A good CV is the ticket to the interview and ultimately to the job. Unfortunately, many applicants underestimate the resume - and thus lose their job opportunities. To make sure you don't feel the same way, here's how to let the facts in your CV speak for themselves.
1. Structure
How a professional CV is created is not a science. The (tabular) resume consists essentially of these 4 blocks:
- Personal information (first name, last name, date and place of birth, full address, telephone number, e-mail address, (application photo))
- Professional background (profession, jobs, experience, positions, training, internships)
- Special skills (further education, certificates, foreign languages, IT, PC skills, driving licence, awards, etc.)
- Interests (hobbies, honorary posts, projects)
The most important thing is: All information in the CV MUST be true! If you give false information, you risk being fired later in the job. Or an embarrassing moment in the interview.
2. Professional career
The significance of your CV stands and falls with your professional career. It is the core and main component of the curriculum vitae.
We recommend that you construct it in an anti-chronological way. This means: you start with your current job and then go back in time. HR specialists prefer this "American" type of CV because it allows them to see your last stations immediately.
The resume is a collection of facts, not prose. Time data on the left, facts on the right. No continuous text. Meaningful keywords and short, meaningful statements are enough.
Human resources managers are interested in four important pieces of information at a time:
- Time data: How long were you employed?
- Employer: Which companies did you work for?
- Position description: What positions have you held before?
- Tasks and achievements: What were you responsible for and what did you achieve? Numbers!
This last point is particularly important because it increases the significance of your qualifications by giving examples. It also allows you to highlight particularly relevant experiences or insights.
3. Adapt your curriculum vitae to the open position
HR specialists can immediately see whether a CV was written especially for this application - or whether it was sent to dozens of other companies. After all, a good resume rarely fits two job offers. For you as an applicant, this means: Increase your job chances by adapting the CV for each application. When you write your resume, you have to make a pre-selection. This means that you should not stuff your CV with all the internships and side jobs you have ever done. Instead, choose the stations that match the vacancy. Reconstruct the skills you are looking for by providing evidence of them: name internships, school, vocational and university degrees or further education where you learned the skills. Also make sure that the CV can be read in one go. You can achieve this with a clean layout and a clever structure.
4. Interests and hobbies
Personal interests and hobbies are often underestimated. The indication of hobbies in the CV rounds off the picture of a candidate and the overall impression. And it is not uncommon for interests to conceal relevant soft skills, commitment or experience.
But only mention those hobbies which...
- document experience relevant to the job.
- document any leadership qualities.
- underline social skills.
- illustrate your further commitment.
- document outstanding (sporting) achievements.
- show real added value for the employer.
5. Length of curriculum vitae
The length of your CV depends heavily on what you have done so far. First-time employees who have not completed much more than an apprenticeship or a course of study usually come up with little more than two A4 pages.
On the other hand, if you have several years of professional life, several job changes and further training, you will hardly ever stay under three DIN A4 pages. However, it should not be more than three pages either. Otherwise, you will be suspicious that you cannot focus on the essentials and what is relevant for the new job. And no HR manager wants to read more than that.
Are you also looking for tips on writing a letter of motivation? Then take a look at this blog post from us.
Good luck!
Your Coopers Team
_1.svg)