CV Tips and Tricks

Bryony Sutlieff is a #MedComms talent acquisition specialist, with experience in recruiting for some of the biggest agency brands in the industry.

So you’ve decided you want to move jobs, you’ve reflected on why, and you’ve decided what your non-negotiables and your ‘nice-to-haves’ are for a new company and role… It’s probably time to dig out your CV...

Ideally you’ll have kept this up to date as your responsibilities have grown in your current role but like lots of things that are ideal to do in life, this doesn’t always happen!

If you’re one of these people, or you’re just looking to tidy up your CV, luckily for you this week’s article covers what you should and shouldn’t include, how it should look, and answers to some common FAQs.

(Please note: obviously there is variation between industries, countries and seniority so I’m making generalised statements based on my experience which you can see in my LinkedIn profile!)

What Should I Include?

Contact Details – Name & Email

Phone number and pronouns are up to you. I do see some CVs with full addresses, marital statuses etc – I’d say this is irrelevant and can lead to unconscious bias (which shouldn’t be a thing but unfortunately is) and photos are also not needed for the very same reason!

Links to your LinkedIn should only be included if it’s up to date and any social media links need to be relevant to you or the role you’re after!

Also it takes two minutes to set up a professional email account so if you’re still using the one you set up when you were 12 maybe ditch the belieber4ever@hotmail.com address for something that’s not going to make the recruiter roll their eyes when they see it.

Summary/Statement

This can be really useful to a busy recruiter (hi!🙋🏻♀️) just a short paragraph to summarise your key skills and career goals but I also know a lot of my recruiter network skip this and go straight to the body of the CV so I wouldn’t spend ages on it! Generative AI tools can be useful to throw something together but make sure you proofread what it spits out! (more on this later!)

Work Experience

Reverse chronological order is best – your most recent roles are usually your most relevant! Quite often the person reading your CV is on a limited time frame so make it easy to find your relevant experience and skills.

If you’re early on in your career and don’t have a huge amount of work experience feel free to add volunteer work in this space, especially if it’s relevant to your application. At the other end of the career spectrum, if you’ve got a lot of work experience you don’t have to go into detail on every single role, maybe just pick your most recent and relevant ones.

I’d love to say that career gaps aren’t a problem, and I do hope we’re moving towards a time where they won’t be, however if you have a large career gap I would advise just explaining this very briefly on the CV for example ‘2020-2024 – Raising family’.

Qualifications

This isn’t just school – make sure you include any relevant training, or courses you’ve done in your career, not only are you showing further skills, but your showing your potential employer that your committed to your professional development.

While I’m on the topic of school though – if you’ve got university qualifications, no one is going to care what grades your GCSEs were, they’re just taking up space! I personally don’t have university qualifications and my grades aren’t on my CV from school - mainly because I’m so old I genuinely can’t remember what they were... but also because my work experience speaks for itself.

Skills

Make sure you flag any relevant skills either when talking about your work experience or in a separate section – this is especially useful if you can pull skills or competencies from the job advert!

Hobbies

Tough one. I personally don’t have mine on my CV as it was taking up space I didn't have, and there is an argument that it could cause unconscious biases, however some people like it as an icebreaker so I’d leave this one up to you!

How Should It Look?

Clear & Easy To Follow

Help your recruiter out - clear formatting, professional tone, readable font size, all the same font, and no large chunks of text. Bullet points are your friend!

Tailored to the Job

Appreciate this can be time-consuming if you're applying to multiple positions but even if you have a general sector or area you're applying in you can make sure that the common skills or competencies needed are highlighted.

If you are applying for multiple positions using the same CV make sure that it is more generic - I have had CVs for entry-level medical communications roles before where the candidate says in their summary how much they are looking forward to working in regulatory writing... a silly little thing but immediately raises red flags as to if they actually want the job.

Focused on Achievements

If you’re just listing your responsibilities for each job, you’re writing your job description not a CV. Instead of showing what you were expected to do, show your impact by listing achievements, specific projects and results. This brings us on to:

Quantify!

Numbers and other measurable metrics are a quick way to prove your contribution, especially when looking for roles where you would be expected to meet KPIs. For example in recruitment – number of hires, improvements in time to hire, money saved on external agencies, all easy metrics to pop in your CV.

Proofread

Spellcheck! Nothing more awkward then listing 'attention to detail' as a skill, sending the CV, then realising you've misspelled your own name. Along with this, I’d always double check if you’ve used AI tools.

I’m a big fan of using generative AI tools and they can be used to tailor a CV using a job advert or description but just be careful and make sure you check it. There has been cases of it making up experience or qualifications that candidates don’t actually have which you then might get questioned around in an interview, and with everything that is created by gen AI I would always recommend you adapt into your own words!

I think that’s a good start so hopefully gives a lot to be getting on with, and next week we'll be looking at where to look for jobs and who to reach out to!

It’s quite generic and of course won’t work for everyone and every job so please feel free to add in the comments if there's anything I've missed, or if you have any questions!

Happy Job Hunting! 🎉