What should my CV look like?
• The cardinal rule of CVs: Your CV should be no longer than 4 pages
• A good way of describing your expertise is to write a paragraph on what you inherited in the role and over a period what you achieved. Be specific about the responsibilities, covering numbers of people, geographies, P&L etc. and describe your achievements in broad contexts with specifics around business transformation, leadership, delivering improved profit, breaking in to new markets, delivering new products and improving productivity and business performance.
Structure
• A good way of laying out your CV is to include your name, address, telephone numbers, email, qualifications, any languages and a career summary on the first page. If space permits, discuss your current or last appointment. People have different views on including a personal profile. On page two and the subsequent couple of pages you should describe each role in a broader context, covering what you inherited in the appointment, what you were responsible for and what you achieved. As you go further back in your career the details should be fewer and clearly if you are projecting yourself for a Managing Director’s appointment, show more detail on these appointments than the roles you had earlier in your career.
Layout
• For most people, unless you are going after a position in a creative industry, stick to a very simple, clear and straight forward design. Always keep in mind that your CV is going to be scanned. It will be a very key discipline to keeping it clear and readable, and should discourage you from the excesses of Microsoft Word's layout tools.
Presentation & Submission
• Choose a type face or font, size and character that creates a good business impression, use white space appropriately, have a consistent layout and if you are sending your CV in hard copy form print it on good quality paper using a good printer.
• If you are emailing, which is increasingly the common form of communicating your CV, then ensure that when it is received it is in a format that is commonly used by the recipient, for example in Microsoft Word or PDF format.