"I had a brilliant experience with this agency, very quick and attentive. I applied for a job via CV library and within a couple of hours I had a call from Simon Bonner who guided me through everything I needed to know. Simon got me an interview and it was a very quick turn around. Amazing service and no fuss. Thanks Simon!"
Gemma Fairbother, Candidate
CV - "Dos and Don'ts"
CV Do's
People don’t like reading more than three sentence paragraphs so use short paragraphs and bullet points. The average recruiter will skim-read CVs looking for applicable points and experience.
Be succinct – don't waffle and definitely don’t try to make your sales job more exotic. For example, do not write: ‘initiating strategic partnerships and management process initiatives aimed at restructuring procurement decisions in the favour of my organisation’, as a client of ours once did!
Remember, your CV is your sales tool. Use it to sell yourself and think careful about the words that you use.
CV Don’ts
More and more offers of employment and offers of second interviews are being withdrawn as employers can find out more about you searching through your social network ‘footprint’. The famous example was the retraction of a job offer for a high flying city lawyer who boasted on his social media that he did nothing at his employer but shop on the Internet, pick up a six figure salary and regularly partake in recreational drugs.
Particularly if you have an unusual name, amazing detail of your lifestyle, behaviour and beliefs can be uncovered with one Google search. Companies will not admit to doing this as part of their recruitment procedure – be warned, they do!
See Dangers of Social Networking for more details of the risks surrounding social networking sites, and advice on how to maintain a discreet online profile.
How to protect yourself from identity theft
Do not ever, ever, ever put your National Insurance number or your passport number on your CV! Together with your name, address, date of birth and employment information you are leaving yourself open to significant identity fraud.
See Job Boards and Identity Theft for a comprehensive guide to protecting your personal details.
The Dangers of Social Networking when Looking for a Job
Use Keywords in your CV
By using certain keywords in your CV recruiters will be more likely to find your CV in a search. Detail your skills, client accounts, different terms for your role, etc. For greater explanation and some neat tricks see writing a CV for a job board. Recruiters and hirers will a keyword search to find your details, so be sure to consider this before writing your CV you will have a dramatically more successful experience.
However, do not use jargon or abbreviations. Read it aloud, can anyone who doesn’t know your industry understand what you did, what you sold? Even abbreviations such as KPI’s and TQM, whilst widely used in business are not understood by everyone.
Aaron Wallis are a national specialist sales recruitment agency comfortable across many sectors, however more recently the majority of our clients utilise the below offerings:
Date published: 20th November 2022
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by Sophie Jones
Associate Director
About the author
Sophie Jones
Sophie is a Senior Consultant within Aaron Wallis, who thoroughly enjoys working with candidates to prepare for their job search, ensuring the roles they are considering are right for them. Looking at their essential requirements to make sure the next move is the correct one. Also, this helps Sophie speak with her clients in confidence about the candidates they should be considering. Sophie is also the point of contact for anyone looking to join the team at Aaron Wallis. She supports candidates through the interview process making sure that we are the right company for them, and sales recruitment is the right industry choice.
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