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Guide on how to write a modern CV

You want a modern CV design when you're applying for a job in the current period. However, a modern CV doesn't have to imply bizarre design elements, icons, and a large image of yourself, since you're not going to get recruited for those things. A professional attitude and a framework that enables busy hiring managers to review your CV efficiently and rapidly identify your in-demand skills are the secret to a successful CV. Every aspect of your CV must be perfect, from structure and design to quality and expression. So to ensure you secure ample work opportunities, we've created the ultimate modern CV writing guide.

1. Study your target position 

Image for part: 1. Study your target position 

Before you begin writing your CV reviewing your desired positions is the very first step. Your CV requires you to have the knowledge and skills that your preferred companies are seeking. Reach the job boards, review loads of related job ads, and compile a list of the criteria for your specific positions that are most in-demand. You clearly understand what skill and expertise you can emphasize in your CV when you have this collection of keywords from the job description. This method is acceptable to develop your curriculum vitae.

2. Split up the text from the CV

Image for part: 2. Split up the text from the CV

Big blocks of information are unpleasant for viewers, and it is more difficult for hiring managers to pick the details they require. If you're reviewing loads of CVs a week, do you want to sift via a segment like this one? Make it simpler for hiring managers by separating the text into quickly manageable chunks to spot the skills and abilities. Incorporate bulleted lists to all the sections of your CV so that an employer can conveniently scan and instantly know your strengths.

3. Insert a dynamic and impressive profile into your CV

Image for part: 3. Insert a dynamic and impressive profile into your CV

The top of your CV is essential as it is the first feature a prospective employer can notice when they view it. Make a significant impression with an enticing CV profile summary by promoting yourself. Make it brief and concise to keep the viewer's attention and interest, sum up your core skills, and outline the benefits of hiring you.

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If you are worried that your grammar skills may not be right, try to minimize the possibility of making errors and use a free writing assistant platform like Grammarly.

4. Highlight your key skills

  1. Begin with a document of all the technical skills you have acquired with a master version of your skills from previous job roles.
  2. Thoroughly check the work ad and search for keywords correlated with skills.
  3. The qualifications that fit the job requirements from your checklist and add them to your CV.
  4. Address them in your CV profile summary and in the employment history segment instead of only mentioning expertise in a specific skills section. Add anything from professional experience and credentials to expertise and IT information.
  5. The objective is to provide employers a very brief sneak peek of your proposal so they can determine at first glimpse that you are a suitable match for their position. 
  6. Customize these parameters for the optimal outcomes to represent the specifications of the roles for which you are applying.

5. Use a legitimate and formal email account

Image for part: 5. Use a legitimate and formal email account

Companies will evaluate every aspect of your CV, so it has to represent your integrity at all stages. It won't make an excellent initial appearance if you've branded the top of your CV with an email account like lastsamurai1122@gmail.com. To make the CV look professional, integrate something easy such as your full name. 

6. Demonstrate your contribution

Image for part: 6. Demonstrate your contribution

It's necessary to highlight your duties and obligations when composing your CV position descriptions. But showing what influence your behavior and acts have on your managers is even helpful. For instance, rather than only writing;  

Defining and evaluating primary performance measures for websites, blogs, and social media platforms.'

Stretch to demonstrate your influence something like this:

"Identify and measure main performance metrics for websites, blogs, and social media networks, contributing to a 101 percent rise in blog followers, a 45 percent increase in organic progress. A 25 percent decline in bounce rate and a 35 percent increase in pages per visit, a 150 percent boost in downloaded material, a 55 percent average request rate, and an escalation in conversion rate."

7. For quick access, design, and organize your CV

It works to have a clear and understandable CV, with hiring managers frequently receiving loads of CVs for any position they post. To arrange your CV, follow the graphical representation in this infographic to maneuver your curriculum vitae efficiently. So that the viewers can obtain all the relevant details that they require without any inconvenience.

