Career Advice: Master your CV Writing Skills.
Let me ask you the following:
How long have you been looking for work? How many times have you sent your CV to apply for a role? How many times have you created a CV for a specific role and company? Does applying for jobs feel like throwing bottles into the sea?
With my CV advice, you are about to see yourself arriving at the door of your next employer, offering exactly what they are asking for. Press the bell and they will open the door, Deliveroo style.
Ideally, my CV advice will sound like common sense to you. However, they also say that common sense is the least common of the senses…
Build a master CV with all your jobs, salary details, reasons for leaving, tasks, achievements, etc. Do not leave anything out regardless of how long ago or how long you did it for. It will work as a memory aid.
Do not leave out jobs you regretted doing. It will make you more comfortable with your past experiences in case you have to discuss them during an interview. Bad experiences on your CV are as important as good experiences. They helped you grow.
You might want to avoid discussing a bad experience during an interview. However, that experience might set you apart from the rest of the candidates, and you cannot afford forgetting to mention what might get you through the door.
Your master CV can be as wordy as you like, and do not worry about format at this point. This is just your master CV, your starting point. It gives you the contents to design a CV that is tailored to the role you are applying for, and specific for the company you want to work for. This might seem like a time-consuming task but it will actually reduce the amount of time you will spend as a jobseeker.
Every time you apply for a job, you start from scratch. You should refer to the master CV and produce a unique CV every time. This is the unpaid, full-time job of jobseekers. They say being a jobseeker is hard for a reason. So try your best and get out as soon as you can.
Be organised and save your tailored CV in a dedicated folder for that specific role including the date you applied for it so you can keep track and refer back to that specific CV in the future.
Let me ask you again:
How long have you been looking for work? How many times have you sent your CV to apply for a role? How many times have you created a CV for a specific role and company? Does applying for jobs feel like throwing bottles into the sea?
Let’s be honest, at some point, jobseekers develop a daily routine that consists of visiting job boards and sending CVs a galore. We are wasting our time, we are not learning anything; we are throwing bottles into the sea. We should be somewhat more strategic with our careers.
Make every CV count.
Sandra M. Rodriguez
