From the course: Find Your Dream Job: Interview Techniques and Resume Writing

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From the course: Find Your Dream Job: Interview Techniques and Resume Writing

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- First, I want to say some things about the overall appearance of your CV. Five key points in fact. And the first point is the 10-second test. The chances are that the person viewing your CV will spend 10 seconds at the most. They may reject it after two seconds. They may literally just go, "No," or, "Yeah, "I'll put it on the maybe pile." So the most you'll ever have is 10 seconds. So therefore it's got to be really short and really clear and really easy to understand. Anything remotely difficult, it'll be binned. So if you've got a five-page CV, forget it. That's going to make you look either high maintenance because you just take ages to describe anything and nobody's got time for a high-maintenance person or worse, it's going to make you look arrogant. "I'm so important I have to have five pages. "I have to have 20 minutes of your time." So the CV's got to be really short. Does it look good? Can the person understand it in 10 seconds? That's my first point. I'll come to more detail later about that, by the way, but I think two pages maximum, ideally a single page. My second point is don't use standard Microsoft templates. They're really overused. They all look the same. Yours won't stand out if you use a standard template and you'll just look amateur. So by all means have a look at some of the templates and see what the format is but then make your own, okay? Have a look at some good, clean layouts and then make your own simple, clear CV based on those but never use a template. Remember that the people who are sieving these CVs, they see hundreds and hundreds of CVs so they will have seen all those templates before. So to you it may look new and lovely. "Oh, look at this one." But to the HR director who's looking through your stuff, they're just going to think, "Another template." My third point is to only use one or maybe two fonts on your CV, no more than that. It's a bit like when you first discover PowerPoint and you have all these things whizzing in with bullet points and jazzy stuff. Nobody wants to see that. It looks as if you've only just discovered your word processor or whatever. So just keep it really clean-looking, only one or two fonts maximum. The fourth of my five points is that when you write your CV, make sure there's nothing odd, nothing that they can reject you on. Now you may say, "Well, I want to look special. "I want to stand out." But no because the CV is purely for, "Who can we filter out?" So don't have anything that's going to jump out. Don't put it on orange paper or don't make it weird. Just keep it really nice. Just keep it clean, trustworthy, and normal. And that's both the appearance and the contents. So don't make it odd-looking with color or fonts but also don't have anything really unusual in the contents 'cause if you put something like, you know, "I've got a collection of 30 snakes "in my house," or something. Some people might say, "Oh, that's great. "We've got to interview this person." But most people will think, "Nope, too weird, out." So whatever you think is fascinating, there is a risk that the person sieving the CVs just won't like it. So play safe on your CV, nothing weird and no typos because if there's one typo, your CV is in the bin. I guess that's obvious, isn't it, typos? But some people are a little bit blind to typos. And I must admit, I find it hard to see my own typing mistakes. So the key is obviously to get somebody else to look at it and they will spot the typos. Why are typos such a big deal? Well, if somebody can't be bothered to make their CV look perfect, what are they going to be like when they're actually there in the job? So make sure there's not a single typo in your whole CV. If you're not good at spotting them, get a friend to check it for you. Finally, my fifth point just in general overview of your CV is don't lie. Don't tell any lies on your CV or in the interview for that matter because you'll probably get found out once you start the job. Almost certainly, if you've lied, once you start the job they'll find out. And this might be lying about, I don't know. It could be anything, couldn't it really? Illnesses that you're prone to. Your past history. You know, have you had lots of jobs and you've missed a few out or something like that? If you lie on the CV, they will find out when you start work. And you can be fired for that. Even if you've not done anything very bad, you haven't lied about something criminal or whatever, any lie on your CV is a sackable offense. So it's just not worth the risk. There's even a chance you could be prosecuted for it. So never lie on your CV. It's just not worth it. So those are my five overview points. Now, let's start to get into the detail of CV writing.

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