Your CV is your personal website- Are you brand #superyou?

The digital age has revolutionised how job seekers apply for a role and also how a candidate is assessed for skills and suitability. 

Working in recruitment, I review multitudes of CVs every day, in search of those “perfect candidates”! I think a lot of recruiters will agree with me that one of our most frustrating moments is when we see a good candidate with a badly written and poorly formatted CV.

While browsing through a particularly easy website the other day, a thought struck me; in this digital age, a well written CV is no different from a well-designed website. Easy to navigate, pleasant to the eyes and quick to load. A CV needs to have a clean layout, legible font type and size and should not be laboriously long to read through.

BPS World recruit for clients throughout Asia, the Americas and Europe. One theme underpins their requirement – they are all looking to see CVs with relevant information before inviting the candidate for an interview. Your CV is your personal website for recruiters and employers to visit before they engage with you.

If you are following these tips, you are likely to be “marketing” yourself well:

• "About Us” section of a website. Who are you? Make sure you have a short professional summary to illustrate this.
• Have an interesting and honest take when you describe yourself – think catch phrase on a website- Coca-Cola's mission statement is "to refresh the world, to inspire moments of optimism and happiness, and to create value and make a difference."
• "Products & Services" is your career summary and should be easy to read – The organisation you worked for, when, in what capacity and dates you were employed from is vital. This is what you have to offer to your employer. Make sure your include reasons for gaps in your career e.g. travel, raising a family.
  Talk about your key responsibilities not a task list. Mention your achievements – nothing impresses more than quantifiable numbers.
• Add the “Contact Us” equivalent – make sure your contact number has a prefix with your country code and city code if you are headhunted internationally. Your email address needs to be correct and placed prominently, you don’t want to miss an opportunity because someone could not contact you.

Include your social media links- LinkedIn, Blogs, Vlogs, and YouTube- any sites that draws an employer to be further interested in you as a candidate.
Post your CV online- after all you want to be found online if someone is looking for skills.
Use industry standard words, so that you come up when recruiters use a "Boolean" search. You want to be on the local listing as someone to engage with great skills to offer.

The idea is that you sell the best of “you”, the “#superyou”. Make it count in your CV because this is where the search begins for the perfect candidate.

Do you have any ideas or thoughts on how to create a “#superyou” CV? Please contact Paromita Das on 01628 784358 or paromita.das@bps-world.com