Zen and the Art of CV Writing
Or the importance of clarity, simplicity and economy in your CV
Research by recruitment consultants TheLadders research found that selectors take about 6 seconds before they make an initial 'fit or no fit' decision" on candidates. The research tracked eye movements of 30 recruiters over ten weeks to record and analyse where and how long they focused. In the limited time spent studying the CVs recruiters looked at your name, current title and company, current position start and end dates, previous title and company, previous position and education. They found that it was important for CVs to have a clear visual hierarchy and no distracting visual elements since these "reduced recruiters’ analytical capability and hampered decision-making" and stopped them "locating the most relevant information, like skills and experience." |
For competitive jobs with many applicants, a selector may only read your CV for one minute before deciding to reject, or to shortlist for detailed consideration. Here an economical CV can help greatly. The candidate has already done much of the work for the selector by removing all redundant and unnecessary information and ordering the CV in a way that makes it easy to focus on important content.
An economical CV is not the same as a simplistic CV. A simplistic CV is one where the applicant can't be bothered to get things right, whereas an economical CV takes much time and effort.
The very best CVs tend to have a lean, mean, clean, crafted look with the use of every inch of space carefully considered, so don't make your CV too busy: if in doubt, leave it out!
Use font, font size, straight lines and alignment to organise your CV to be as clear and simple as possible.
Clutter, bulk, and erudition confuse perception and stifle comprehension, whereas simplicity allows clear and direct attention. You must be ruthless in your efforts to simplify—not dumb down—your message to its absolute core.
| Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Robert Olson Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.Einstein The simplest things are often the truest.Richard Bach Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.Chopin Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.Leonardo Da Vinci Our life is frittered away by detail ... Simplify, Simplify.Henry David Thoreau Simplicity means the achievement of maximum effect with minimum means.Koichi Kawana NASA spent millions of dollars developing a special pen which could write in the zero gravity environment of space. The Russians used a pencil ..... |
The kind of simplicity I am talking about does not come from a place of laziness or ignorance, rather it comes from an intelligent desire for clarity that gets to the essence of an issue, something which is not easy to do. Simplicity is not easy, in fact, it is hard. When I use the word simple (or simplicity), I am referring to the term as being essentially synonymous with clarity, directness, subtlety, essentialness, and minimalism. Designers .... are constantly looking for the simplest solution to complex problems.
Daniel Garr - Presentation Zen
A study by BI Business School in Oslo presented a group of recruitment professionals with the same CV content in three different versions:
- A formal layout on white paper
- On pastel-coloured paper
- A “creative” version designed to stand out.
All deviations from the formal format reduced the chances of an interview. Coloured paper had a clearly negative effect, while the “creative” format was worst of all: the same candidate had almost twice the chances of being offered an interview with a formal CV as with a “creative” one.
"Employers often don’t use a clear, systematic method, and may be vague in specifying success criteria for the job. Recruitment professionals are only a bit better at telling good and bad candidates apart than amateurs. When many candidates are competing for a job, an employer will often emphasise negative information – they are worried about being ”tricked” by candidates and look for reasons to sift candidates out of the ”of interest” pile,”
The two CVs below are far too narrow, but placing them side by side allows styles to be easily compared.
Old fashioned CV |
Economical CV |
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Curriculum Vitae Name: Sherlock Holmes _______________________________ |
Sherlock Holmes |
Tasteful use of colour just for headings and sub headings makes a CV look more classy and helps to draw the eye to key sections. Use a dark colour such as dark blue or burgundy as light colours may not photocopy well. | ||||||||||||
Address: Nationality: British |
6 Farthings Court, Parkwood, Canterbury CT2 8NP
Nationality: British |
You don't need words such as curriculum vitae, name and address. It's obvious that the document is a CV | ||||||||||||
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| PERSONAL STATEMENT | Profile |
Underlining belongs to typewriters where no other way of emphasising words existed. Don't use it on CVs as the line under the word reduces readability. | ||||||||||||
| BLAH, BLAH, BLAH | Blah blah blah | Capital letters should only be used for subheadings: they are less easy to read as they lack ascenders (b,d, k) and descenders (p, q, y) | ||||||||||||
| EDUCATION | Education |
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2009 to date The University of Kent 2001 - 2008 Casubon High School, Middlemarch 1996 -2001 Hill Primary School |
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By separating education and qualifications you make the selector have to work harder to work out where you did each qualification. Here is is relatively simple but it can become confusing if the candidate has been to a number of schools. | ||||||||||||
| QUALIFICATIONS | ||||||||||||||
BA History - expect to graduate June 2009 2008: A-levels: English (A); French (B); History (C)
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GCSEs
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GCSEs
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Use of bold for sub, sub headings makes them stand out and makes it easier for the selector to identify different sections of the CV | ||||||||||||
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2006 8 GCSEs including Mathematics (A), English (B) and French (B). | Summarising GCSEs can remove clutter, however is your grades were all at A and B you could consider leaving these in as this will make a positive impression. Degradation to the visual message can occur in many ways, such as .... unnecessarily emphasizing items such as lines, shapes, symbols, and logos. For example, lines in grids or tables can often be made quite thin, lightened, or even removed.Daniel Garr - Presentation Zen (p122) Repeating the date for each GCSE just clutters the CV |
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| Work Experience | Work |
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| 2006 - 2008 Flora Motley Ltd, High Street, Middlemarch
Saturday Sales Assistant in fashion store: customer service, stock control, cash handling |
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| Interests | Interests |
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*I play the violin in the University orchestra and was leader of the school orchestra. |
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Use of dashes or asterisks for bullets makes the CV look unprofessional and here, there isn't even a gap between the bullet and the text Simple round or square bullets look best. Also here the subject of the bullet is in bold allowing the selector to skim read it more easily |
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| _______________________________ | Lines between sections take up space and make the CV more cluttered. It's better to signify different sections of the CV by clear subheadings in a larger font size. | |||||||||||||
| Referees | ||||||||||||||
Dr T. Lydgate, Miss R. Vincy, |
Unless you are specifically asked to provide referees you can leave these out as references should not be taken up until you have been shortlisted for interview. You can put "I will be happy to supply these on request", but even this is not necessary as it's obvious that you will do this if you want the job! |
