CV formatting

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior

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So I am between jobs, and hadn't planned to be looking yet.
But found myself looking at indeed last night and found a load of jobs that perked my interest.

I had been mulling over a change in direction but the one I really wanted to do (Environment Agency) I am just going to struggle to make the move to. I could retrain but they need experience as well so at my age (early/mid fifties) its probably not a wise direction.
So after looking at that I went back to finance jobs and hence found some I am interested in.

The problem is my CV hasn't been touched in about 12 years! Its still in the old word format ffs.

Anyone got any links to decent CV formats?
Any current trends I should be doing etc

Annoyingly I have a external company that helps with this stuff (part of compromise with old company as I left) but I have been avoiding them as I have been unsure on my planned direction.
I will hit them up next week (my advisor works part time herself), but one of the jobs I want to apply for has a closing date of Tuesday so I need to do a bit of DIY CV this weekend.

Any thoughts, comments etc really appreciated.
 
I'd say no more than 2 pages tbh. The main exception to that perhaps is academics/researchers. The most recent job is the most important, can just provide details for that and the one before it (the rest don't require more than just job title/dates) - though if the most recent job was for a duration of a decade+ then perhaps just focus on that - a little bit on each position held within the organisation in that time as typically you'd expect to have seen some progression/a couple of promotions.

You can get ChatGPT to knock one up fairly quickly (which you can then adjust) or just get it to help with LaTeX code if you want on that looks a bit more professional than the bog standard MS Word/other word processor generated ones. (Although in some cases, especially if applying online, a particular format may be required - so you may want a .docx or similar too in addition to the .pdf version).

Lastly applying to things online or via indeed.com could be a bit hit and miss, obviously people do land jobs that way but you'll tend to find that recruiters are much more effective - if a good recruiter (who knows your industry/profession well) reaches out with something suitable then it's usually a case of just arranging when to interview for it whereas cold applications can just vanish into the void.

Just as a general point for anyone reading this - periodically apply for stuff even if you're not looking, you get an idea of market rates and you keep your options open if a promo doesn't come through or in the case of redundancy as you'll have more recruiter contacts. Keep in touch with former coworkers and make sure to network too and you'll hopefully never need to make use of the likes of indeed.com. You also have a much stronger negotiating position if already employed, if there is an issue at work or a redundancy then you'll typically have some notice of it and can be in a positon to move much faster. You can somewhat mitigate this by getting more than one rival offer at once though that again is easier to do if you're getting potential offers via internal recommendations and recruiters rather than cold applications.
 
Stu999 said:
Absolutely this. Write a decent cover letter too. Been involved in sifting applications recently and the amount of garbage cover letters was bad or applications with no cover letter where they didn’t meet any of the requirements was staggering.
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Noted for myself, thank you.

I get lazy with cover letters, but if I'm beating a low bar set by everyone else, may as well put the extra effort in.
 
Personality+ said:
Noted for myself, thank you.

I get lazy with cover letters, but if I'm beating a low bar set by everyone else, may as well put the extra effort in.
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Definitely, I was like that too but it really opened my eyes to its importance. Also useful as a differentiator if you’re equal with another candidate.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
I had been mulling over a change in direction but the one I really wanted to do (Environment Agency) I am just going to struggle to make the move to. I could retrain but they need experience as well so at my age (early/mid fifties) its probably not a wise direction.
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If you have some relevant experience and think you could do the job might be worth applying - a lot of companies at the moment are struggling to find good people and may have to broaden their expectations - where my brother works is leaning towards hiring people with the right attitude and at least some relevant experience lately (with the intention of training them where necessary) because of so many people with all the qualifications, etc. on paper but being absolutely useless.
 
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TBH a 12 year old CV format won't be that outdated assuming it was OK at the time. I've tweaked mine but it basically hasn't changed much in the past decade, usually just the content that gets updated.

Regarding cover letters, one thing I do sometimes is merge them into the CV to avoid them getting overlooked unless I'm explicitly asked to upload a cover letter separately. So instead of a separate file for CV and CL they are both in the same file. I have a feeling that people often just go straight to the CV and then bin it if it doesn't jump out at them but sometimes you really need them to hear your rationale and why you are a great fit for that job even if you don't have a lot of obvious relevant experience based on job title etc.

I'd also suggest creating an up to date LinkedIn profile if you haven't already. All my recent jobs have come via LI and you will get approached about roles you didn't even know existed, it feels like the job boards can be a bit of a black hole these days.
You can also build up a network of connections to recruiters, former colleagues etc so if you ever need to find work you'll be a bit more visible and having people help you find something. For a long time I was a stealth LI user but I'm glad I embraced it, I honestly think nowadays you could literally get away with using it as your sole portal for jobs (not saying I'd recommend that as casting the net as wide as possible makes sense, but certainly it's at stage where you can easily get work without using any other sites).
 
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HangTime said:
TBH a 12 year old CV format won't be that outdated assuming it was OK at the time. I've tweaked mine but it basically hasn't changed much in the past decade, usually just the content that gets updated.

Regarding cover letters, one thing I do sometimes is merge them into the CV to avoid them getting overlooked unless I'm explicitly asked to upload a cover letter separately. So instead of a separate file for CV and CL they are both in the same file. I have a feeling that people often just go straight to the CV and then bin it if it doesn't jump out at them but sometimes you really need them to hear your rationale and why you are a great fit for that job even if you don't have a lot of obvious relevant experience based on job title etc.

I'd also suggest creating an up to date LinkedIn profile if you haven't already. All my recent jobs have come via LI and you will get approached about roles you didn't even know existed, it feels like the job boards can be a bit of a black hole these days.
You can also build up a network of connections to recruiters, former colleagues etc so if you ever need to find work you'll be a bit more visible and having people help you find something. For a long time I was a stealth LI user but I'm glad I embraced it, I honestly think nowadays you could literally get away with using it as your sole portal for jobs (not saying I'd recommend that as casting the net as wide as possible makes sense, but certainly it's at stage where you can easily get work without using any other sites).
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Great advice, especially the LinkedIn part. For me the place is cringeworthy but needs must, try to stay active on there as well, that counts to how likely you are deemed to respond on recruiters paid accounts
 
Does anyone have any links to resources for Cover Letters? Found myself getting moved on and I've never really bothered with them before but feel it may help. Thanks
 
Mine is in the following format:

Front Page
Contains my name, contact details, one short paragraph at the top saying who I am and what I do.
Next section briefly covers the companies and roles I have worked in, including dates.
The next section lists specific skills and experience I have in a table format.
The above allows anyone to read everything about me on the first page. It can be read without the following pages. The skills and interests section is really there for bots to pick my CV on keywords.

Following Pages
A section on each role I have held, outlining what I did and what I achieved. I agree this shouldn't be too long but because I've worked for 37 years it has started to grow too long.

Tailor the CV for each application. Read through the job advert and make sure your CV lists experience and skills relevant to everything they want.
 
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