3 CV tips to catch an employers attention

Did you know employers only look at a CV for around 7 seconds before deciding if someone is a potential candidate for a role? This highlights the importance of having a strong but concise CV that will help you stand out from the competition.

This article will explain the three main CV tips that you should implement to increase your chances of securing a job interview.

A good professional summary

A professional summary is a short statement paragraph at the top of a CV that outlines a candidate’s skills, experience and background. Professional summaries are important as they are located at the top of a CV, making it the first thing an employer will scan over. If your summary paragraph doesn’t leave a good impression, it is likely that the employer won’t continue reading.

To upgrade your professional summary, ensure that you:

Tailor your summary to the specific job
Choose relevant achievements and keep them concise
Avoid vague descriptions.
Highlight strengths that won’t be on every candidate’s CV

Highlight relevant achievements

Highlighting relevant achievements is also beneficial for catching an employer’s attention quickly. Remove all of the unnecessary information that isn’t relevant to the role so the employer will hopefully be impressed when skim reading this over.

It will also be helpful to consider your achievements section as evidence of competency. Additionally, the majority of CV’s are repetitive, and a lot of candidates struggle with appearing as different from their competition, however, highlighting your relevant and impressive achievements is what will catch an employers attention.

Attention to detail

Pay close attention to your spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPAG.) Having poor SPAG will have a significant impact your likeliness of getting an interview, 77% of employers will immediately screen out a CV with bad spelling and grammar.

Furthermore, poor formatting will also negatively affect your success. Having a lack of blank space and cluttered writing will make your CV hard to navigate. Take structure into consideration and include text headers and concise sentences.