5 tips to tweak your CV for success

Having a well-written, good looking CV is vital to securing any job you’re applying for, but when applying for a role within a certain field, tweaking it ever so slightly towards the role can heighten your chances of success.

To help give you the best chance of landing your next role, our specialist recruitment consultants have put together a list of must-haves and tips to take into account when applying for a technology-based role:

Tell us about your specialist skills

List all your key technical skills with your level of ability for each of them. It's also important to include where you gained that particular skill; whether you learnt it on a course, at university or through work experience. You can also take it to the next step by referencing certain projects you’ve applied this knowledge to aswell.

… but don’t neglect your other skills

Although your main strengths may be technical, don’t leave out what you may perceive as your less relevant skills – it can make you look a bit one dimensional. To excel at many technology based roles, skills such as team working and good communication go a long way. Showcasing this in your CV can reassure prospective employers that you’re a high-quality candidate.

Think about how you’re going to structure your CV

How you structure your CV, as a technical candidate, is very important. Be clear and logical with the structure of your CV to stand out. Employers usually make their decision from reading the opening summary and key skills. So, it’s worthwhile putting down the years of experience you have for each key skill that’s relevant for that job, e.g. .NET (5 Years), Java (4 Years), etc. You should also put the greatest emphasis on your latest/most relevant IT jobs, and simply summarise the older or less relevant roles.

Check, check and check again

Spell check and carefully proofread your CV. It is worth asking someone else to read it too in case you have missed anything. Even the smallest mistakes could make an employer think you are not conscientious.

Think like a recruiter

When reading through your CV, try to place yourself in the position of an employer reading the document. Would you hire you? And does this CV really give you the information you want to see in the best possible way?

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