KNOW YOUR READER & GET NOTICEDWhat is the goal of the CV? Landing an interview

Who’s your reader?HR person, department head, junior person, all of the above, who knows?

But you can make certain assumptions…..He/she probably has 20 – 30 seconds to read your resume, so it will most likely be skimmed throughYou are probably being compared to other candidates

Things to keep in mind:

Formatting:

Consistency:-dates, abbreviations, formatting, order, spacing1 page is usually bestLess is more – don’t over format & keep the resume clean – you don’t want your reader to work

Content:Keep it short & sweet – youdon’t want to lose, confuse or bore your reader or he’ll just go on to the next CVUse active verbs – never use “I”and use strong verbs in the past tenseDo not have a paragraph about the company you worked for unless you owned or founded it – a few words is enough to give your work blurb some context Write for the sector that you want to get into – the reader should understand the terms and descriptions.

Achievements!

• The biggest mistake people make is not demonstrating their work experience through their achievements.

• Identifying what you’ve achieved and not falling back on just laundry listing your previous jobs is one of the biggest challenges to creating a solid CV.

• Employers want to know whether you were good at your previous jobs, not just what you did at them. You may be compared against other candidates that held a similar position than you did – so you need to make sure to stand out against them.

• Don’t just list the tasks that you were responsible for because this is usually pretty obvious from looking at the company that you worked for and your job title. You really need to show that you excelled at your previous jobs by highlighting what you’ve achieved and how you’ve added value to the company.

Achievements…..Ways to do it:Quantitative info: did sales increase? Did you surpass a sales goal? Did costs decrease? Was the

company/your team more efficient? More productive? Did customer/client satisfaction increase? If you managed a team, how many people were on it? Did you dotted line manage a team? Did you get a promotion? If so, how many and within what time frame? What size budget did you manage? What was your customer service/sales/client volume? If you worked on/secured a deal/contract, what was the money value of it? What was the customer volume that you handled? If you worked in IT, how many internal/external users were affected by your work?

Initiative: did you spearhead any projects? Did you identify a problem, area for growth or improvement and propose/implement a solution or strategy? Did you take the lead on some new program/project, etc.?

Leadership/Training: Did you directly or indirectly manage anyone? Did you have to train any new employees or existing team members or members of another team?

Recognition: Did you receive any awards? Were you ranked vis-à-vis your peers? Were you selected by anyone at the company to work on a special project or to move or launch a department or program?

Results of your work: Follow your work down the line…..were there accomplishments based on work that you handed off to another team? Any success from your projects after you left? If you researched something and presented findings and recommendations, were they implemented? If so, were they successful? If you were an account manager/provided IT/customer support, did the client renew?

TO WRAP UP…..

• The goal of the resume is to land an interview• Know your reader and control the reading experience• The 2 key components to a strong resume are clean formatting and effective

content• Highlighting your achievements is most critical to impressing your reader and

differentiating you from the rest of the pack• Get 2nd, 3rd, 4th and even 5th opinions on your resume – there’s always room for

improvement

What‘s next:

• The name of your CV:Kalis_Marcel_CV2015.docx

• Send yor CV to Career Services by 16 February 9 AM: career.services@esmt.org

• Don‘t change the name, overwrite the document CS will send you

• Final deadline: 20 April 2015