acceptable to cover them with a single line on your “Career History” section:

“Area Manager                             Smith and Smith                                     1987-1990”.

This Guest Blog has been provided by David Boxley at Successful CV Writing. Successful CV Writing specialise in producing outstanding CVs for Professionals and Directors. Does your current CV need a health check? – use this link to upload your current CV for a full and frank appraisal. Free CV Review or visit the website at http://www.successfulcvwriting.co.uk and discover dozens of free CV writing tips and articles.

How important is the correct choice of words?

The best way to commence writing a CV is to give some time and thought to writing a compelling and meaningful “Profile”.

There seems to be three very distinct approaches taken by people who choose to writer their own CV regarding the use of a “Profile” and none of them really helps the candidate’s cause.

Approach One.
Don’t include one on the CV; just produce a very conventional CV that lists jobs and duties.

Approach Two.
Award yourself God like qualities and write a profile about how you are: “visionary, inspirational, a natural leader” and other overblown and unsupported statements.

Approach Three.
Write a list of blindingly obvious statements about “qualities” that recruiters could reasonably assume that every candidate would have anyway. “Hard working, reliable, trustworthy, team player” would be among the favourites. Why not add: “rarely turns up drunk, never takes more than three months sick leave each year, haven’t stolen anything of value from an employer for ages”?

A better approach to Profile writing?

Maybe give some thought to opening your CV with a well thought out and relevant profile that paints a highly positive picture in the mind of the recruiter and immediately begins to set you apart from other candidates. How about: “A highly experienced Project Manager with a 10 year history of delivering multi million pound projects on-time and within budget for the UK’s top Civil Engineering company”.

This approach says several things, all of them extremely positive and offers a skills-set linked to a demonstrable history of success of managing both time and cost effectively. Stock Trading Furthermore, the candidate has worked for the biggest player in the sector and this tells a recruiter that he has a stable work history and is clearly valued by his employer as he has been retained for 10 years during highly volatile employment times. The recruiter would also reasonably assume that the Project Manager is used to working to the highest of standards and successfully complying with a range of Industry and H&S guidelines.

This example has used just 28 words as the opening line for a profile and has probably achieved far more in one sentence than the majority of CVs achieve over several pages.

This Guest Blog has been provided by David Boxley at Successful CV Writing. Successful CV Writing specialise in producing outstanding CVs for Professionals and Directors. Does your current CV need a health check? – use this link to upload your current CV for a full and frank appraisal. Free CV Review or visit the website at http://www.successfulcvwriting.co.uk and discover dozens of free CV writing tips and articles.

How important is the correct choice of words?

Well, you could start at the beginning but how about starting at the end? More realistically, start writing your CV with the end in mind. Still confused? Stop thinking about yourself for a moment and give some thought to the poor soul who will have to wade through the mass of CVs that they will undoubtedly receive for every advertised position. The response could well be in the hundreds, so unsurprisingly, the recruiter’s first task will often be to lighten their load and the easiest way to begin this is to spend a few seconds with each one before deciding to reject it or select it for further consideration. It really is unrealistic to expect a recruiter to read each CV in full, particularly as the majority of them will appear to have been constructed with the aim of making the reader’s task as difficult and joyless as possible. So, with this in mind, how would you perceive that a poorly formatted CV with information randomly spread across several pages would be received? Or, against this background: how would a clear, concise and visually appealing CV be viewed? Remember, we haven’t even started to think about content, experience and qualifications yet: we’re thinking about the vital first impression and what your CV’s look and feel says to a recruiter.

Does it say: “I’ve dashed this off in a few minutes because I really can’t be bothered with presentation or relevant detail; it’s all in there, somewhere, so just work it out for yourself”.

Or does it immediately portray an impression that the candidate is professional, understands how to present complex and important information in a clear and concise manner and has made a great deal of effort to either write their own CV or have been professional enough to understand that unsurprisingly, CV writing is not a core skill that they have and they have therefore commissioned a professional CV writer to produce one on their behalf.

This was the meaning of “starting at the end”: the end being that at some stage, a recruiter has to spend a very short time in assessing your CV and hopefully placing it in a very select group that will be considered in detail.

So give your current CV a 20 second appraisal: can it clear the vital first hurdle that is outlined above or does the “look and feel” say “please reject me”?

This Guest Blog has been provided by David Boxley at Successful CV Writing. Successful CV Writing specialise in producing outstanding CVs for Professionals and Directors. Does your current CV need a health check? – use this link to upload your current CV for a full and frank appraisal. Free CV Review or visit the website at http://www.successfulcvwriting.co.uk and discover dozens of free CV writing tips and articles.