Recruitment and HR professionals look at vast numbers of CVs each day. Your CV has literally seconds to provide them with the information that they need to decide whether to take you through to interview.  Make sure that you check and re-check the document that you send through – many CVs are culled because of simple things such as formatting errors, poor grammar or spelling mistakes.

The best format for your CV is in either Word or PDF.   If you do send through a PDF document use a PDF creator that allows for text selection. This is because recruiters will often take bits of your CV to send through to prospective employers rather than the whole version.

Important points to remember:

.                     Avoid busy fonts. Stick with a clear, easy to read type-face

.                     Don’t use bright or loud colours. For the most part these will tend to put the reader off rather than capture attention

.                     Use bullet points to break up the text and guide the eye through the document

.                     Use headings and subheadings to break up paragraphs

.                     Avoid using dense language or long sentences

.                     Don’t use gimmicks or effects such as borders unless you are absolutely sure that they will not corrupt when sending through the document

.                     Only use one or two fonts throughout, chopping and changing can be distracting for the reader

.                     Don’t use pictures or photographs

.                     Keep your CV to a reasonable length – two A4 pages of 10-12 point sized font at the most (if you are an IT professional, your CV can be longer)

.                     Keep it simple, avoid waffle and ensure it is easy on the eye with plenty of white space

If you’re not confident your CV will beat the competition, call Victoria on 020 7979 7718 for a free CV review and/or to discuss having your CV professionally written