The 5 C’s to perfecting your CV
Want to perfect your CV to help secure your dream position, but are questioning what Recruiters and Hiring Managers actually want to see?
Let’s take a look at the 5C’s rule so you can make sure your CV is the best it can be!
Struggling with writing your CV to make it impactful? Writing and updating your CV can seem like a challenge when you haven’t done it in a while.
What key skills and experience do you need to highlight for your next move?
What do Recruiters and Hiring Managers want to see?
Although everyone’s CV is going to be unique, following the 5 C’s Rule can help you to perfect your CV.
But what is the 5 C’s Rule?
Your CV needs to make it clear who you are and what you do with just a 10 second skim read. To do this, your CV needs to be well-organised and logical. You need to ensure you have the right balance of text and blank space, so your CV is appealing to look at. It’s also important to order your sections in a way that makes sense to your next career move. Employment experience should be in order, with your most recent employment at the top, working your way down to older roles.
The length of your CV should be appropriate to the depth of your experience and your achievements.
Generally speaking, your CV should be a couple of pages of key highlights, achievements, experience, education, etc. However, if you’re in a senior position your CV might be a little bit longer than this duet to additional career history and responsibilities.
Regardless, you should ensure you consider the most relevant and important things to include when summarising your previous job role and achievements, consider whether there’s certain job roles or achievements that are more important to emphasise compared to other responsibilities, or whether there’s particular qualifications that are necessary to showcase.
Break up large pieces of text into smaller sentences and include bullet points to make is easier to read.
Where possible, use statistics, data and projects to demonstrate the impact you have had on your business, showing Hiring Managers and Recruiters that you’re good at your job.
Your focus should include: processes you’ve improved, people you have managed within projects or directly, stakeholders you have assisted, and data that backs up these points.
To make it as easy as possible, it’s good practise to keep your CV up-to-date with your current position, even if you’re not planning on looking for your next role.
Approximately 70% of the global workforce is made up of passive candidates that are not actively looking for a new role, but might still be open to opportunities when approached – you never know when you might next need your CV, or what you could forget to include if you’re rushing to submit your CV after being approached with a fantastic opportunity!
As well as this, providing a rough location of where you’re currently based will help Recruiters understand what jobs are appropriate for you, and help Hiring Managers who work at multi-site businesses see which site you might be closest to! Make sure to keep this up-to-date with where you’re currently based if your circumstances change.
Consistency is key when it comes to your CV. You want the CV to both look and be written in a way that’s consistent. Write in the same style all the way through (e.g. third person) – don’t suddenly switch to a different text style and fonts halfway through the CV. To help with consistency, you could always use a CV template.
Consistency is also important when it comes to your LinkedIn profile. Ensuring both your CV and LinkedIn profile are aligned and up-to-date so they reflect each other is so important as many Recruiters and Hiring Managers will check both your CV and LinkedIn. Make sure your job history on LinkedIn reflects the CV you are submitting for roles, this way you avoid any confusion!
Following these 5 C’s will help you organise and write your CV in an impactful way – but don’t forget to combine this strategy with showing off your personality, a strong character summary, and a link to your up-to-date LinkedIn profile!