27 Nov Your CV, What Should you Include?

Every time you apply for a new role, you should adapt your CV to suit the position. Highlight the relevant skills and experience you have, to demonstrate why you are the best candidate for the job.

Use a clear, easy to distinguish font type in black – no need for fancy, colourful text. Format your CV to look professional, using paragraphs correctly, bullet-points, spelling and grammar.

So, what information should you include on your CV?

Personal details:

Believe it or not, this is a common thing missing from the CV’s we receive here at Kiwi Recruitment. When applying for a position, you really need to provide at least two points of communication. We recommend a working telephone number, that you are easily available on and your personal email address. The best place for your contact details is right at the top, where they can be easily found.

About you:

Next, you will want to create a personal statement. Use this to best describe why you are perfect for the position, you are applying for. Explain who you are, what value you can bring to the company and what you are looking for. Keep it to one short and succinct paragraph.

Key skills and achievements:

List all of your relevant skills and achievements, with examples of how this will add value to the business you are applying to. Describe how you would apply these skills, to the new role. 

Relevant work experience:

If you have work experience history that goes back further than 15 years; this is where you can highlight the most relevant periods of employment, to the position you would like to be considered for. For example, if you are applying for a Director level role, they will not want to know about your paper round!

If you are fresh out of education with little work experience, anything you can list here is fine. We recommend that you talk more about any projects you have worked on in education. Even detailing any extra-curricular activities that show your team building, leadership, organisational, communication and problem-solving skills. Start with the most recent, including your job title, dates of employment, the company name and a maximum of 5 bullet points of your key responsibilities.

Education: 

List here your educational experience. If you have spent more time in education, this is where you should expand this section. Ensure you list the type of qualification and level of grade achieved. If you studied more than 15 years ago, and do not possess any notable or relevant qualifications, simply leave the section out and expand more on the key skills and work experience sections.

Hobbies and interests:

This one is totally up to you – if it is relevant to the company culture that you enjoy surfing etc – declare it! Your hobbies should reflect what you genuinely get up to in your spare time. Adding a quirky hobby, for the sake of looking unique, can be risky. For example if this comes up during your interview, so do not lie! If you cannot think of anything to write here, it is best left off and please – never say you enjoy socialising with friends, it is overused and can be perceived in a multitude of negative ways.

Our team at Kiwi Recruitment are always on hand to provide CV advice. Pop into see us at our Chichester office, located above The Chantry on South Street. Our post code is PO19 1ES. Alternatively you can contact us via [email protected] or 01243 782763.

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