In the whole scheme of things, when it comes to CVs, format comes somewhat down the pecking order of things in terms of importance.
This may come as a surprise to some, and especially since some people (and some advisors come to that) seem to be the under the impression that format is not just the most vital aspect, but is the central key to CV success.
It plays a part, but it certainly isn’t the key.
This stands to reason when you think about it logically.
For example, put yourself in the employer’s shoes and consider this scenario.
If you are looking for a new CFO for your multinational organisation and have 60 CVs from CFOs on your desk, who would you choose?
- The candidate with the flashiest CV format?
- Or the candidate who best meets your requirements for the job?
You need to sell yourself, and do it well. For that you need great content. And ultimately, powerful content out-trumps great format when it comes to successful executive job applications.
At the same time, great content alone isn’t enough either. For example, you could have fantastic content, but if you don’t present it in the way employers prefer (concisely and in a presentable and legible manner) then the likelihood is that you’ll miss out on jobs that otherwise were within your grasp.
This issue isn’t so unusual, and many executives have decent raw material in terms of things like experience and achievements, but they don’t present this in the way that employers prefer. As such, many executives get rejected not because they aren’t good enough or don’t have the right attributes, but because they don’t state their case anywhere near as well as they could.
It’s quite a common occurrence.
Some have an inkling, or even more than an inkling, but many executives are completely unaware that they could state their case more powerfully. This page elaborates on this.
The most common way executives botch their application is by overcomplicating things. Many executives have long, cluttered and complex CVs that have inconsistent pitching, mixed messages and raw material that is decent at its core, but is poorly channelled and badly executed.
A lot of typical professional executive CVs fall into this category.
Such CVs can look great, but (and it’s a big but), often it’s at the expense of your all-important sales messaging. And as already established, powerful sales messaging out-trumps format when it comes to executive CVs.
Format plays a part in the problems with both scenarios above.
Many professional CVs are long, cluttered and complex, partly because of the writer and his/her inability to writer powerfully yet concisely, but part of it is often intertwined with the chosen format.
We conducted lots of tests on a great many CV formats years ago (and gauged employer opinions). The tests included formats used by typical professional firms. Most of the typical professional formats were rejected, not just because long and cluttered CVs tend not to be well-perceived, but also because poor word-to-space ratios, poor legibility and compromised messaging are not conducive to powerful messaging.
Flashy formats were rejected too, but for different reasons.
Typically, flashy formats have graphic elements which eat into your (already limited) selling space. This in turn tends to have negative repercussions on sales and central messaging. In our tests the flashy formats weren’t particularly well perceived by executive employers either. Yes, flashy formats are popular with students and some of those further down the career ladder, but at executive level employers expect (and get) a lot more from candidates.
It's a bit of an aside, but some of the flashy formats also proved unsuitable because the extra file size was too big for some email systems/servers.
This page shows our popular format.
As you’ll note from the format and the text on the example, it’s no coincidence that it’s neat, legible and concise (i.e., how employers prefer CVs).
Our format looks simple on the surface, but that’s deceptive. It’s actually much quicker and easier to write without space constraints than to write to them.
Try to refine your own CV down to half it’s current vertical size and you’ll get a taste of just what we mean by this (and that’s before even touching upon the next step of refining cluttered multiline entries into the optimum neat single line bullets).
Would we use a different format?
Well, it’d be much quicker and easier for us, but far worse for you the customer.
As such, we’re happy to spend more time working on your behalf to help you stand out.
Things like format are very subjective, and if you have your own preference, then if you send us an editable version we can work to that. At the same time, everything we do, we do for good reason, and we wouldn’t be doing you any favours if we didn’t highlight the above issues with most formats, as well as give you some insights into just why our preferred format is so popular.
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