CV Write

Professional, high impact CV writing that generates interviews.

Category Archives: CV Writing

Reasons for Leaving

We often see CVs where people have put down their reasons for leaving against each of their jobs.

This is generally unnecessary and can be counter-productive.

During an interview one of the main conversation points is going to be the reasons behind your career moves and if it’s all written down then you’ll have nothing to discuss!

If you’ve been made redundant from your last 2/3/4 roles, then writing this down may actually prevent you getting an interview in the first place.

Remember, a CV is designed to get you an interview so you must avoid giving the reader any reason for not seeing you.

Spelling Mistakes

Latest 3 CV spelling mistakes are errors that just don’t get picked up by spell checkers:

Roll instead of Role

Manger instead of Manager

Collage instead of College

If you do nothing else with your CV – get someone else to proof read it.

 

48 Hour Service

We always aim to produce your new CV within 48 hours of receipt of payment.

If we are particularly busy then this may be longer, but we will always advise you of this prior to making payment.

Templates

There are many CV templates and free examples available that look good, but you need a combination of both style and substance for a really professional Curriculum Vitae.

A template is good for getting the look and layout of a CV correct but that’s about as far as it goes.

An employer or recruiter needs to be able to quickly read a CV and ascertain if you’re worth interviewing. Whilst a template will help you along the road it doesn’t help with writing compelling content that really gets you onto the interview list.

If we write your new CV then you will have a document that really sells you and  gets you the interview.

Click on our free review to see what we mean - with no obligation. 

Be Positive!

Employers look for positive language in a CV.

Sounds obvious but the number of CVs we see that use weak language is incredible.

What do we mean by “Positive Language”?

Perhaps the most common example is when applicants say in their profile “I consider myself to be a hard working person” or “I can consider myself to be a reliable employee”.

This is weak language for a CV.

It’s much better to say “I am a hard working person” or “I am a reliable employee”.

It’s the same thing but so much stronger and positive in the way you portray yourself.

Age on a CV

You don’t need to put your age on a CV and recruiters and employers are not allowed to directly ask you how old you are.

It would be naive to think that your age doesn’t make a difference as many recruiters are under 30 and to them anyone over the age of 50 is not a good candidate.

But how do you avoid showing your age?

1. Don’t put your date of birth on.

Obvious but we still had to say it!

2. Only show the last 15-20 years of employment history on your CV.

You don’t have to show your entire life history in a CV and if the last 15-20 years doesn’t include any relevant experience then you probably shouldn’t be applying for the job in the first place!

3. If your email address was generated by your email provider it may well have your year of birth in it, e.g. davidsmith52@blahblah.com 

Get yourself a new email address specifically for job applications from Gmail or Yahoo.

4. Take out the years for your training and education.

Training is training, no matter when you did it and the same applies for education. There are exceptions to this but with many time related certifications the re-application process is pretty basic and employers won’t hesitate to get you through it if they think you’re the right person.

5. Take a careful look at your interests and hobbies…

If you put down that “spending time with my grand children” is an interest then you are giving away your age.

 

Follow these 5 steps and you’ll get past the age barrier and get the interview.

How we personalise a CV

One of the biggest complaints we hear of from clients who have previously had a “professional” write their CV is that the end result just doesn’t read like it’s them being described.

It’s generally because a stock pro-forma will have been used when writing the profile, and also in the job descriptions, where a list of “power” words will have been used to construct an image that is a long way from reality.

How do we avoid this pitfall?

Essentially we take what you have written about yourself and reshape it to give it more impact, but using your words so that the end result is still recognisable as you. We always ask our clients to read the first draft of their new CV carefully and make sure that they are comfortable about the overall tone of how they are portrayed and if not, we amend it as much as is needed to get the right balance between humility and selling yourself positively.

Leading CV Writers

We periodically like to take a look at our competition and see what they are offering and their pricing to make sure we’re competitive.

Today I discovered that it’s quite amazing how many CV writers are “the UK’s number 1 professional CV Writers” or “the leading CV writers for professional CVs”. I’d love to know how they measure this!

We don’t profess to be the number 1 or the best CV writer in the world because that is far too subjective to be a valid statement. It’s a bit like writing on your CV that you are the “best Man Manager in England” or “the most professional hairdresser in Wales”.

We write good CVs – it’s as simple as that. If you’re not getting interviews it has to be your CV and we can rewrite your CV to give you a much better chance of getting an interview.

Our initial assessment is completely free and without any obligation. Email us your CV and we email back your assessment. We won’t call you or chase you for a response. You can call us for clarification on any points we make about your CV, or about our process to make sure you’re happy to proceed.

Don’t forget – if you don’t like the new CV we will give you your money back. Straight away.