After having a brief look at your cover letter, employers will turn to your CV to gauge more information and ultimately decide whether to offer you a job. First impressions count – so when it comes to graduate recruitment, it’s vital to send out your CV looking nothing less than perfect.
Some sections of your CV are pretty straightforward and don’t require much thought. However, once you’ve thrown together a list of your personal details and A-level grades, it’s time to get yourself in work mode!
Work experience
Bear in mind that your application is likely to be one among many (potentially hundreds) and that employers do not have the time to spend half an hour going over them all in meticulous attention to detail. Starting with your most recent relevant internship, list work experience in bullet points to keep it simple and write a short summary paragraph about each.
Further interests
Many applicants don’t bother with an ‘additional interests’ section on the grounds that it is not ‘relevant’ to what they can offer a potential employer. Au contraire – this segment of your CV can actually prove invaluable.
Employers face the laborious task of wading through a mass of almost identical CVs, so if you can make them sit up and take notice by including your weird and wonderful interests outside of uni/work, it is likely to work in your favour. This is one of the simplest ways to pique employers’ interest and
get yourself noticed – so take full advantage!
General Tips
Busy employers cannot spare the time to sift through pages and pages of A4 explaining how perfect you are for the job. The last thing you want to do is frustrate a potential employer, so keep your CV short – maximum two pages.
This doesn’t mean, however, that you should squeeze everything you wanted to spend four pages talking about onto two. Employers may be more inclined to ignore a CV that’s written in size 8 font, even if the wording marks you out as an excellent candidate. Try to make your CV visually appealing by making headings bold, using a suitably sized font and adding in paragraph breaks where appropriate.