1. Compact CV's Win Interviews
You may think that this is stating obvious, but too many CV's resemble War & Peace and recruiters don't have enough time to read each CV from cover to cover. If you try to include every scrap of information on your CV, it could end up in the bin. Remember the three 'P's:

• Professional
• Pertinent
• Punchy

Your CV must be informative and relevant, but punchy too, highlighting only relevant or important points. If your current CV is crammed with pages and pages of text, then your chances of being called for interview will lessen dramatically. Don't despair, though - in the following pages we will show you how to formulate an interview-winning CV!

One very useful tip to keep information in your CV pertinent is to focus your employment history on last 10 years or so, and only include previous positions in a simple list form (i.e. job title held, company name and dates). If a prospective employer wants to know more, they will call you in for interview so that they can ask you.

2. Sell Yourself
If you don't blow your own trumpet, then who will? You must be prepared to sell yourself throughout your CV in terms of your character, experience and achievements.

Begin your CV with a 50 to 70-word profile, which briefly encapsulates all of the points above. Use active words such as gained, co-ordinated, and managed. Be sure to sprinkle in one or two achievements. For example, if you hold an MBA, say so in your profile as well as in education section. Similarly, a strong achievement in workplace is also worth mentioning here as well as in employment history section. You should look at profile as a preview of rest of your CV. If content of profile is impressive, then reader will be encouraged to read on and find out more about you.

3. Work Experience
One thing that you must bear in mind here is to list your employment in reverse order, starting with your most recent role first. There is little point in beginning your work experience section with a role that you occupied ten years ago, and bears little or no resemblance to role that you are applying for. As stated previously, you should focus upon jobs held and experience gained during past ten years or so and include rest in a brief list form. This helps to both reduce length of your CV in general, and prevents a recruiter being bombarded with more information than they need.

For each of your detailed employment entries, you should begin description by offering 10-20 words on what company actually do - If a recruiter knows what kind of environment you were working in, then the rest of description will make twice as much sense to them. Many candidates don't realise importance of this particular point and lose out on valuable opportunities. Give a positive description of your role and objectives within job. Be sure to mention any equipment or systems you became adept at using.

As your employment goes further back, you should lessen length and detail of each job description. This will highlight your more recent roles and experience. Also, amount of time you spent in a role is a factor. If your most recent role was a short-term contract, then briefly summarise it, and then go into greater detail when detailing most recent full-time role that you previously occupied.

4. Achievements
Think about the achievements and experience you have gained within each post and insert them in bullet-point form after job description for each post. Think carefully about these key points and write them in a punchy, sales-like manner.

If possible, use hard facts and statistics to give a particular achievement more backbone, as the use of solid figures adds credibility to this information.

5. Education
Where you place information about your education depends on the amount of work experience that you have gained after gaining any official qualifications, such as HND/C's and Degrees.

A recent graduate's CV, for example, will go straight into education after the profile section, whereas a seasoned professional should list educational qualifications after their employment history, typically on second page of their CV.

Wherever you place your education section, you should be sure to structure it so that it shows your most important qualifications first, listing qualification grade and where you studied. If you have room, you may also wish to include details of subjects or modules studied and brief details of your final dissertation, if any. Any additional qualifications supporting these 'main' ones, such as 'A' levels or GCSE's should be listed below, in reverse order of when they were obtained. Descriptions of these supporting qualifications should be kept as brief as possible. However, you should include details such as places of study and dates, as this information adds credibility to your qualifications.

6. Contact Details and Address
You should include every possible contact method at your disposal, including email address. Always put this information right at top, slightly smaller than your main body text, but not so small as to be difficult to read. This places your contact details within 'easy reach', but does not distract reader too much from profile and other main body sections.

Remember that a prospective employer may wish to contact you right away, so include your mobile or work number if possible. Many candidates have qualms about including work or other daytime telephone numbers, but remember that if a recruiter calls you on one of these numbers, they will know that discretion is required. If you get a call at an inconvenient time, simply say 'I can't talk now', and ask for name and number so you can call them at more convenient time.

'Round-the-clock' contact information will maximise your exposure and ensure that you will be presented with all available opportunities because you are easily contactable.

7. Spelling and Grammar
Overlook spelling & grammar considerations at your peril - just one mistake can put reader off and consequently your otherwise dazzling CV could end up in wastebasket. No employer would be keen to employ someone who cannot be bothered to correct a few spelling & grammatical errors in a two or three-page document, because such lack of attention to detail does not speak well of the candidate.

Our advice here is to simply check and double-check. Make full use of any spelling and grammar checkers used by your wordprocessor. Get friends and family to read your CV once it is complete, as a fresh perspective can often identify mistakes that would otherwise have escaped your notice.

8. Tailor Your CV To Suit Job
Be sure to adjust the profile, employment history and achievements to more relevantly reflect specification of job that you are applying for. This will give your application enhanced credibility and suitability.

Examine advertisement or job specification carefully and ponder qualities sought by prospective employer. Whilst remaining completely honest (NEVER fabricate details on your CV - untruths are all too easy to uncover at interview stage), match your CV and its content to requirements of particular job. You can do this by highlighting those aspects of your experience that have greatest relevance to requirements of job.

9. Hobbies and Interests
You should insert this information near end of your CV, as a small paragraph of text. Remember; keep it short (around 20-30 words), simple, colourful and positive. Try not to mention activities or interests that indicate lethargy or vices such as watching TV and spending time at pub. Also, it is generally understood that details of any strong political or religious affiliation should be omitted.

10. References
Don't bother to list any references on your CV. Your experience and suitability alone should decide whether or not you are called in for interview. You should take details of referees to interviews with you, however, as this is the most likely point when a prospective employer may require them.

You should choose your referees carefully. The best references, i.e. those that give the most accurate measure of your abilities, are those that come from current or recent employers. Also, you should make the referees aware of the possibility that they be contacted. Unsolicited reference requests are often met with ambiguity, which will have a damaging effect on your application.

11. Choose the Right Format
No matter what sector your chosen career may lie, your CV will fall into one of following formats.

• Graduate
• Standard
• Executive/Management
• Total Career Changer

12. Recruiters and Keywords
When sending your CV into a recruitment organisation on speculative basis, it is worth remembering that quite often your details will be stored electronically on to a database. For this reason be sure to think carefully about what area you are likely to be searched on in the career type you seek. The more specific your skill base easier this is to achieve, for example, if you seek a career in medical sales the more times you include the words 'medical' and 'sales' onto your CV the likelier you are to come up on a search. NEVER overdo it, otherwise your CV will become repetitive to the point of being ridiculous. Try not to compromise the overall effect of your CV.