The Do's and Don'ts of CV writing

This advice is given by a recruitment consultant who has worked in the business for twenty three years mostly in technical recruitment. It however also draws on his more than twenty three years experience as a line manager in the oil & gas sector of industry. Using it as a guide should improve your likelihood of getting invited to an interview and ensuring your CV doesn't end up in a waste paper basket.

We and our clients receive hundreds of CV's every day. We struggle to read them all searching for the ideal candidate for that important vacancy in our in tray. Even with the advent of word processors, laser printers and CV writing agencies a lot of CV's in circulation are still poor to awful. The clear, readable, unambiguous two page ones are still a rare pleasure to receive and read. So:-

• Do remember that a CV is no more than a means of getting an interview. It is not an Employment Application Form requiring data for pension scheme membership, life insurance schemes etc. Therefore Don't keep repeating 'Date', 'Employer', 'Position', 'Responsibilities', etc throughout your CV. Those headings on an Employer's Application Form are there for you to know what to put where. Irrelevant repetitive words, especially where the context is obvious, are irritating and slow the reader down. They also lengthen the CV.
• Do remember that a typical recruiter (consultant or employer), can be skimming through fifty to a hundred CV's on a bad day, and they do have other work to do. Therefore your CV must be easy to read, short and to the point. However interesting (you think) your life history has been, anything beyond three pages is too long. Two minutes plus skim per CV is well over three hours reading per day, without interruptions - (who doesn't get them?). And there are other jobs to do like interviewing candidates, arranging interviews with clients and drumming up new business. CV's badly laid out or poorly typed; CV's typed in capitals (VERY DIFFICULT TO READ QUICKLY PAGE AFTER PAGE, THATS WHY LOWER CASE, small letters, was invented); CV's with too many abbreviations (lay rdrs hav to xpnd thm mently to gt thr ful meang); and CV's with lots of underlining and CAPITAL LETTERS used To start EVERY other Word, (Very Distracting), will get put on one side for later reading, if another, more easily read, CV turns up meanwhile. 'Later' may never arrive for you. Look at a typical newspaper, magazine or book, how many capital letters, abbreviations or underlinings do you see? Don't use italics. They are not easy to read. Don't use bold for what You think is important. Don't use exotic fonts. Times Roman or Arial are easier to read. Don't set up your CV in boxes or tables. They waste recruiters' time reformatting them into corporate style. Don't take up half the left hand side of the page with just dates and company name leaving only half width for your responsibilities and doubling the number of pages.
• Don't double or treble space the various parts of each employment, making it difficult to see what relates to which.
• Don't type your CV in narrow 'newspaper' columns. They are right for newspapers. Try writing your CV across the width of a newspaper and you will soon see why. In the context of a CV they are not quickly or easily read, they also result in too many pages.
• Do use the full width of your A4 page (not 'Letter' page size please) for the main text for the most easily speed read layout.
• Do write your CV in reverse chronological order (i.e. most recent job first) and if you have had an interesting and varied career put your current or relevant job title up under your name. Don't leave the reader to guess whether you are a lumberjack, piping designer or project manager. He may guess wrong and that will be another door closed on you.
• Do briefly summarise your achievements at the beginning. What makes you different from other candidates? Do quote actual figures i.e. not "improved profit by 20%". Try "improved profit from £50,000 to £60,000".
• Do, if you have a degree and or are chartered put the letters after your name where they belong. Don't lose them in a page of irrelevant schooling or training details. You have worked for them, let them work for you. Don't make the recruiter work to find out how well qualified you are.
• Do, if you have it, put a distinct section on your computer expertise. If a job requires someone with, e.g. Primavera, experience then it helps if it can be seen quickly. Likewise, Do put in your, even rusty, languages. They are becoming increasingly important.
• Do identify, for each project, what it was you worked on. Was it a hotel, a power station or a refinery? Do put in the contract value. Do say who your employer's client was.
• Don't put important parts of your CV in your covering letter. If anything is worth saying, say it, briefly in your CV. And you may have missed out of your CV some eye catching event. Do put your permanent address and telephone number in the CV. Don't just rely on your mobile phone or email or local to site addresses (particularly your employer's email address). They are almost sure to change soon after.
• Don't fill it with garbage. Don't give your height, weight, shoe size (yes I've seen that too), passport number, your wife's name, children's' names and dates of birth, and where they were born, full addresses of all your previous employers etc. I have never seen a job spec' asking for a candidate's inside leg measurement or specifying a wife of 33 and two kids. And for security reasons Don't give your National Insurance number. Don't give your dozens of hobbies, sports and interests (how do you fit in work?!).
• Don't give the minutia of your 'O' and 'A' levels, ONC ahead of your HNC, CEng or PhD, especially if it was twenty or more years since you got them. Give only your top qualification(s). Your ONC is irrelevant if you have an HNC and your HNC is irrelevant if you are Chartered. In particular, Don't list each individual module of the course you took, and then squeeze your degree onto the second page.
• Do put your 'known' name up front, in brackets if necessary. If you were named by your parents Oswald Emmanuel Smith but are known as 'Bert' say so. If your name is Albert but you are called Bert, say so on the CV. Also, if all of your family have the same given name, Do indicate somewhere how a caller is supposed to know which of the four 'Bert Smiths' in your house sent the CV. Don't risk irritating them by expecting them to spend five minutes working their way through the family to find the right one.
• Don't give your reasons for leaving each job; (more irrelevant words to be read). In particular don't use your CV, or covering letter, as a means of exorcising your hatred or dislike of your previous boss. The reader might think he's reading what you may be saying about him in a year or so's time.
• Don't take one or more pages to describe each of your few, or many, jobs. Especially Don't take three quarters of a page to describe the minutiae of the projects you worked on, your employers' business or why they went broke and just two lines to describe your job and responsibilities. Do however describe briefly what A Smith Ltd does if they are not a household name.
• Don't pad out your CV with your pay and conditions for every job since you started work, even if it shows an impressive salary growth. Do however put your current pay and perks in your covering letter. You won't then end up being considered for jobs below your capacity (or way beyond it).
• Don't include copies of your qualifications unless asked for in an advertisement. If you are claiming qualifications you don't have (or bought in the souq) it will come out soon enough after an interview when qualifications and references are checked out. Don't send copies of dozens of reference letters. But DO give the names and companies of a couple of suitable business referees.
• Do finally, check the spelling after typing (even the posh CV for which you paid £150). Fonetik spelin is allrite wiv sum peepul, but believe me that, and just plian tpying erors, is very iritatin. Some employers receiving a CV with an excess of spelling mistakes or typing errors, will bin it before they even get to the second page. Perhaps it shows your sloppy approach to work?!

Some of the Don'ts I have described may seem unbelievable. Do believe me. Every one is taken from life.

In conclusion, you may wish to disagree with and ignore this advice. However, if you do, you risk not getting to as many interviews as you might otherwise have done. Good luck with your job hunting.

John Ling CEng FIMechE MICE CDipAF - Ling Management Ltd Executive Recruiters

Tel: +44 (0)1256 356 565 | Fax: +44 (0)1256 812864 | opportunities@lingmanagement.com