Prime your CV

There is no one way of preparing yourself for the workplace. Frankly, there are so many places you could go to get information on how to prime yourself for the best chances to land interviews, promotions, or new jobs, and all of that information can get a little overwhelming. What makes it all the more frustrating to sift through is that even though experts are giving you their advice, it works very differently on the ground!

The way we think about hiring practices have changed. The people scanning your cover letters and CVs haven’t all sat through ‘best practice’ lectures or human resourcing courses. The reality is that many of the people in the management positions that sit across from you in interviews aren’t churned out through business schools. They’re looking for humans, not checkboxes, and the way we’ve been taught to pull together information about ourselves in CVs and cover letters doesn’t do much to show the people behind the paper.

Be proud of what you bring to the table

It can be quite uncomfortable to talk about yourself in a CV or cover letter. Touting your skills and achievements is not something that we are taught to do with ease. Imposter Syndrome is very real when you’re priming yourself to apply for a job, regardless of how qualified you might be for the role.

But the reality remains: what good CVs and cover letters do is sell the candidate. If there is only one time in your life that you list every skill, quality and achievement that makes you great, applying for jobs is it. It’s a chance for you to let your potential employer know who you are, what you stand for, and why they should want you.

Check out some CV essentials here.

Work, work and rework your CV

Your CV, like you, is an ever-changing document, continuously growing and adapting. One of the most common attitudes toward your mobility in your career is that you don’t need to look at your CV unless you’re planning on moving onward. That is simply not true. Use your CV as a benchmark to measure your own growth as well as your employer’s investment in you.

Consistently updating your CV is a good way of checking in with yourself! It allows you to take a look at how much you’ve developed your skill set with each role you step into. It also gives you an opportunity to set or adapt to any career goals that you may have. If you feel like the role you are in looks very different in reality to what it did on paper, you’re then able to adapt your personal goals to reflect that – for example: you are in a role with a higher load than what you had anticipated, and what appears on your actual job description; this gives you an opportunity to look at the skill set you’ve outlined, what you’ve gained and then take those things to your boss to talk about what your future at your workplace actually looks like.

Check out why you should have more than one CV here and some Essentials for your CV here.