Every week someone will ask me to help them write a better CV. Unfortunately there is no one size fits all solutions but here are some great ways to write a better CV. This presentation I did to a group of Product Managers is a great way of understanding why a good resume is so important, I have left the presentation as is but I have changed my thinking a little and really love shorter CV’s the more I see them; I also built this when the market was a little less sophisticated.
So onto the most important things to do:
It must be simple, clean and easy to view all the information. I have built one here that you are welcome to use. Other tools like https://enhancv.com allows you to create some really good looking CV’s but this style needs to suit you personality. You can also get some good templates through Microsoft Office.
Easily overlooked but always support what you say with evidence. The best type of evidence is an achievement but other business metrics can also be really good indicators. For example you could list a responsibility as “Project Management of complex, large scale information technology projects”. Or you could say: Successfully delivered a number of > $10 million projects on time and on budget despite the involvement of over 50+ resources and multiple business units.
A CV is there just to ‘open’ the door for you, don’t overthink it, try to keep it to two pages (I love 1 page CV’ even more). The aim is to get to the interview and help the interviewer host a more powerful interview (it won’t score you a job).
Hope that helps and good luck!
