Top Tips
This is how to write an amazing CV.
Start with your name, location, and contact details. So email address, mobile number, LinkedIn URL, and a link to your personal website if you have one. Some hiring managers or recruiters will prefer to email you, and some will prefer to call you, so it’s really important that you make it as easy as possible for them to get in touch. I often see candidates make the mistake of including too many links in their section. You don’t need to list your Instagram and your Facebook and so on. Just keep it simple, and remember that less is more.
Under the contact details, I would recommend writing a super simple summary with outlines your key skills, experience, and current situation in a couple of sentences. For example: Senior Full-Stack Engineer in London. Expert in React, Python, and AWS. 7 years experience across FinTech and Start-Ups. Currently searching for Tech Lead opportunities for career progression. You do not need to write a full essay in this section. Just focus on a high level overview, so anyone reading it will instantly understand who you are and what you do.
Next I would feature your work experience, starting with your most recent job at the top. Keep this simple with your job title, the employer name, the location, the start and end dates, and a few bullet points about each position. In these bullet points I would really focus on listing your specific key achievements. A really average example would be something like: “I built software for sales teams in the banking sector.” A much better way to frame this would be something like: “I lead 3 iOS Mobile Engineers, building AI enterprise applications, which helped sales teams close 10M+ in new business from Goldman Sachs.” This is your opportunity to sell yourself. Don’t waste the limited space on your CV with boring tasks and responsibilities. When someone reads these bullet points it has to amaze them and blow them away. Also, for older positions, you don’t need to write as much, focus more on your recent successes.
Below experience I would include your education. For any degrees or certifications list where you studied, what course you did, the dates you were enrolled, and the result you achieved. Unless you are a recent graduate with no real experience, you don’t need to go into too much detail here. Also, if you have 10+ certifications you don’t need to list them all, just focus on a few which are most applicable to the role you are applying for.
Under education I would finish with a short mention of any personal projects or interests you might have. Bonus points if you can include links to your completed work. This could be an app you have built, or a blog that you write, or anything else which helps you stand out from other candidates.
In terms of length I would strongly recommend that you keep your CV to 2 pages maximum. The truth is that 99% of people will just very quickly skim read this before they make a decision to interview you or not. So if it’s 3+ pages long, then you are probably diluting the quality of your achievements, which is only going to do you more harm than good.
In addition, make sure that you use a spell check tool. It’s perfectly fine if English isn’t your first language, but it just looks unprofessional if your resume is full of spelling and grammar mistakes.
In terms of format, keep the CV basic and easy to read. Fancy graphics and images looks much better in your personal website and portfolio.
Lastly, I would highly encourage you to use various AI tools to help make your writing more polished and concise.
I’m now going to answer a few specific questions which some of you had on social media.
Cover Letters
“Should I include a cover letter with my application?”
So about 1% of hiring managers and recruiters appreciate these, but the vast majority do not care. A long time ago people would send their CV in the post to apply to jobs, and it was standard back then to include a cover letter in the envelope to give more context. But because of email, LinkedIn, and now AI, employers are overwhelmed with the amount of applications they receive, so they only have a few seconds to review each candidate. Because of this, I would personally recommend skipping the cover letter, and focusing more on writing the best CV possible.
Employment Gaps
“What’s the best way to explain employment gaps on a CV?”
I see so many CVs with huge gaps in employment, and the majority of candidates don’t give any context as to the reasons why. If you went traveling, or you were raising your children, or if you had some health situation, these things are all perfectly fine. It can just be super helpful to add a brief mention about this, so the employer reading the CV doesn’t have all these unanswered questions.
Keywords
“What impact do keywords have in getting past recruitment software systems?”
This is super important and most people don’t even think about this. Hiring managers and recruiters often will receive hundreds of applications for each job, so they often use software to filter to the most suitable candidates. These screening technologies look for certain keywords on your CV, and then they match this to the job description. So if you are an iOS Developer for example, but you only write Mobile Developer on your resume, then your CV might get rejected before a human even sees it, because the recruiting software didn’t see iOS on your resume. So make sure that you include all of the relevant keywords to avoid this happening.
And that’s how to write an amazing CV.
Author
Alfie Whatam, CEO of Alfa AI
Alfa is your AI Agent for Hiring. Experience the world's first truly intelligent AI Recruiter. Sign up for your free demo now.