Recruiter's view of what makes a great CV

JOB NEWS from PERFECT CVs

How an experienced recruiter views CVs -
from the lips of Sheila Delaney, an agency recruitment consultant
with over 15 years experience

When it comes to CVs, quality really matters; a dynamic professionally written CV, fully "optimised" for high response from job boards, will generate 4 or 5 times as many interviews as a typical, good self produced document. Getting a new job is a sophisticated marketing project and at the core of the project, your CV and introduction or application / cover letters / emails need to be compelling personalised marketing documents.

It's not just about listing your skills and experience. Check out the Perfect CVs Company guide to CV Writing on the CV Tips / CV Guide page.

Whether you apply on line or off line, your CV will typically spend approx. 20 seconds being viewed by a recruiter / researcher or the CV may be scanned by software to determine suitability for the vacancy in question and it will probably be amongst hundreds of other CVs undergoing the same process. So the need to stand out from the crowd with a perfect cv that will gain instant interest from a recruiter is clear.

Which is why the content, style and presentation of your new CV has to create an instant picture of you actually doing the job for which you are making an application. It's an activity best undertaken by a CV writing company with expert, experienced CV writers who specialise in professional CV writing services and know what gels with recruiters in specific industries and for different types and levels of employment. To win interview invitations your CV has to present you in a manner that demonstrates "fit" and aptitude for the type of role sought and identifies the "added value" you bring to an employer. A professionally written CV from CV Writing Companies is much more likely to win invitations to interview than a well constructed DIY CV. If you are not getting interview invitations, it's time to take a hard objective look at your CV.

Many recruiters use CV databases as their source of CVs when selecting candidates. They use keywords appropriate to the specification of their vacancy to search for CVs that display relevant skills, experience, style etc, in exactly the same way as using a search engine such as Google or Yahoo. Even if you are absolutely the best fit for the specification in question, the recruiter will never see your CV unless it is properly "optimised" with strategically placed keywords that match the recruiter's search strings. Knowing what the relevant keywords are and how to use them for each type of role is both a science and an art and it is difficult for a self produced CV to contain sufficient appropriate keywords, placed in the CV so that they will be recognised in database searches. Experienced CV writers and CV Writing organisations have learnt by experience and by regularly talking to recruiters what search strings are typically used fand can insert then into a CV for greatest effect.

One of the most frequent questions asked by candidates for vacancies that fail to make it to the interview stage is "What is wrong with my CV?" and the 60 million or so searches on Google suggest this aspect of CVs is a popular topic! There is of course no one answer - the Perfect CV Company provides a CV Tips page with sound advice on how a CV should be written but, apart from the keywords in CVs issue desribed above, there are three other aspects of CV Writing not related directly to the CV content that are important; these are the impression of style and personality that the CV portrays, the way that the CV "sells" its content to the recruiter and the "instant appeal" of a CV. Getting these aspects of a CV correct is difficult and also one of the main reasons why the CV Templates, on line CV construction systems, job-board CV services, CV samples and a lot of the CV tips and advice on the web all fail misearbly to create a CV that properly represents a candidate.

It requires objectivity to identify style and how many of us can confidently say we are honestly objective about ourselves? An experienced CV writer needs only to talk to a candidate about their career for 10 minutes or so to know exactly how to portary the candidate's style and personality in a new CV; it's just one of those things that comes with experience. Some CV Writing Companies also back this up with an optional short personality profiling exercise because they know just how critical this aspect of a CV can be in winning interviews. Similarly, how many of us are really good at selling ourselves, even if you happen to be in sales? Not many? Its not like selling a widget, but an experienced CV writer in a CV Writing Company can readily identify how to "sell" a candidate in a subtle manner appropriate to the vacancy and industry sector in question. The difference between most self produced CVs and a professional CV in this respect is huge and one of the main reasons why a professionally written CV will more likely secure interview invitations for the job seeker. The third issue is how to write a CV with "instant appeal" and quickly gain the interest of the recruiter encouraging the reading of the whole CV. Experienced CV Writers know how to create this appeal and how to avoid the recruiter hitting the reject button. Perfect CVs, for example have developed a system for assessing the instant appeal of a CV and they find that self produced CVs regularly score less than 50% of what is required to generate instant appeal. By contrast the CVs produced by the more professional CV Writing Companies generally score very highly in the instant appeal stakes. Knowing what to leave out of a CV is also important and generally interests outside work should only be included if those interests have some direct bearing on the application.

Many recruiters specialise in one or more industry sectors and so are familiar with industry specific terminology and typical descriptions. They will look for evidence that candidates really understand the environment in which they wish to work and the demands and pressures of particular industry / market sectors. Giving a recruiter confidence that you know your stuff is an important aspect of CV construction and if you use a CV Company then make sure the writer has a deep understanding of recruitment in your industry. Typical sectors are:

Finally, a note about "values". Most organisations, particularly larger ones foster a recruitment process that encourages diversity which brings as wide a range of views and attitudes as possible to bear on decisions that the organisation must make on a day to day basis. Organisations also operate to a set of values, either published or not and it is rare for an organisation to employ personnel, whatever their skill set and experience, who do not demonstrate a value code similar to that of the organisation. It can be very important that a CV conveys the values to which a candidate lives and how these values are exercised in everday work.

Most professional CV writing services are geared to creating a perfect CV for every client. Individually crafted CVs (ie not the mass produced templated variety) written by experienced CV writers have have helped hundreds of job seekers realise their ambitions, if you have any doubts about your CV, I would encourage you to join them? - the recruiter will appreciate it, it is quick and affordable and you will get the assurance of knowing you are doing the best to further something as critical as your career.

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