Careers Advice

Tips to Refresh your CV

Keeping your CV up-to-date means more than adding a few new roles to your employment history every time you look for something new.
To help keep the odds in your favour, here are a few ways you could refresh your CV right now:

• Freshen up your format

Did you know: 50% of recruiters suggest that a logical order for presentation is the most important thing they consider when reviewing CV’s. And contrary to popular belief, there’s no one-size-fits all format that works in all situations
Formatting is everything. Prioritise what you include. A general rule is to start with the points you most want recruiters/employers to see. Lead with your recent employment history, or even a relevant key skills section.

• Use the job description

In reality, refreshing your CV should never be a one-time thing.
To maximise your chances, every document you send over should be tailored to the job you’re applying for. And, as time-consuming as it may seem, it only takes a few tweaks to make a real difference. It’s just about utilising the job advert.
Almost without fail, a recruiter has provided you with all the attributes you need to sell yourself to the role. By adding a few of these to your skills section, or quantifying them in your personal statement, you’ll be able to make yourself come across as the perfect fit for any position.
So tailor your CV to every role. Every time.

• Trim the fat

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise: you do not need to include absolutely everything you’ve ever done in order to impress.
Your CV should be a powerful sales pitch, which provides an employer with all the right information they need to invite you to an interview to learn more.
If you have an extensive employment history, only include career highlights/achievements.
Ideally, your CV should be no more than three pages. If you need more space, add links to online portfolios or blogs where they can learn more.

• Start from scratch

If all else fails, start again. Avoid re-reading your old CV before you start. And don’t be afraid to try a few different versions to find one you’re truly comfortable with.
It might take some time to get it right, but it really will be worth it in the long run. It is also a worthwhile exercise to remind yourself of previous career highlights and successes – all of which can be used to support your interview prep.
And remember: Always thoroughly proof-read your CV or ask someone to do it for you before sending it to either an agency or a potential employer.

Competencies based Questions

Competency-based interviews provide questions designed to assess one or more specific skills. The answer is then matched against pre-decided criteria and marked accordingly. For example, the interviewers may want to assess your ability to deal with stress by asking first how you generally handle stress and then asking you to provide an example of a situation where you worked under pressure. Competency is your ability to do something. The interview will look to assess you on the level of your ability and also the behaviour that you demonstrate. Competency interviews require preparation. Thought needs to be given to work examples to demonstrate such competencies.

The STAR Approach is commonly used for this:
The acronym STAR stands for

• Situation
• Task
• Action
• Result

It is a universally recognised communication technique designed to enable you to provide a meaningful and complete answer to questions asking for examples. At the same time, it has the advantage of being simple enough to be applied easily.
Many interviewers will have been trained in using the STAR structure. Even if they have not, they will recognise its value when they see it.