The CV Template That Gets Me Job Interviews Every Single Time
Your resume is often the first thing recruiters see. It's your job to make it stand out.
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Key Takeaways
Your CV is like real estate: Every inch on those pages should serve a purpose.
Applying is selling yourself - your CV should help the recruiter to efficiently and effectively fill the vacant role.
Make your CV look nice and don’t forget to customize it for every role you apply to.
You can download the full template here.
Everything is a sales pitch. Especially your CV.
But what is sales all about? It’s all about helping the party on the other side to solve their problem.
In the case of applying for a job, it’s to help the recruiter or hiring manager fill the position as fast as possible. And it’s their job to determine, as efficiently and effectively as possible, if you are a good match for the advertised role. Did you know that hiring managers, on average, spend only about 6-7 seconds looking over your resume?
Your goal therefore is to capture their attention. And it’s easiest if your application does the heavy lifting and pulls in the recruiter. Bonus points if you do it in a memorable way.
But before we dive into what a CV looks like that gets you through the door, let’s look why some applications get rejected as soon as they hit the recruiter’s inbox.
Not treating your CV as an extension of yourself
In Japanese business culture, it’s customary to receive business cards holding them with both hands. Because in Japan, a business card is treated as an extension of the other person. That’s why in Japan, you should always treat any business card you receive with the outmost respect. (Generally good advice.)
Apply this idea to your resume. See it as a piece of yourself.
Your application indirectly shows how much you value yourself, your professional experiences and how much you know about your own worth.
Bottom line: Make a good first impression.
Some reasons, why applications get rejected include:
They look boring and therefore aren’t memorable.
They are not customized for the role applied for.
They don’t include all the relevant information and documents the company is asking for during the application process.
But don’t worry. If you want to get invited to job interviews by knocking it out of the park with your application, here are a few considerations for your CV:
The space on your CV is like real estate
Think of your 2-page CV as a limited space where you can share information about your journey with recruiters.
It’s like a piece of real estate. There is only so much space to build a great summary of your past successes. And it’s your job, to maximize for impact. Include relevant points in your professional and personal development. Cut the rest. Too much white space on your CV means you didn’t fully leverage the existing space.
Be deliberate about how you use the space on the 1-3 pages of your CV.
Include keywords
Almost every company will use some sort of keyword analysis tool.
Sometimes this is a recruiter. Sometimes it’s a software program. Whatever it is, use keywords from the professional spheres you were working in. And since reading patterns have changed over the past decades (today, people want the information right away), a skimmable CV is helping to make important information available to recruiters without having to read every word.
Therefore, highlight keywords for added readability.
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Make it visually appealing
When I was recruiting people myself, I came across many CVs that weren’t visually standing out.
Contrary to popular belief and to what we might have learned along the way about attracting attention, it’s a good thing to stand out with your CV. It’s your job to make sure your application makes it to the top of the pile. If you don’t have a personal connection to the company, then you need to nail how your resume looks.
Differentiating your CV starts with a design that stands out.
Which example do you find more visually appealing?
Use a simple colour concept and a clear structure that helps to guide the reader through your resume. You can highlight the important bits and pieces by the way you lay out the page.
The one-scentence header
State who you are and what you are looking for in the header of your CV.
The header of my CV looks like this:
Sure, you can debate if a picture should be included or not (depends also on the local circumstances).
However, make your header point out what role you are looking for and summarizes your experiences in a nutshell. Tell them about your profile on a high level.
Highlight your achievements
The days are long gone, where companies just recruited employees to work on tasks.
Today, they want people who can get the job done from A to Z. Tell the story of your successes by including a small section where you list your greatest achievements. Customize this part of your CV depending on what the job ad states as key responsibilities of the job. This will make it super easy for the recruiter to send you that sought-after invite to the job interview.
This is how it looks on my own CV if I would apply for an IT-project manger role:
Personal information makes you relatable
To include or not to include some personal info about hobbies or interest is debated almost like religion.
I for my part, always include some pieces of information about my interests and how I spend my spare time. Because I want people to get to know me. I want to establish a connection on a personal level. And more often than not, my personal interests are a conversation starter.
Be a human being, include some information about the aspects in life that don’t directly relate to work.
Customize your CV for the role you are applying for
Condensing all the deep and broad experience you gained in previous employments on two pages is almost impossible.
Therefore, I urge you to customize your CV for the role you are applying for. Emphasize the responsibilities and successes that resonate with what the company is looking for in the profiles of candidates.
It’s a lot of work - I know. But do you want that job or not?
Other stuff to consider
Also consider the following points for your resume:
Add your contact information, like address, phone number and email address.
Include the work load percentages and durations for each employment.
Don’t forget to mention your education and certificates. Especially the relevant ones for the job you are applying to.
General rule: The more recent something is, the more space it can occupy on your resume. Sometimes the job you did 20 years ago for 3 months is not worth mentioning.
Include a one-liner at the beginning of the description of each past employment listed that introduces the reader to your ex-company. Most companies are not that well-known.
Numbers and KPIs that you positively impacted and changed should be mentioned as well.
Mention to whom you were reporting to. This is especially valuable when you had direct exposure to key leadership or top management.
If you want to have a look at the full template, click below and leave a comment. I’d be interested to learn what you think about it.
Bonus tip
If you are like me, and have worked for more than ten companies over your professional life, consider to keep a list with all your past employments, their duration and your responsibilities (e.g. in Excel).
You can add much more detail there than you could on a CV.
This also helps you to prepare for interviews and just generally speaking to document what you have done over the years.
If you think this could be helpful to someone you know, consider sharing this article with them.
Happy job hunting.
PS: What do you find most difficult when creating your CV?
