Tips on CV writing

Like it or not, the CV is your principal selling document in the interim market.  And that it what it is – a sales or pitch document.  Which means that your personal offering should be very clear  – what you do, not what you are, were or would like to be.  This is extremely important and often requires a number of iterations before you will feel truly comfortable with it.  But the simple fact is you are no longer representing or promoting the business that’s employing you.  As an Interim Manager, you are now the product or service and so you are representing and promoting yourself.

Having prepared your CV, it should only ever be regarded as a template that you will then refine, develop and modify to reflect the demands of the interim role you are pitching for or to capture new experiences and achievements.

The ‘offer statement’ should then be justified or reinforced by the main body of the CV and it is really a matter of personal preference whether you adopt a chronological based style or a skills and experience based style. If you adopt the latter, do not forget to include a career history somewhere in the document.

The length of a CV is an issue – one page is probably too short, four pages is probably too long. Of more importance though,  is that the CV should be easy on the eye.  No fancy formatting, no hidden tables, a type face that is in common use, pitch size no smaller than 10 and proper paragraph breaks. 

What the reader wants to be able to understand from your CV is what you do and how the dimensions of your responsibilities and achievements in your career to date justify your statement of what you do.

The CV should include:

• In relation to your permanent career
  • Names of employers
  • A short statement of what they do
  • Job title or titles
  • Dates –  years will usually suffice
  • A brief description of the job or jobs, and your specific responsibilities and achievements
• In relation to any interim assignments undertaken
  • Names of clients
  • A short statement of what they do
  • The assignment or role title
  • Dates – month and year
  • A brief description of the assignment or role, and your specific responsibilities and achievements
• Tertiary educational qualifications and professional qualifications
• Outside interests (but only if they really are interesting!)

It is really essential that you pepper your CV with hard numbers that will give a clear impression to the reader of the scale of your responsibilities and achievements.   A trap to avoid, however, is only quoting ‘group’ numbers when you actually worked in an organisation at divisional or subsidiary level. 

Space on a CV is at a premium and as a general rule there should be more words describing more recent, relevant roles, and fewer words describing older roles that are less relevant to the level at which you are now working.

Register your details with the FRP Transition interim manager network.