Graduate CV Template: do’s and don’ts
If you’ve settled upon the graduate CV template that you want to use you may think that now it’s just a question of filling in your details and you’ll secure that job of your dreams. Sadly it’s not. Take a look at this do’s and don’ts of a graduate CV to give yourself the best chance of securing those vital interviews.There’s never been a tougher time to be a graduate. With the competition for graduate jobs increasing year-on-year, it’s vital that you give yourself the best opportunity by having a winning CV.
Whatever template or style of CV you’re using, check out our do’s and don’ts for a winning graduate CV.
Do
1. Keep it relatively short
Traditionally, people were advised to never make their CVs longer than two sides of A4. With people moving jobs much more these days, this has relaxed a little but as a graduate you’re not going to have a huge amount of work history so keeping to two sides of A4 is a good idea.
The idea of your CV is to ideally ‘tick off’ all the things they are asking for in the job description in a succinct manner. Making your CV more than two pages long will almost certainly dilute your message.
2. Make it logical and easy to read
Ask any graduate recruiter about the CVs they receive for graduate jobs and they will almost certainly tell you that some of them are awful. Full of grammatical errors, no logical order and badly formatted. Get your CV evaluated by a professional CV expert.
By making your CV simple, logical and easy to read will help it stand out and increase your chances of being read properly and put in the ‘interview’ pile.
3. Use headings and bullet points
If you did English Literature at University your tutors may have wanted everything in paragraphs but this isn’t the best way to do a CV.
You should employ any tactic that makes it easier for the recruiter who is reading it. That means utilising things like headings, titles and bullet points. For example, simple bullet points of your skills can really hammer home your suitability to the recruiter
Don’t
1. Make it a ‘catch-all’ CV
If you are applying for a range of graduate jobs in different work areas then don’t be tempted to write a ‘catch-all’ CV that you use for every single one of your applications. This will almost certainly see you not getting many interviews.
What you need to do is have a ‘base CV’ on which you will use as the foundation of your ‘job specific’ CVs. For each application you should have an optimised CV for that role that highlight the particular skills and qualifications they are looking for. Yes it’s a bit more time consuming but it will see you get more interviews.
2. Include information that isn’t relevant
There can be a big temptation when compiling your graduate CV to include lots of irrelevant information. Why? Because you may not have lots of employment history and with all that white space it looks really bare!
Don’t worry, as long as your CV is well written and logical and you have included all the relevant information they need as well as any quantifiable achievements than it being ‘short and sweet’ is fine. It’s when it is full of irrelevant and useless information that you have a problem!
3. Forget to use a cover letter
Finally, always include a cover letter. Yes it is really easy on many job sites to simply send your CV at the click of a button but by taking the time to send a specific cover letter can really make your application stand out.
When you’re up against hundreds or even thousands of other graduates this can make the difference between securing an interview or not.
