Improve your CV

When does a CV need refreshing?

If you last updated it when you started your current job. If it runs to three pages. If it lists duties instead of results. Or if you apply and hear nothing back. An outdated CV is often the reason, more often than a lack of experience.

What changes

• Duties become results. “Responsible for planning” becomes “planning for 40 engineers, downtime cut from 12% to 4%”.
• The layout is down to the filter. Columns and blocks of colour look good to a human, but an ATS can't read them. We choose a layout that works for both.
• The headline states what you are. Not "motivated professional", but your job title, your years of experience and your strongest point.
• What doesn't help gets cut: courses from 2009, a driving licence on an office job, and the line about references on request.

Tailoring your CV to the vacancy

One CV for everything scores a little bit everywhere and not enough anywhere. Paste in the job advert text and we'll put the emphasis on what that role asks for. We use the same words as the employer, because that's what the filter searches for.

Does it work after ten years with the same employer?

That's exactly when it helps. Anyone who's stayed in one place for a long time has usually done a lot and written down little. We bring out what's happened over those years from your current CV and put it in the order an employer reads it.