Building an effective CV: How to showcase your skills, experiences and qualifications

You could have the greatest education in the world. Skills coming out the yin-yang. Best LinkedIn profile in the solar system. Entirely confident that you’re the best asset any company could have.

But, unless you’re lucky enough to get a referral or be headhunted, in the absence of a referral without a strong CV, no employer is going to know. While LinkedIn is increasingly important for connections and highlighting your value, most employers still ultimately look at the CV before deciding whether to shortlist candidates for an interview.

So, what’s the best way of crafting an effective CV that can showcase your skills and education? And, with employers and hiring managers receiving so many CVs – and faced with the task of whittling them down to a shortlist – how can you ensure that yours doesn’t end up in the bin?

“When you sit down to write a CV, you are asking yourself – or at least you should – what are employers looking for?” says Brendan Lally, careers adviser at the University of Limerick.

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“Research compiled by the Association of Higher Education Careers Services in Ireland gives an excellent snapshot of graduate recruitment across Ireland in their most recent graduate market survey.”

Lally says that employers looking at CVs paid particular attention to the degree itself, whether an applicant had completed a summer internship or work placement, the overall grade classification of the degree, whether the applicant worked to support themselves throughout college, whether they engaged in additional independent learning and also whether they were involved in volunteering, clubs and societies in college.

“The results show that employers are looking for that well-rounded candidate who can effectively balance their time and conflicting priorities as this mirrors the world of work,” Lally says.

The experience gap

But what if you haven’t got a lot of work experience, or haven’t been as involved in college life or volunteering as you may have liked? This, of course, is a particular problem for recent graduates, who had their full college experience curtailed by third-level closures during the pandemic.

Most employers are aware of the particular disadvantages facing recent graduates, and that they missed a lot when all learning was online. But they may want to know: if you couldn’t get involved in college life because of Covid-19, what else did you do? What other projects were you involved in, and how did you keep productive and busy? Perhaps you took up a new hobby or helped organise online events, for instance.

“There is no magic wand here,” says Lally. “My advice would be to act quickly to fill whatever gaps there are, so get involved and join student societies, or think about volunteering. This builds soft skills to market yourself on your CV, and are what we refer to as your USPs (unique selling points). Very few prospective graduates have everything going for them: it’s a matter of accentuating the positives by skilfully crafting an impactful CV.”

The basics

Just below your personal details at the top of page one should be a personal profile, says Lally. Indeed, a strong opening profile summary is top of his list for a successful CV.

“The recruiter scans your CV in full but they can miss things. Write a personal profile to summarise key points for the recruiter. The first read of your CV is a quick scan picking up selling points from page one in under 30 seconds to decide a yes, no or maybe.

“Once successfully through that first gate, typically the longer read is done then by the line manager and recruiter. You must get through that gate – ‘the quick scan’ – first, so a profile or summary at the top underneath your personal details is of paramount importance. Not the easiest thing to do, but if done well, you’re nearly guaranteeing yourself an interview.”

Lally says that separate soft skills sections, with a laundry list of skills, have virtually no impact on a reviewer’s decision to bring you for an interview.

“The soft skills you have developed through education and previous work experience will come through with the detail under your specific education and work experience sections in your CV.”

Common CV mistakes

“The most common mistake I see is trying to create a high-quality CV at the last minute,” says Lally.

“This is a common occurrence as academic and employer deadlines often overlap. Other mistakes include sending an employer a generic CV that is not targeted to the job. And, finally, sloppy grammar and formatting.”

Lally says that CVs which don’t meet the essential criteria as set out in the job advertisement are likely to end up in the bin.

“Presuming you do fit the minimum criteria, they may still bin your CV if you do not win favour early. Normally, your CV will be one of many applications, so by two-thirds down page one, and in less than 30 seconds, typically employers will know if they want to interview you – a scary thought, I know, especially after all those years of study and hard work.”

Lally says that even a professional email address, voicemail or social media could also curtail your chances of being hired (although this journalist has a voicemail message telling people that I will not listen to any voicemail that they leave and, because this is 2023, they can send me a text or email if they’re looking for me – it’s gone down fairly well but may be a different story if the message was explicit or offensive).

“Be careful about having only a college email address listed,” says Lally.

“Some employers, if not progressing with your application this year, may look to revisit it later, so if your college deactivates your email after a certain period, this can make it difficult for [them] to contact you.”

A standout CV

Okay, so that’s what not to do – but what would make an employer sit up and take notice?

It’s probably not what you think.

“Often overlooked in favour of content, a well-formatted CV with immaculate spacing and alignment immediately shows that you have put effort into presenting your information,” says Lally.

“It will create an immediate positive first impression to any employer before they read a word. It states, loud and clear: this is a professional candidate’s CV in front of me.”

Recruiters typically spend 10 to 30 seconds scanning each CV, says Lally.

“Concise and clear information is more likely to catch their attention quickly. Information broken up with bullets rather than long blocks of copy will win favour.

“The old Irish joke ‘I wrote you a long letter because I didn’t have time to write you a short one’ comes to mind. The message is to avoid information overload. If you are taking a CV template from the internet, go for the clean plain look over high graphic templates, unless you’re graduating from a creative or design lead programme.

“Be aware that many internet CV templates are designed for the American one-page resume market and not for Ireland. The length of your CV should be two pages. Use simple fonts like arial and calibre, with the size between 10 and 12, except for CV section headings. Use bold to make things stand out, but if you put too many words in bold, then none of them actually stand out.”

Beyond formatting, Lally says that it’s better to focus on achievements over an endless list of job duties, and always aligning to the job description and removing irrelevant details.

“Avoid flowery language: if you would feel silly reading it out face-to-face to the employer, then you know you are not on the right track.”

Should you have a cover letter?

“I think the importance and emphasis placed on cover letters has been on a steady decline for years overall but depends on the industry in question,” says Lally.

“So, if asked for one, then write and add it along with your CV. My own experience when I was hiring in my previous HR career was that many cover letters displayed identical information that I got from page one of their CV. I was busy with many job openings and I did not want to read the same information twice, so I took a glance at them to see if the letter offered anything helpful that was not already on the CV, but I do know many HR colleagues that did not read them at all.”

A cover letter may be useful, for instance, if submitted by someone moving from one career area to something very different, as it can help explain and contextualise the pivot, but this is unlikely to apply to most graduates.

Use your careers service

Third-level career services have become highly professional and organised machines, and they will generally help students for at least two years post graduation; indeed, some will help their graduates in perpetuity.

Lally advises students, graduates and graduands (people eligible to graduate but who have not yet formally received their degree or diploma) to build a first draft of their CV with guidance material from their college careers website.

“After [building this first draft], I would recommend sending it to two friends to look for typos, misspelling and alignment and formatting issues.

“Many higher education services now offer free access to artificial intelligence CV review platforms that will analyse your CV for appearance and keyword optimisation [and offer] some content suggestions. There’s no denying that the ChatGPT open-source AI platform has added a powerful tool to the CV writing framework.

“Finally, you can book a CV review session with your careers service before sending the CV out to an employer.”

Key tips

DO

· Do your research about the company. What’s it like to work for? What do you know about them and what they do? Why do you want this role, in this company, instead of another job in a different company?

· Tailor your CV for every position. The hiring manager wants to see that you’re genuinely interested in the job, and if the CV is too generic and not tailored to the position in question, it can suggest that you’re just firing them out without real thought or care.

· Look at the job advertisement and ensure your CV showcases not only that you have the skills and competencies they need, but also gives examples of how you have demonstrated these skills, whether that’s through your work experience, internships, involvement in clubs and societies, or volunteer or care work.

DON’T

· Have any spelling or grammar mistakes on your CV. The hiring manager is probably looking to ruthlessly cull the number of applicants, so an application with mistakes could indicate a degree of sloppiness or a lack of attention to detail.

· Forget to check your social media presence, and use privacy buttons so not everyone can see your posts. No employer expects you to be a saint, but be extra careful that there’s nothing on your Instagram or Twitter (for the time being, renamed as ‘X’, for some reason) that you wouldn’t want them to see – whether that’s one too many drunken pictures or an ill-judged political post or rant.

· Go over two pages in length. PhD CVs, or CVs from people with more professional experience, can get away with three or even four pages.