CONTENT IS KEY

• Avoid meaningless clichés, slang and business-speak. Be concise, clear, and professional
• Think about what you will be bringing to the party. Your mindset and frame of reference should be ‘what can I do for you?’ as opposed to ‘aren’t I brilliant?’

• Make it positive. Lies and omissions are silly – you’ll most likely be caught out at some stage and this will damage your credibility. Your aim is to make a positive, vibrant statement about yourself and to show a smooth progression from one role to the next
• A CV is not a confessional nor is it an autobiography. Before including your milk monitorship at primary school, ask yourself ‘will it add value to the potential employer?’ Exclude everything bar the essentials
• Cut the comedy. Be funny in person, not on paper. Without seeing your facial expression or hearing your tone of voice, picking up on your humour may be difficult

THE STYLE FACTOR

• Make it simple, short (2 pages max) and neatly designed
• Correct spelling iz kee. Spelling mistakes or grammatical errors cannot be tolerated. Use spell check. Get your final version thoroughly reviewed by people you can trust
• We said ‘stand out’ is key but that does not mean bizarre fonts, the inclusion of pictures, photo’s or dodgy colours. Think ‘white’ (cream if you must), black typeface, quality paper
• Use action words, which give the impression of control; for example ‘developed and managed sales incentive plan’ sounds much stronger than the passive ‘my duties included sales incentive plans’