I was doing a consultation with a highly experienced finance professional a while back.
We had previously spoken about their CV by email. I’d shared some tips along with a free guide. They had reworked their CV several times. Even after several re-drafts it still fell short of being good enough.
Sadly this is not uncommon. When I’m working with clients it can typically take 3 or 4 attempts to get the CV to a standard where it markets them effectively.
So why is it such a challenge for accountants to create a CV that markets them effectively?
In a nutshell they don’t approach it in the right way. They open up Microsoft Word and start typing.
Now you might be wondering what’s wrong in doing this. Let me explain by using a comparison.
Imagine you were cooking a meal. You are clear about what you are trying to cook. You research and get the ingredients you need. You follow a recipe in sequence. The end result is the dish you wanted.
Let’s look at creating your CV. Before you can start on the CV you have to get all the ingredients together. Things like:
- Your key technical skills
- Your key areas of experience
- Your non-technical skills
- Your career achievements.
Once you have clarity on all of the above you need to be able to present them in a way that gets you invited to interview.
To do that you have to know what type of role you are applying for and what’s critical to success.
In other words what you really need to be investing time in thinking, reflecting and then deciding how best to showcase what you really have to offer and why it would be an asset to the hiring organisation.