Do you try to outline everything you’ve done? Or send the same CV to every role you apply for? We see these mistakes happen way too often.
<aside> 📄 Your CV has one role, and that’s getting you the interview. A good CV needs to be digestible, but it needs to grab the attention of the reader and make them want to read on.
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To do that, you need to highlight the experience that applies to the job you’re applying for. It shows that you have thought about your skills and taken the time to understand the role.
“I always advise to make the relevant information as accessible to the reader as possible. It’s all about structuring the CV from both content and visual perspective so immediately a reader is drawn to the impact and skills that they are interested in.”
Glen Willis, Product Team Manager at Few&Far
People fall into the trap of thinking that the person reading their CV has the same skills as them. They could, but it could also be a CEO, a Talent Director or a recruiter.
Not everyone has the same level of knowledge. The reader may have hired candidates in your particular field and understand the job, or they may not. That’s why you need to make sure that the basics are obvious.
A tailored CV shows that you have taken the time to understand the company's needs and have positioned yourself as the best fit for the role.
Carefully read the job description to identify the key skills and qualifications in the job description. Make sure that you align your CV to the key skills they are asking for.
The crux of your CV is your experience section.
The best practice is to separate your job achievements from your responsibilities, so you can quickly create a strong narrative about why you’re the right person for the job.
Achievements show the impact you’ve made and can also point towards your main strengths.
These can be delivery of a specific product, increase in the user base, but we find that the best ones focus on commercial outcomes.
They answer the question: ‘What was the commercial impact of the achievement?’.
That way, your reader will translate this commercial element to their own business. It gives you a far greater chance of being invited to the interview.
Responsibilities are about what you were doing in a specific role.
It’s easy to put a tremendous amount of content here, but try not to. It’s important you use this as an opportunity to tell a story and create a narrative to help engage the reader in a concise way.
<aside> 🧲 Use Hustle Badger’s list of **action verbs** in your CV.
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One of our candidates had experience in product through their own business but hadn’t done it in any other role.
Here are some changes we helped them make to their CV: