The New CV Rules

Stop making your CV look old!

Employers today receive hundreds of applications for each vacancy. That’s why you cannot make any mistakes when it comes to writing and formatting your CV. This doesn’t mean that your CV is all that matters, but it is the first impression that will help you get your foot in the door. So if you haven’t updated your CV in a while, you may be falling behind the competition. As the job market keeps changing, many job seekers believe that a CV has become an obsolete job search tool, but this is not the case. The format will change from time to time, but having a well-written CV is still important. My Career Success is here to highlight the new rules of how to format your most important personal marketing tool.

Be Specific

Many job seekers prefer to keep their CVs overly vague in hopes of expanding their career options. Instead, a CV should highlight specific details about your employment history while contextualizing your achievements in numbers. Try to include quantifiable results such as sales numbers, growth rates, or even the number of new customers won. Keep in mind that having numbers in your CV is much more believable than fancy personal descriptions.

Choose Hard Courses Over Straight A’s

Many job seekers to this day believe that having a high GPA would open all kinds of doors for them. But employers don’t hire a straight-A student over someone with relevant work experience and a great track record. While having good grades might tip the scales in your favor in a competitive situation, but in most cases, grades aren’t really that important to employers. In fact, getting a lower grade in a challenging course can be more impressive to employers than getting an A in an easy class.

The One Page Rule

You may have heard that you should try to fit your CV on one page. This rule applies to recent graduates or entry-level candidates who can easily fit all of their experience on one page without sacrifice. But for experienced and seasoned professionals, a two-page CV or even more is the most common format. You no longer have to spend countless hours trying to squeeze tens of experience years onto a single sheet. The 1-page CV no longer rules, as today’s recruiters are more likely to be scrolling down on their screen than flipping to the next page.

Include Relevant Keywords

Nowadays, CVs are filtered and scanned electronically as often as they’re read by an actual person.If your CV doesn’t include the right keywords, there’s a good chance that it won’t land in the employer’s hands. You can add keywords to your CV in 2 ways. The easier way is to simply include a “Core Competencies” section that has a number of keywords that are relevant to your specialty. The smarter yet harder way to add keywords is to place them within the job descriptions of your work and university experience.