8. Provide a better overview of your activities

Image for part: 8. Provide a better overview of your activities

Before even setting up the story and its components, it can be daunting for employers to dig into the crux of the details of your previous roles. Present your job titles with some context by leading the reviewer with a top-notch description that specifies how your job position is beneficial for the corporation. 

Just like shown in this HipCV template, the specifics of your positions will make total sense for hiring managers, and they'll be willing to see how your role plays into your companies' overall performance.

9. Avoid CV writing cliches

Image for part: 9. Avoid CV writing cliches

At first glimpse, these expressions stated in the image can look striking, but they don't convey hiring managers anything verifiable about you. If you'd like to demonstrate to recruiters that you are a hard-working team member, don't just mention the point; instead, present evidence of the outcomes you've accomplished to validate it in work contexts.

10. Tweak your CV for a job position  

While your CV would be specifically tailor-made to the overall category of positions for which you are applying. To modify the CV to provide each application a raise each time you qualify for a specific role. Until submitting, review each work advertisement and ensure that your CV highlights the most relevant criteria for each of them. Do not try to hide any core skills needed for a specific position at the bottom of your curriculum vitae, instead ensure that you transfer them to the top of the CV to make it visible. One fast and easy way to customize your CV is to adjust your critical skills to match the job requirements.

11. Utilize a basic font

Image for part: 11. Utilize a basic font

To enable better readability and a formal outlook, keep the font generic and clean. With loads of font styles to pick from, it can be overwhelming to decide on the type of font that will make the right impression on the recruiter and raise the probability of going ahead in the recruitment process. Choosing a font that expresses your character can be enticing but remember that headhunters may be put-off if a font makes it more difficult for them to do their job of articulating your CV.

12. Create a formal title and designation

Image for part: 12. Create a formal title and designation

Write a formal title beside your name at the top of your CV to quickly indicate hiring managers about your job profile. For each role you apply, alter your job title so that from the time the recruiter opens your CV, you appear as a qualified candidate.

13. Don't include companies symbol

You do not have to add the symbols of the firms you've worked with, as they can render your CV file size overly huge and sometimes mislead CV screening applications. Make your CV clean and straightforward by typing all your employer's names.

14. Give details about your existing or most recent job position

Image for part: 14. Give details about your existing or most recent job position

Your new position is the part of your CV that hiring managers will most analyze, so you must have enough information to justify it. In this CV example, you can see how much room your current job can fill up.

15. Compress older job positions

Image for part: 15. Compress older job positions

There is no requirement to write lots of information about your past positions if you are an accomplished individual with years of professional experience. To comprehend your existing performance, hiring managers will concentrate on your latest projects, so compress older job positions down to short synopses to provide the recruiter a view of your career trajectory.

16. Maintain formal color schemes

Image for part: 16. Maintain formal color schemes

You want your CV to attract attention in the pool of applications, but in the correct ways. To draw attention, utilizing flashy colors is a massive error that will reflect poorly on your decision.

Check out these professional-looking CV templates. 

If you are creating a modern professional CV, then it is alright to add a sprinkle of color scheme, but don't go overboard with it. Maintain the formal touch of the color codes and do not include more than two font shades across.

17. Declutter the transitions for your 2-3 page CV

Image for part: 17. Declutter the transitions for your 2-3 page CV

Your CV is a formal paper, so it has to look excellent.

Maintain nice and clean for your page progressions. It should look like the one in this image.  

18. Limit your CV to a maximum of about two-pages

However, there is no determined CV length guideline, but it's better to retain your CV up to about two-pages. Two pages are more than enough room to persuade employers of your narrative by making it engaging.  

Employers check loads of CVs per week, so they don't want to review a too long CV. You have to trim down it by taking out unnecessary data if it's too long.

