Although your CV does not say everything about you, it does give the first impression to employers about you. Although it’s a clichés, it still holds very true that you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
Here are some great tips for making sure that you give yourself the very best chance when presenting your details in front of a possible new employer.
- Make sure that there’s no spelling mistakes and that you have worded everything correctly! If you haven’t , employers will see you as less than perfect, even before they assimilate the information that you’ve written about yourself. Use a spell checker and then give it to other people to read fore you. You’ll be surprised at how easily you can miss a simple mistake yourself that someone will pick up instantly!
- Be absolutely clear about what you’ve achieved in your CV. State what you did, when you did it and what results the of doing it were. Employers will skim through waffle, so put information in there which really shows them what you are capable of. It’s tempting to write down what you have been ‘responsible’ for during your service life, whereas in reality people are more interested in tangible results. This is particularly important when you’re about to leave the military, because Civvies will sometimes not understand the magnitude of your fantastic achievements unless you spell them out clearly. Also, avoid using too many military specific abbreviations, as things which are obvious to you (e.g. NCO /SNCO etc.) may leave many Civvies scratching their heads.
- Have more than one CV. You are likely to be applying for different types of roles when you leave the forces as you try to discover your niche. Make sure that your CV fits the job description that you are applying for. Try to get hold of a full job description whenever possible when applying for a new role and look at the terminology that’s being used. If you think that you have the experience required to apply for the role, make sure that you describe that experience in a language that is similar to that used by the person who’s wrote the job description. That way they will understand quickly that you are a prime candidate for the role.
- Make sure that your CV is cleanly presented. It should be very easy to understand the chronology of your work history and what you did within each role along the way. It’s good to have a set format for each job you’ve done so that the employer knows exactly where to look at each point of your work history to get the right information. Also the layout of your CV should not be too cluttered as this may discourage some readers who prefer to initially skim through details and you might even end up hiding useful information amongst a sea of waffle. Also, make sure that you use the same font throughout your CV to stop it looking too disjointed.
- Check all your contact information to ensure it’s correct. A wrong telephone number or e-mail address is a very quick way to halt your progress. It sounds simple, but people often complete this information at the end of their CV writing process and sometimes don’t give it their full attention. Putting down the wrong contact details can stop your application before it even gets started properly.
Follow these few simple steps and you will be well on your way to presenting yourself to potential employers in a professional and informative way. There are many qualities that you posses as service leaver that should help you to get a great new job, so you need to make sure that your initial contact when applying for new roles puts you in the mix right from the very start.
Good Luck!