Sell Yourself #2: The CV

So, this is really the main purpose of the CV, to ‘grab attention’ – not in fact to get across every last detail of your working career or life as is often portrayed. There’s much debate and many an article on the length, the look, the format and form so I’m sharing some of my personal thoughts on CV’s for a modern day Creative.

More than one:

I find it hard to believe that in today’s working world there are people who aren’t on LinkedIn. Why wouldn’t you want to be reachable about international opportunities, let your dream employer stumble across you​​ (and your impressive list of awards) all while keeping up to date and connected with people in your industry.

You ​can have a well put together CV on your website or portfolio site, a LinkedIn Profile a​s​ well ​as a ​PDF CV that you can share with recruiters and prospective employers ​ – the point I’m trying to make is that today you can and should have your information in multiple formats, ready to be found, ​to ​sen​d​, or ​to ​grab the attention of anyone who comes across it.

Relevance:

Make sure that every piece of information listed on your CV is relevant. If this rule applies – there’s no need to worry about the length. You want to highlight your talents and experience, and peak someones interest – not make them sift through a short novel to find the details relevant to them.

It’s a balancing act of information – give them enough so they have a good understanding of who you are, but still feel intrigued enough to call you for further discussion. Bringing me to another important point – Contact details. Always make sure these are on the first page and easy to find, many people hide these on the last page or cease to put them in at all – not a good idea.

Layout:

Whilst gimmicky CV ideas can grab attention, just make sure the content holds up.​ ​If you’re in a situation where you think something personalised to the company would give you an added point by all means go ahead, perhaps just follow up with an easy to read, well written and chronological version.

The problem with overly-creative CV’s is that sometimes as a recruiter or client you just want to get down to the nitty gritty. How many years experience does this person have, and from where, working on what, did they win anything for it or who has had something good to say about them. Content is key.

You can show your creativity in more subtle ways (and let your portfolio do the ​hard work), for example use a beautiful easy to read font, with precise kerning, perhaps a colour palette and ​simple ​info-graphic. Or add a quirky tone or voice to the text. But CV’s that have you doing puzzles and turning your neck at odd angles just to read it are more o​f a pain than a help​. And always spell check, intact double spell check!

There are so many platforms that you can look at to help you with your CV format – here’s a good one to get started with: http://creddle.io/