What Should Be in The Perfect Resume (CV)?

A good resume is one that gets you interviews it is as simple as that. Writing a good resume is a key career search skill and the secret to developing the prefect resume for you is to spend a little time thinking about who is going to read it and reflecting on what they might think is important. 

Let me give you an example, George left College 10 years ago and has been in steady work since then doing a variety of roles and picking up skills and experience on the way. George is proud of his academic achievements so he starts page one with his excellent education details in reverse chronological order neatly formatted wrong wrong wrong!

Might be ok if you are applying to be a College Lecturer but most firms will be more interested in George's skills and experience from the world of work. So the golden rule of completing the perfect resume is give the recruiters exactly what they want. To help you remember what should be in a perfect resume think: "the recruiters want a FEAST"

•    Fit •    Experience   •    Achievements •    Skills that are •    Transferable

Fit Fit is about making connections with the recruiters and what they think of the sort of person who is successful around here. Most of the work here is going to be in your face to face dealings in interviews and meetings but you can make a start with your resume.

Look closely for themes in the language used in the job documentation, website and any letters you get. If you have a friend that works for the Firm you are interested in get some inside information on the firm culture and values. If you know who might be handling your application can you find out anything about them and their likes and dislikes?  Use this information to pick up some ideas on what the Firm values and find some useful words to sprinkle liberally in your resume and covering letter.  The other part of fit is to make sure your application is on time and professionally prepared  and formatted because that is what most firms will expect from someone who "fits" what they are looking for.

Experience  Make sure you meet any requirements on experience they mention regardless of whether you agree with them or not. If you feel you are borderline on the experience stakes you can take a chance or be proactive and try and have a telephone conversation to qualify if the role is for you beforehand. A telephone conversation gives you a great chance to stand out a little from all the other applicants and provides you with a little window to sell yourself. This in my experience is well worth doing as the vast majority of applicants will not bother to do this. Just make sure you have some intelligent questions ready before you call or this strategy can backfire. Cover your experience in your previous roles working backwards from the most recent role. Include a little capsule summary of your main job responsibilities and make sure they convey the size and complexity of the role.  Sizing the role is quite hard for recruiters to do off the resume so try and make it easy for them. By the way do not leave unexplained gaps between roles they just raise doubts in the recruiters and may give them an excuse to reject your application if the competition is high. So find the right words to put a positive light on what you have been up to or take the honest approach and be prepared to front up to past mistakes but shown how you have learned and moved on.

Achievements Achievements are some of the things that you are proud of from your past career experiences come on we all have some of these you just might need to think about them a little. Achievements have 2 parts 1. what did you do and 2. what was the result? I suggest you find your top 3 and put them on your front page and in addition always add an achievement or two under each job in the work experience section.  You can repeat your top three under the relevant job but try and reword it slightly so it is similar but not the same.   

Skills that are Transferable Identify your main work skills there are career skill assessment exercises in other articles on this website if you need some thought starters. Analyse the skill requirements of the role using every data source you can, job advert, job description, web sites, letters etc.. Prioritise the top skills for the role and match them where you can with your top skills. Again I suggest you pull out 5-7 key transferable skills and put them on your front page of your resume. Make sure at least 3 or 4 of them directly correspond to the language the Firm is using in their statements of the requirements of the role. As a check look at your job responsibilities summaries in your previous roles do they support the skills you have highlighted, is your list of transferable skills credible?

So in conclusion the perfect Resume for you should be a FEAST for the eyes of the recruiters. Make your first page is your power page and include your Bio data , career statement, key skills 5-7  and 3 or 4 major achievements.

Best of luck in your career search activities  Graham Hart has been a professional career consultant and change advisor to all sorts of Business people in a couple of countries for quite a long time.

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