Planning ahead; re-writing your CV

The traditional Christmas shut down is now about 5.5 weeks away and after a quiet December the jobs market has historically always picked up in early January. The drivers behind this are two-fold; firstly many companies are now in new financial years and therefore have new budgets to spend and secondly the Christmas period has always been a time when many candidates reflect upon their careers and aspirations resulting in a surge of activity in the New Year.

As a candidate you can wait until your frustrations kick in once you are back at work and update your CV then, you can do it over the holiday period, though I feel sure that there will be too many other distractions and it will be put aside or you can start planning to get ahead of the game now, re-write it and get it out to all the search firms or recruitment companies that you’ve used in the past.

CV’s are marketing documents, so you want yours to portray you in the best light possible. Of course you will read it, re-read it, ask your friends and former housemate, the one with a double first in English, to read it and give their comments on it. I suspect that you will tweak the format until it's just perfect, but the chances are you're still probably making some - if not all - of these errors.

1. Your CV reads like a job description. True, there are similarities, but there are also distinct differences. If you write, "Responsible for sales in the Midlands" that tells me nothing about what you accomplished. It tells me and prospective employers what you should have done, but not what you actually did.

2. There are no numbers on your CV. Numbers bridge corporate cultures. If you write, "Increased revenue," that's a good thing. If you write, "Increased revenue by 25 percent over a three-year period," then that tells us a lot more about what you did. How many people did you supervise? How big was the budget you managed? By what percent did you increase efficiency? How many clients did you have? This tells us so much more and means that your CV will stand out from all those others sitting in the pile.

3. Your formatting only works on your computer. Not everyone uses the same word processing program that you do, meaning your formatting may not translate. Bullet points disappear. Tabs get shifted. Check how your resume appears in Microsoft Word, Open Office, Google Docs and any other common program before you email it. Formatting problems make you look sloppy even if your resume was perfect when you hit send. The other issue is that many companies now use CV scanning systems, which have problems reading boxes on CV’s: keep it text driven.

4. It's too long or too short. No, there isn't a secret, perfect length for a resume. But if you're a new graduate with two full pages, you'll look pretentious. And if you're someone with 15 years of experience with everything crammed onto one page, you'll look like you haven't done anything. Scientists and academics need extra pages for their publications. The point is, you will need to work out what is standard for your industry and your experience. The rough rule of thumb guideline is one page for new grads, two/three pages for experienced employees and extra pages for candidates with numerous publications.

5. You have an objective statement. I have never - and I really do mean this - never ever seen an "objective statement" help someone get the job. We know what your objective is - to get a good job with a great salary in an environment where you can learn and grow and blah, blah, blah. If you have something unique to say, put it in your cover letter. Take it off your CV and fire any “career coach” or CV writing house that tells you to include one.

So, that’s now set you up to attack the job market in the New Year, good luck, it will be a challenge in the current European economic situation, but it can be fun and hopefully it will ultimately be very rewarding for you.

These are the thoughts collated by my colleagues at Chesterton Gray, if you have further points that you think could be added to the list, then as always we would be delighted to hear from you. www.chestertongray.com