I was chatting with a recruitment consultant at a Christmas function a few months ago who was very keen to tell me how stressful her day had been. Like many activities, recruiting is something that tends to slow down over the Christmas and holiday period, so I was curious as why she was so flustered.

“Try skim reading 500 resumes in a day, and tell me that’s not stressful!” she replied. While she was preparing for a recruitment program that would take place after the holidays, people had apparently already begun submitting applications.

Being a topic she was clearly interested in, I asked her to describe what constitutes the “ideal” CV, and what a job seeker could do to help recruiters “separate the words from the music”, as she put it.

While I am going to write in more detail later about what career changers can do to prepare resumes that help emphasise their skills, rather than just their experience, I thought I’d write a post that shares a few tips from an “insider”, on how to tune up our CVs.

Keep it brief
Ideally a CV should not exceed three A4 (single sided) pages. You are doing yourself a disservice by sending a recruiter anything longer. If you were trying to sort through 500 resumes in a day, chances are you would probably give up on the ones that reassembled magazines, so big are some!

If more specific information is required about a previous role, it will be requested later, so there is generally no need to supply half page descriptions of every job you’ve had.

Bullet points rule!
Summarise your work and experience in bullet point format. Think carefully about what information you will present though. As mentioned, recruiters tend to skim read resumes looking for key facts and points, so be sure to include only the most important, or noteworthy, aspects of a role.

Use a medium size font (10 or 11 points is standard) and a conventional font face. Helvetica, Arial, or Times New Roman, are the more popular, and “safer” choices. Reserve the “Comic Sans” font for birthday invitations and the like.

A resume that does not present professionally is unlikely to viewed professionally. Remember, first impressions last!

The 15 year rule
Unless you are applying for work at an organisation like a security agency, where full disclosure of your background is required, there is no need to supply detailed information of work you did more than ten to 15 years ago.

In most cases a list consisting of job title, company name, and approximate period of employment, is all that is required after this sort of time-frame.

This is generally because trying to contact someone for a reference becomes harder as time goes by. People move on or retire, and even companies themselves tend to do likewise, whether they are taken over, renamed, relocated, or they simply go out of business all together!

And while government security agencies may have the time, and resources, to track down your long-retired boss from 20 years ago, most recruiters are really only interested in your more recent work and performance.

An exception to this rule may apply to career changers though, especially if you feel a past role could be of some value to your career transition strategy.

Personal information
This is an area that some people are uncertain about, but in reality there is very little personal information that you are actually required to include on a CV.

Depending on employment laws and privacy statutes in your area, only your full name, a postal address, at least one contact telephone number, plus optionally an email address, are all that is required.

In most cases you will not need to supply information such as your age, date of birth, gender, nationality, or religion.

Additional items
List only qualifications and professional association memberships that are current, and relevant to the role you are applying for. While things like an up-to-date first aid certificate may also be useful extras, there’s probably no need to continue listing that “diploma of distinction” from the wine tasting course you did ten years ago!

And while the “Hobbies and Interests” section seems to cause some people a disproportionate level of anxiety, recruiters really only want some idea that you “have a life” away from work, and seldom pay it much attention.

Word of warning though. Sometimes recruiters may refer to a hobby you have listed as a conversation opener at an interview, so avoid listing too many of those “fantasy” hobbies, you may just come unstuck if the interviewer also scales mountains at weekends!

Gimmicks
These are more often seen in the creative industries, where eye opening, and attention grabbing resumes are more the norm.

For example graphic or web designers will often utilise their skills to embolden their resumes, and while certain “gimmicks” have a time and place, in general the appearance and layout of your CV should be in keeping with the industry you are pitching it at.

In other words… boring? I’m afraid so. Unless of course you would like to make a career change to an industry that permits you a little more creative flair with your resume.

Well, you have come to the right place then…