Adapt your CV

Keep your reader in mind

It is worth remembering that the main purpose of our CV is to get us through the shortlisting stage of the recruitment process. While there may be many things we want to say about our experience or different things we want to include – the priority has to be making it straightforward for the reader to see that we have the necessary skills and experience for the job they are recruiting for.   

The easier it is for them to see you are appropriately qualified for the position, the more likely they are to read your CV more thoroughly.  

Relevant experience 

One way to do this is to consider having a relevant experience section. This enables you to bypass the chronology of your CV to an extent and bring together all the relevant elements of your experience.    

For example, if you are considering a role in marketing and have some experience marketing for a student society then you might want to bring this into a ‘marketing experience’ section or similar, so it is in a more prominent position on your CV.   

Link to the person specification

Another way to tailor your CV is to link it directly with the language in the person specification. If for example a job is looking for someone with ‘advanced written communication skills to write reports’ then review your CV content to see which evidence best shows your ability to do this. Then re-work that bullet point to start with ‘Written communication skills developed via…’ or ‘Produced written report on…’ or in a way that is really straightforward for the reader to see this is an example of how you meet these particular criteria.  

Your personal statement is critical here too, if you have included one. Consider what your career goal is and does it align with the organisation you are applying to? Ensure you have clearly identified how this role supports your career goals or shorter-term development if more appropriate.