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How to create the best work history section for your CV
One of the best ways to ensure your CV stands out from the rest of the competition is to create a fantastic employment history section. It needs to provide much more than the usual ‘boring’ information about where you worked and what you did. This is easy to write, and simply listing everything you’ve ever done is uninspiring.
In today’s competitive job market the employers are expecting much more than a simple list of tasks and job titles. To stay ahead of the game you need to do much more.
Here’s how to create the best work history section for your CV…
Keep everything relevant
Having years of experience sounds great for a CV, right? Unfortunately this won’t win you any medals. But what will is focusing in upon what really matters to the employer.
There is no need to take up value space on your CV with a huge list of roles and tasks that are not applicable to the new position. Look for the roles that the hiring manager will be interested in seeing and make sure you bring those to the forefront.
Keeping the information focused upon the new role is the key to success. The employer is likely not interested in reading a huge list of tasks for all of your jobs. Instead, choose wisely and expand upon only the ones that really matter. Relevancy is extremely vital when it comes to writing about your career history.
Avoid employment gaps
A gap in your employment timeline is very likely to put off the hiring manager, and for a number of reasons. They could believe you are covering something up, or possibly have forgotten to fill that timeline in – so possibly a mistake on your CV!
With literally hundreds of CV’s to read and shortlist for an interview, you can’t afford to give a reason to end up on the ‘no’ pile. That gap has to be filled with something, so don’t be afraid to be honest and transparent. You shouldn’t leave it up to the hiring manager to guess and become suspicious.
Provide stats and results in your employment history section
The key to success lies within the level of detail provided in your employment section. In addition to stating your tasks and responsibilities, you need to also supply actual stats and results. You should also information on your promotions – why you gained one.
An employer is not only interested in what experience you have, but also how you performed in those roles. By providing your actual results and performance stats you can get well ahead of other applications who simply list their past job titles.
Depending on the role, you should be able to not only provide your past results but also explain scenarios and situations where you excelled. This could be anything from dealing with and resolving customer complaints; to your ideas that were implemented and increased turnover or improved customer service.
Jotting down any promotions you gained within a past role is also a great way to showcase your performance. Don’t forget to also state how you achieved the promotion!
Here’s how to write a CV that focuses on performance and achievements – Achievement focused CV help.
