How to avoid your CV falling into a recruiter’s black hole

My first blog article ‘How to get approached about your dream job’ can be found here.

It highlights several ways in which you can ensure that when a recruiter is conducting a candidate search on LinkedIn, for what could be your next job move and ideal opportunity, your profile catches their eye for all the right reasons.

As Senior Research Consultant at Edbury Daley, I not only encounter hundreds of LinkedIn profiles every day, but I also receive and review numerous CVs for the executive vacancies that we advertise.

The most attractive have the following:

  • The candidate’s most marketable skills and experience somewhere near the beginning. Be sure to position at the start the experience which you believe you want to use in your next role and that could really add value to an employer.
  • Not too much detail under each position you have undertaken. Big blocks of text are off-putting and make it difficult to understand the key responsibilities that you had during your role. Saying this, too little detail about your achievements and contribution make your profile easier for a recruiter to dismiss, so try to get the balance right.
  • A clearly defined job title, company name and time frame for each section on your CV, starting with the most recent and finishing with your education.
  • A simple and visually appealing layout. An overly complicated layout and format style makes your strongest and most relevant experience difficult to pinpoint. This could be the difference between a recruiter or employer dismissing your application as they can’t quickly and easily identify the relevant skills you have for this particular vacancy.
  • Points about the difference you made whilst in your role at the company and your specific contribution, not points about what the company or team did during the time that you were employed.

If you need some guidance or further information, then please do get in touch via georgia@edburydaley.com.