Five tips to help you cut down your CV length.
Now we’ve looked at the what, let’s dive into the how. Follow these steps to create a concise CV using our free editable CV templates and cut through the noise to get noticed by employers.
1. Prioritise your most relevant and recent experience.
Put your most relevant and recent experience first. Recruiters can take, on average, anywhere between five and 10 seconds to skim your CV. Highlight experiences that match the role you’re applying for. Condense older experiences, especially if they’re from more than five years ago.
Emphasising recent experience is more likely to capture the recruiter’s attention because your current skills match their current needs. This is especially true if you’re working in a rapidly changing sector, such as technology or marketing.
2. Keep your personal summary short and sweet.
Your personal summary sits at the top of your CV. Keep it to a maximum of two to three concise sentences, highlighting your key strengths and what you bring to the table. Avoid using vague language, jargon, or unnecessary details. Short and sweet is key.
3. Tailor your CV to the job you’re applying for.
Personalising your CV to the job you’re applying for ensures you highlight the most relevant skills and experience related to the role. If you don’t have any, or very little, experience – don’t fret. All experiences have transferable skills that can still be useful for the job you’re applying for.
Look for other examples of job ads for similar roles to get an idea of the common keywords used. And try to incorporate these phrases into your CV. This can help it to display higher in recruiters’ search results.
4. List your highest education only.
Display your most recent educational achievements only. GCSEs are important, and so are A-Levels, but if you’ve since gained a degree, master’s degree or even PhD, they’re probably more relevant.
If you’ve also successfully completed industry qualifications, be sure to include those too. This might be the ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) certification in the financial sector, or a CIM (The Chartered Institute of Marketing) qualification for those in advertising or marketing.
5. Proof, edit, then proof and edit some more.
Read through your work and check your grammar and writing style. Remove any errors, and don’t be afraid to rewrite different sections if you think they could be snappier. Take some time and space away from it, and come back to it later. Doing this can help you to see things you weren’t able to spot before.
Also, get someone else to look at it for you. Sometimes other people can see things which we may have missed. A second pair of eyes adds a level of objectivity to the polishing process.
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