As the title suggests, we often get asked ‘what style of CV is best’?. The answer depends entirely on the individual and their chosen role and industry. Here’s a brief summary of the 3 most common styles.The reverse chronological CV is the most common style of CV and is suitable for most situations. It lists your education and work experience in reverse date order (most recent first). Evidence of your skills and achievements are built into the CV against the relevant experience.
The skills based CV is most suited to someone with many years of experience and /or someone looking for a career change. Relevant skills are listed with just brief details of education and experience. It can be more limiting than the chronological CV as there is usually only room to talk about 4 or 5 skills.
1 Pager – Some industries (e.g. Investment Banking) and countries (e.g. USA) only require a condescended 1 page career summary, it is usually clear on their website if this is the case.
Regardless of the style of CV, it’s vital to apply the following rules:
- Present your information in a logical structure with a clear and consistent layout
- Prioritise the information – your best selling points should always come first within a section. Your objective is to get the recruiter interested in you, so whatever is most relevant to the role you are applying for should come first
- Allocate space according to importance to the job for which you are applying – expand on areas of relevance and contract areas of less relevance
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