It has been said prospective employers can spend as little as ten seconds looking over a CV and there are several things they can take an instant dislike to. Most flat fee recruitment services will give you professional advice and offer services to help with sifting through CVs and selecting the most suitable candidates for interview.
However if you are a job hunter there are a number of things you can do to make your CV stand out more and not just be discarded. Things like making it user friendly, putting the best aspects of your professional experiences at the top of the CV, so recruiters don’t have to search for it. Look at the top page of your CV, is it geared towards the job your applying for? Does it have certain important keywords popping out? If not, this could mean it is overlooked.
Resumes should not be written in the 1st or 3rd person, so do not use “I did this” or “Mrs Smith does this”. Just write normally and do not use URL or pictures, unless of course that your work is in this media.
Keep your fonts and text size as standard as you can, you may think it’s pretty but recruiters do not like the swirly writing and it means more of a chance it will be discarded.
Give yourself a headline: “Senior Recruitment Consultant with extensive experience” is better than putting objectives or experiences. If you make it stand out by placing the text in bold, it will grab the reader to want to give it a proper look over.
The most important and golden rule is to be honest. Don’t misrepresent your past experiences because chances are you will be caught out with a question you simply do not have an answer for during the interview stage.
Castle Hill House