Buffing Up Your Skills: The Three Simple Steps To A CV Spring Clean

We’ve spring cleaned our life (indeed we have, check it out here) so we’re feeling pretty on top of things…

But before we sit back and munch into round six of the Easter egg munching, there’s another aspect of our lives to give a good scrub to.

Your CV is like a wardrobe or a food cupboard, every now and then it needs a good cleaning too. It is recommended that you take a look at your CV once a year and take a look at what you have written down, what you can keep, what to delete and what to put more emphasis on.

The aim? To have a current and relevant CV that will give the best first impression possible. We’ve already had a look at the words you shouldn’t put on your CV, now we’re giving it a good spring clean…

Mashable have shared three simple guidelines to have a refreshed CV, ready for the year ahead:

1. It’s Ancient History

And, if it is, take it out. As a rule you should only show the mst recent 10-15 years of your career history.

The word to think of is “relevant”. Delete anything from your CV that is no longer relevant to now or the job you’re looking to apply for.

Make sure the information you’re including in your CV is something that will target a potential employer. You might be proud of something you did in the past, and you still can be, but make sure it doesn’t take the place of something that could make you more relevant to the job today.

Have you missed something? Think about what you’ve done in the last twelve months, did you forget to add something to your CV?

2. Think Stats

It’s not something there was a lot of emphasis on before, but in this competitive job market, statistics are everything. You might have achieved something, can you put a number on it?

Can you remake “Worked in X for two years” into “Reduced costs by 25 per cent and cut something else by 22 per cent in the two years I worked for X”. If you can, you’re on to a winner.

3. What’s Missing?

If you’re staring at your CV blankly, which can happen after trying to update it for a few hours, and you can’t think of any other traits you have to sell yourself, ask somebody you trust to help. Maybe a friend could describe you in three words? It could spark another angle you could take to polish up your CV and nab you that all-important job.