Hiring managers spend an average of 6 seconds on a CV before deciding yes or no. Here is exactly how to make those 6 seconds count.
Six seconds. That is the average time a recruiter spends on a CV before deciding whether to keep reading or move on. If your CV does not immediately signal value, it is gone.
The problem is that most candidates write CVs for themselves — a chronological story of where they have been. Hiring managers do not care about your story. They care about one thing: can you solve my problem?
Start with a punchy professional summary. Two or three sentences maximum. Do not describe who you are — describe what you deliver. A summary that mentions a specific achievement in the first sentence makes a hiring manager sit up.
Ditch the objective statement. Nobody needs to know that you seek a challenging role in a dynamic organisation. Everyone seeking a job wants that. It says nothing.
Use numbers everywhere. Revenue generated, costs saved, team size managed, projects delivered, percentage improvements. Quantified achievements are the difference between a CV that reads like a job description and one that reads like a track record.
Keep it to one or two pages. Three pages signals that you cannot edit yourself. For anyone under eight years of experience, one page is almost always better.
File format matters more than you think. PDF is almost always the right choice — it preserves your formatting across every device and system.
Finally, tailor it. A generic CV sent to every employer is a CV that speaks to no employer in particular. Five targeted applications will outperform fifty generic ones every single time.