Your CV: How To Fit Everything You Need In 2 Pages

You are an amazing candidate with a stellar record and you have a list of things to pad your CV with - both in your academics and extracurricular activities. However, employers have the attention span that last for only two pages. What do you do to stand out and land the job?

Here are 6 easy tips to help you fit all you need to make a good impression into those two pages of your CV:

1. List According To Importance

When it comes to writing a CV, it’s imperative that you list your information according to their importance. Note what should come first in the first page - your contact information, work and professional experience and education - and what should come in the second page - leadership roles, extracurricular activities, and volunteer experiences.

This is because the hiring manager or employer would pay more attention to the first page of your resume and you would want to make a strong first impression - as well as ensure they know how to get in touch with you!

Moreover, it would be easier to identify and cut out less relevant information - clutter that distracts the employer and make you look disorganised - once you've listed all the important things.

2. Focus On Relevant Experiences

Having a ton of experience is a great thing, but when it comes to writing them down in your resume, the old saying ‘less is more’ often proves true - especially when you have to fit them into two pages without leaving out important details!

Read up on the job or internship that you are applying to so that you know what key skills or experience employers are looking for. Having a good idea of who they need on their team and what experiences that demonstrate your abilities in those areas will help guide you on what to write in your CV.

3. Use Smaller Fonts And Margin

Though we are taught in school and in college that a 12 pt font, 2-line spacing, and 1.5 margin is the standard, that does not necessarily apply when it comes to crafting your resume. Instead, you are encouraged to be creative with your CV and not use the standard template.

For one, a personalised CV will stand out and not get lost within the sea of generic CVs that hiring managers receive every year. It also shows that you've taken the initiative, presenting yourself as a serious candidate who has thought about your experiences and future career instead of just copying and pasting details onto a template.

You CV should also aim to present information as clearly and directly as possible - experiment with different font size and margins - like 11 or 11.5 pt font and 0.5 margin (or whatever works and is legible!).

Do remember to ensure that your CV is still readable, organised, and professional.

4. Avoid Repetitive Points

You might have two to three work experiences that are similar, which is great! It just means that you are well-versed in a certain field of work. While you should try to list all previous and relevant work experience, avoid repeating information such as the skills you’ve learnt or the job scope.

You could also format your CV in a way that will highlight the key skills and achievements from similar past work experience without repeating the point over and over again under separate job headings; use the additional space to list other qualities or skills that you have instead.

5. Use Bullet Points

We all love to write long, wordy sentences, especially when we talk about our experiences and accomplishments. However, if you are to fit all that you need to make a good impression in your CV, your inner author would just have to take a back seat.

List your experiences down in short and direct bullet points so that you not only save valuable space, but also make it easier for the employer to read, digest and identify key points in what you have written.

6. Submit As A PDF File

It’s very important that you convert your Word document into a PDF. Not only is this because the majority - if not all - of employers wish to receive resumes in a PDF form, but keeping it in a Word document runs the risk of your resume being over two pages long because of the changes in the formatting when your resume reaches the employer’s computer. Other formatting, spacing, and placements will also run and end up making your resume unreadable and unprofessional.

Different systems will read editable documents differently, but a PDF will retain your intended formatting across different computers. By submitting your CV as a PDF, you would know exactly what they’ll see.

And one more thing, remember to check your grammar! It would be terrible to have a CV that has everything that you need but is marred by terrible grammar and typos. So double-triple check your CV before you hand it in!

Good luck with your application!

*****

Need more help with your documents? We provide professional and personalised CV and cover letter review and preparation services. Book today!

Information Source : gotresumebuilder.com; huffingtonpost.com

Image Sourcs: neilpatel.com; resumegenius.com; super-resume.com; theredink.com