In today’s competitive job market, hiring managers often spend a mere 10-15 seconds (or even as little as 6-8 seconds) reviewing CVs to find the right fit for their open positions. To increase your chances of getting noticed and shortlisted, follow our top tips when applying for roles this year.
- Match Your CV with the Job Description: Employers will usually list the skills, experience and qualifications needed for their open vacancy in their job advert, by focussing and applying for roles where you genuinely have the experience you increase your chances of being shortlisted and decrease your chances of your CV being rejected and blacklisted by companies for applying for multiple unsuitable roles. It does happen.
- Always Include a Covering Letter: Always send a covering letter with your CV. It gives you another opportunity to sell yourself and highlight why you are a good fit for the role over other applicants and pre-empt any concerns they may have. (See our covering letter tips).
- Highlight your Relevant Skills: Highlight the skills and work experience you do have that directly match the job description in your covering letter and CV. If you do not have the skills, please do not put them on your CV, this will be uncovered during the selection process.
- Include Relevant Skills and Qualifications: If you do have the relevant skills, qualifications, experience, or software/systems experience that is relevant for the role ensure they are clearly listed on your CV, employers cannot assess what is not included.
- Research the Company: Invest time in researching the hiring company, understand the industry and see if you have relevant experience that you can highlight to include in your CV, also don’t forget to highlight your company’s industry if it is not obvious.
- Keep your CV Clear and Concise: Be clear and concise in your CV layout to allow it to be quickly scanned and uploaded. Do not be too flashy with fonts and text sizes. Keep the formatting the same throughout, dates, company titles, layout as they could be distracting.
- Summarise Work Experience (for Experienced Candidates): If you are more experienced and have a long work history, look at summarising your work and listing the relevant points to the role you are applying for. (See our CV tips)
- Use Formatting to Highlight Information: Use bullet points and bold text to highlight and draw attention to your skills and experience, it is a quick and uncomplicated way for your CV to be evaluated more effectively. Using capital letters, bold text or italics, indents etc can help highlight certain information and increase your CV’s effectiveness.
- Highlight Achievements: Be your own cheerleader – List your successes and achievements both in and out of the workplace, what have you achieved? Have you had a significant impact in the workplace you can highlight? Increased sales or engagement, reduced attrition or costs, won awards, improved departments etc.
- Be Truthful and Back up Claims: Do not exaggerate, make sure you can back up any claims and be truthful. Exaggerations or falsehoods can have negative consequences and can result in dismissals and banning applications long term.
- Seeking Additional Experience: If you are struggling to meet the job requirements think about how you can get that added experience. Online courses and websites such as Udemy offer low cost or free online training that could give you broad experience or added software or system experience. Temporary or voluntary work could bridge that gap, gain relevant experience and make you more marketable to employers.
By just taking a moment to apply these tips, tailor your CV for each application, add an effective covering letter, highlight your skills, and experience you could significantly improve your chances of success and stand out in a competitive job market. The very best of luck with your next application let us know how you get on!
