Having worked tirelessly for three years (between the odd social night-out), you are probably ready to have a well-earned summer break before entering the scary world of employment.
However, if you’re serious about embarking on your career, you will make the effort to pro-actively polish your CV in time for the end of your exams so that you can begin the process of getting on the career ladder.
Here’s a few tips to help you perfect your CV as a soon-to-be graduate.
GET STARTED RIGHT AWAY
Competition for new jobs once you’ve graduated is fierce. Get ahead of your competition by extending your social networks before you graduate, by sending your CV to as many places as possible.
In advance, ask family members and tutors to read over your CV and get as much feedback as possible.
SHORT & SNAPPY
It is widely known that most employers and recruiters receive more CVs in a day than they can read. As a jobseeker, you must make your CV as easily readable as possible to ensnare the employer's attention . A long winded CV with too many large paragraphs will put anyone off reading on, let alone someone with very little time – so work hard on boiling down the information to the fundamentals, to truly sell yourself effectively.
Use bullet points to your advantage and get ideas across quickly – and reduce the size of your CV so that it fits onto a maximum of two sides of an A4 page.
SHOW DON’T TELL
Allowing your actions to speak for themselves on your CV is one way of provoking a more positive response from whomever ends up reading it. In the jobs market, employers respond a lot better to actions cited, instead of broad statements about what you’re passionate about. If you are particularly passionate about any given area, back this up with providing an instance where you demonstrated said passion.
