CV tips & tricks

Advice from an employer: CV tips & tricks

The Structure of Your CV

1. Contact Information

The top of your CV should always have the following:

• First and last name
• Address
  
• Phone number
  
• Email address
  
• Link to your LinkedIn or website
  
• Permit information
  
• Optional: a photo of yourself
  

2. Your elevator pitch

Under your contact information, it’s time to introduce yourself! Your intro or personal statement should only be 2-5 lines max and give us some insights into who you are and what you’re looking to achieve or what you’re passionate about.

3. Professional Experience

You should always list your professional experience from the most recent experience to least recent. If you have a lot of experience, try to edit it down to the most relevant jobs.

The set up should ideally be:

• Organisation name
• Where the job was
  
• When you started working there and when you finished
• Description of the job. This is where you tell us what you did during this job. Take the time to explain any key projects and include specific KPIs about what you achieved during your time there.

4. Education

Under the professional experience section, tell us about your education.

Make sure to answer these questions and keep a similar format to your professional experience:

• Name of institution
• Where did you study?
  
• For how long did you study?
  
• What degree and level did you achieve (or are you achieving)?
  
• Additionally, you can add any relevant modules you’ve taken and grades you have, especially if you don’t have any work experience.
  

5. Languages

What languages do you speak? We want to know! Be sure to list all the languages you’re proficient in and what level of proficiency you have (e.g. B1, B2, C1, etc).

6. Special Skills

Are you an Excel pro? Do you have an eye for design? Is Cloud your thing? This is your time to shine and tell us your special skills and qualifications. List the skills you have but remember curate this list for the job! If the job description asks for a proficiency in Adobe and you’re an Adobe rock star, add that to the list.

7. Optional sections

If you really want to stand out, it’s also good to share a little bit more about who you are outside of work. Do you volunteer in your spare time? Are you a master baker on the weekends? Add a section for hobbies, volunteer work, and technical skills. Since your CV is the first thing a recruiter may look at before choosing to interview you, getting a sense of who you truly are is extremely valuable. This can help push you over the edge during the selection process and stand out from all the other CVs we receive.

However, remember to stay professional. One of our recruiters once got a CV that said “Netflix & Chill” under their hobbies section. That’s not really something a recruiter needs to know. You can still let your personality shine without being unprofessional.

Gaps in Your CV

We know that not everyone’s career path is linear. If you have gaps in your CV, that’s okay!

Here’s what we suggest you do to explain any gaps in your work history you may have:

• Gaps of less than six months can sometimes be resolved by including only the year and month in the Professional Experience and Education sections of a resume.
• Longer gaps can be explained by listing any volunteer work or continued education, including English, German, and Italian classes you may have taken. If you needed to take off some time to help someone in your family, you can mention this in your cover letter.
• Try to think about the transferable skills you used during this time and describe how you maintained your skills during this unemployment period. Did you go on a gap year to Australia? Tell us what you did there that might be relevant to the job.
• Remember that periods of time where you didn’t work can always be explained in more detail during the interview process, so you don’t have to go in full detail on your CV.
• Have you completely changed job direction? That’s fine! Briefly explain this and then go into more detail about your motivation in your cover letter.