Top 7 Ways to Shorten Your CV

The Importance of CVs

When applying for a job, one of the most important documents you need to send through to potential employers is your CV.

Your CV (or résumé) should include information about you (ie. your name, age, location, etc), how to contact you, education, work experience, skills, accomplishments and any other relevant experience. You should also make sure that it’s concise, easy to read and free of spelling/grammar mistakes.

In other words, it should look as professional as possible – and its length should be as brief as possible, too.

Why? According to career experts, the longer your CV, the less time and attention that hiring managers – who must skim through hundreds of other CVs and applications – will give it. Resultantly, they will likely miss the crucial message buried beneath the deluge of information you supply them.

How Long Should Your CV Be?

Most career experts agree that CVs should be a maximum of two pages in length. It’s more succinct this way, which means it’s more effective in increasing your chances of getting hired or progressing to the next stage of the recruitment process.

The Nitty Gritty

To trim your CV, follow these seven helpful tips:

1. Cut Out Irrelevant Content

As much as it’s important to detail your work experience over the years, it’s worth editing or removing sections that have little or nothing to do with the job you’re currently applying for. For example, although working part-time as a waiter or a retail assistant in high school laid the foundation for the rest of your working life, it bears no relation to your desire to become a software engineer or a publishing agent.

Rather focus on describing the most recent positions you’ve held over the years – eg. a computer literacy tutor, a magazine editor, etc – as well as what your duties are/were (mention three key duties and briefly expand on these).

2. Reduce Personal Details

By the same token, unless your hobbies, interests and other miscellaneous information have any bearing on the job you’re applying for, it’s best to leave these out so that you can save space.

Of course, most employers would like to see an element of the human touch in your CV. If you do include info about your hobbies and interests, list them very briefly at the bottom of the document. Alternatively, you can include this info in a separate motivational letter – which allows you to go in-depth about who you are – or on a specialised web page (more on this later!).

3. Focus on Your Main Achievements

When talking about the accomplishments you accumulated in your previous positions, focus on the ones that pertain to the job you’re applying for. Describe at least three accomplishments in your CV so that you can show potential employers what you could bring to the table if they were to hire you.

When describing these achievements, remember the following: describe the context in which it occurred and what the outcome was. For example, perhaps while working as a mid-level sales representative, your greatest achievement was increasing sales in an underperforming region.

This may pique the interest of hiring managers – if they wish to learn more about your achievements, they may just consider you for an interview where you can have the opportunity to explain these in further detail.

4. Avoid Mentioning Cliché Skills

Each job you’ve had over the years has helped you to grow as a person and expand your skillset. Nevertheless, simply mentioning generalised and/or common skills such as “possessing a leadership mentality” or “being able to work well in a team” won’t make you stand out from other applicants.

While going through your CV, pick out the skills that currently align with the job you’re applying for. Reduce or omit the skills that have little bearing on your application. For example, if you’re applying to become a nurse, mention how, as a carer at an old-age home, you were able to hone your resilience and organisational skills.

If, for some reason, you do resort to using a generalised skill – eg. “working well under pressure” and “good communication skills” – once again, give defined examples, such as being appointed to put together a last-minute work function and keeping in the loop with catering companies, decor companies and so on, which can hold you in good stead if you’re specifically applying for a job as an event co-ordinator.

5. Use Bullet Points

Save space on your CV by condensing sections into bullet points. Facts such as your personal information, your work experience and skillset, if listed in bullet point-form, are easier to read than heavily stacked paragraphs. Plus, they quickly get the message across to hiring managers.

6. Decrease Page Margins

To make your CV fit into one or two pages, try reducing the page margins to half an inch (or 1.27 centimetres). This will give you the space to accommodate text regarding your skills, experience, etc. Additionally, it makes the CV look more professional, sleek and easy to read.

7. Include Online Links

If you wish for employers to learn more about you, or you wish to expand on the content you briefly touched upon or cut completely from the CV (previous positions, unmentioned skills, other accomplishments, interests/hobbies, etc), then include a link at the bottom of your CV that leads to an online web page, such as a WordPress site, a LinkedIn page or a Google Drive doc.

There, employers who are interested in potentially hiring you can peruse this information at length and in their own time. This can help you significantly, especially once they start narrowing down the list of candidates.

Don’t rely too much on text, though – include visuals such as photos, statistics and illustrations so that it gives your web page a tasteful yet fun vibe. If you want to, you can also include a link to your work portfolio.

Concision = Success

Condensing your CV isn’t an easy task. It can’t be done all in one go; it will take some time, effort and patience to trim it down to a professional, easy-to-read document. As long as you incorporate these seven tips, the process will become much easier – and perhaps even faster! – to handle.

In time, your efforts to create a succinct CV will be awarded with the success you’ve been dreaming of. Good luck!