19. Apply formal terminology

Image for part: 19. Apply formal terminology

Your CV has to be a shining illustration of your writing skills, so make sure you put it in a formal way that is accurate. Hiring managers may presume that your CV content describes your interaction style in the work environment, so build your phrases accordingly and include a broad vocabulary.

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Try using a free grammar check tool such as Grammarly to enhance your CV writing.

20. Use bullet points for easy readability   

Apply bullet points so that the hiring managers can easily understand and review your work duties and accomplishments. No one prefers to scroll through a substantial portion of continuous text to get the information they need.

21. Describe your job positions in reverse-chronological order

Image for part: 21. Describe your job positions in reverse-chronological order

To determine your professional abilities, hiring managers are often keen on your current position, so begin your CV with your most latest role to make sure that it obtains attention immediately.

22. Specify cracks/gaps in your career

Be open and add it in your CV whether you have taken some time off to work, research, finish a project work, or maybe because of health issues.

When it comes to verifications, having an unspecified void can make hiring managers skeptical. So trying to conceal loopholes by wrongly expanding other positions may cause you to be in problems. Spending time outside of a job can also include several talents. For instance, traveling involves organization, preparation, interpersonal skills, etc. And you can still shine the spotlight on an explanation of a career break.

23. Submit Word file or PDF file format

Image for part: 23. Submit Word file or PDF file format

For several applicants and recruiting agencies, uploading your CV as a Word file is one of the most common options. As everyone can access and view a Word file, it is the standard file form for CVs. It implies the possibility of the reader obtaining while being able to browse your CV is substantial. For a range of factors, PDFs are a great alternative. More precisely, they remove the possibility of sending a document infected with a virus, and they maintain your structure and configuration such that your CV is received by the receiver precisely as you submitted it. To create an ideal CV in a pdf format, check out HipCV templates.  

24. Provide a formal CV file name 

Image for part: 24. Provide a formal CV file name 

When submitting your job applications, the filename of your CV is noticeable, so spend a few moments to label it formally. Anything easy like the first name with surname would be enough, like in this image.

25. Carefully allocate space on your CV

On your curriculum vitae, you have minimal room, so keep each square inch matter. Adjust your page borders to be relatively small, so you'll have a lot of space for content and seek not to end up with huge empty spaces with bad CV layout and structure.

26. Recheck and review your CV

To enable a hiring manager to question your integrity, it just costs one spelling or grammatical error, so fact checks your CV two or three times before sending it to the employer.

27. Do not add superfluous personal information

Information such as your home address, birth date, and marital status are unnecessary to your CV specification and unfairly occupy the room.

Your name, email account, contact number are the only information you have to provide. If you think it would help your job application, you can include a link to your LinkedIn page.

28. Be honest and transparent on your CV

Don't be eager to fabricate skills or build work that you've not accomplished. Making up your talents and knowledge will get you through the interview process. But if you don't happen to know what you're saying, then the interviewer can figure it out. And after submitting a work offer, most businesses will perform reference assessments, so it's not worth compromising your credibility. Using a little imagination to promote yourself, but make sure don't exaggerate it.

29. Distribute the parts of your CV precisely

Image for part: 29. Distribute the parts of your CV precisely

Confirm that every other segment is differentiated and organized to allow better access to your CV by hiring managers. For the optimal outcomes, use bold headings.

30. Incorporate facts and statistics

A perfect method to evaluate your importance to hiring managers is to support your successes with actual statistics. The following examples are the type of statistics that managers would like to see to assess the quantity of progress you achieve. 

  • Obtained an extra $889,000 in overall earnings and managed a budget of $1.5m
  • Rectified 95% of problems and issues within the 3-day framework
  • Enhanced 15 percent sales

Format for CV writing

Image for part: Format for CV writing
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CV Example

Image for part: CV Example

Right from the beginning, have your CV, so you can well seek employment swiftly. Your CV is your chance to create an outstanding initial appearance and win an opportunity, so consider this roadmap and develop your Curriculum vitae to prepare for your next employment.

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