Executive CV Advice
Writing an effective executive CV is challenging, but as a marketing tool, your CV is crucial to your on-going career progression.
As a rule, your executive CV should be used specifically at leveraging your quantifiable achievements. Whereas most CVs will be skills and responsibilities based, an executive CV should concentrate much more on achievements. In addition, you should take time to research your potential employers to create an audience-focussed CV which demonstrates that you have the required skills and experience.
Your executive CV should contain content which strategically supports both your focus and value proposition, and, whether you’re at the top or aiming to get there, executive CV writing services can play a key role in showcasing your distinguished and successful background using high-impact CV designs, combined with clever keyword placement – telling the recruiter exactly what they want to know!
When writing your CV, the focus should remain consistent throughout. For example, if you’ve compiled an introductory profile that states you’re an expert in new business development, ensure that you provide evidence of your success in this area throughout the CV – discarding any irrelevant and / or outdated information that clutters the CV and hides your selling points.
As stated above, an executive CV must provide quantifiable evidence of your success. Whereas most people will write CVs using bullet points, listing their responsibilities, you’ll need to actually show what you did and how this made a difference. For example, re-writing a bullet point such as “responsible for increasing sales”, to something along the lines of “increased sales by 25% in 6 months” can be one of the most effective ways of improving your chances of reaching the shortlist.
Following on from the above, where appropriate, showcase to the recruiter, not only what you did, buy why you did it. Taking the above as an example, “increased sales by 25% in 6 months – reversing a previous 6 month decline whilst playing a key role in new business development”, allows the reader to gain an even better insight into your abilities.
A common myth in the CV writing world is that all CVs should be no more than 2 pages. Put simply, this isn’t true. In particular, an executive CV should only be as long as it needs to effectively showcase your experience and achievements. It is absolutely fine to write an executive / senior management CV over 3-4 pages – especially if you have a lot of experience or have a long history of short, interim roles.
As with any level of CV, always ensure your CV is free from spelling / grammatical errors. Try reading your CV aloud to yourself after you’ve written it. Read each word, one at a time. Try and get someone to proof read it after – finding an error in something you’ve written is one of the hardest things to do. One mistake in your CV could present you as a careless / sloppy candidate – leading to your CV being thrown in the bin.
(Article written by Lee Tonge. Read more about Lee at Google+)
