Be Confident in Your CV – and in Interviews

There is a huge amount of pressure to get your CV into a fantastic place in order to get through the paper sift – and this steps up a gear when you get invited in for an interview.

In this short blog, Andrew (Performance Scientist) and Becky (CV Writer) are going to give insights, hints, tips and most importantly the confidence to deliver a CV that will truly stand you apart from the (AI) crowds.

What is confidence?

The dictionary definition of confidence is that it's a belief in your ability to do a task, based on previous experience. If you haven't needed to write a CV or prepare for an interview in a while then you will likely feel less confident, particularly if you have been out of work for an extended period. Luckily, if you have been confident before, then you can create it again and we'll show you how – with or without a professional CV writer to help.

Before delving into some solutions, a little exploration into AI as a CV writer - is it any good? Does it work? How might it affect your confidence in interviews?

If you've asked AI to write your CV (either for a particular job specification or in general), you could well be on the back foot with regards to CV confidence and success. AI does not know you, only what you tell it - it doesn't intrinsically know what stands out on a CV and is proven in not prioritising the right things. It also tends to be equivocal and vague and has even been in the news for its inaccuracies.

This could well give the impression of ambiguity, obfuscation and even dishonesty both prior to and within interviews, and result in doubting yourself and falling flat when probed.

Becky has done a fair bit of research in this, and AI is not looking good as a CV writer! James Innes (the well-known 'CV guru') recently posted his thoughts which reiterate these sentiments.

Seeking professional CV writing help

Becky is a qualified CV writer with a solid background in copywriting and proofreading, and for the last 10 years she has been helping all manner of people transform their CVs as well as their confidence and morale levels. She does this via an in-depth consultation and complete CV rewrite – bringing out the very best bits of you that employers will love.

What Becky provides is the platform upon which clients can detail all roles leading up-to where they are now – their career choices, earlier roles (some key activities and 'pull-outs'), where and how they added value, spending extended time on more recent roles (attaching great figures if possible) – and spending some time exploring both innate traits and cultivated skills. She'll often serve as a reflective ear, and understands life's challenges, pitfalls and career issues – serving as an informal counsellor and career 'mirror' for her clients – building clarity and self-understanding.

By getting Becky's help in creating a professional CV, you will be able to have 100% confidence in what is written, knowing that it accurately reflects you, your achievements and most importantly your skills.

However, you can create a great CV without a CV writer (or AI).

How? Becky recommends you follow the below as a guide:

Ensure beforehand to have identified one to three key roles or role types you have your eye on.

1. Think carefully about the questions Becky, another CV consultant or an interviewer may ask, based on your CV. For details on the STAR format, see below.

For those that don't know, STAR is Situation, Task, Action, Result.

2. Depending on your unique career, think about 4-10 key achievements or challenges in this way: what was the context, what did you do (using which skills perhaps) and what was the result? Make sure these are relevant to the roles/role types you are going for – ideally in different ways.

N.B. On the CV, there's not much room for all these so Becky misses out the 'task' bit – but for the sake of an interview or a covering letter, you could think about/detail all 4 aspects of STAR.

3. Write the answers down, thinking hard about figures. For example, if you introduced a new process, try and do some calculations.

From 8 years in interviewing people, Becky knows that, once keenly prompted, you may be able to calculate an approximate percentage of time that the new process saves a team or person (in a week or month) far more easily than you had thought.

There are many diverse ways in which people add value (and can attach key figures to) for example: monetary (profit, revenue or account worth/growth), customer increases, team sizes managed, NPS, employee engagement/retention increases, productivity increases, audit/compliance scores, industry awards, press coverage, student results and incident reductions.

With earlier roles, no need for figures (though they're great if you have them) but even just acknowledging a key pullout (way you added value) is confidence and clarity building.

4. Now, if you can, find someone you can go into the STAR format with… let them be your reflective ear, hearing how you achieved X, Y and Z! If you can't use anyone, use yourself – a video / recording or mirror perhaps to verbalise what we've outlined previously.

More useful tips for your armoury…

Recruiters spend under 10 seconds on initial CV scans - they can have hundreds to look through.

Aim for 5 lines in the top profile. Allude to the value you've been proven in delivering and the level at which you've worked in the first sentence. Then go into the invaluable skills and traits they want – focusing on the more high-level range and covering the people / leadership skills.

Try and make your CV no more than 2 pages.

Cut all unnecessary words and make earlier roles less detailed.

Mostly focus on where you've added value or high-level activities on the CV.

Begin lines with action verbs (delivered, executed, led, managed, spearheaded, etc).

Do a little intro before bullets - outlining the company if little known, setting context and summarising accountabilities, scope and scale of the role.

Avoid beginning bullets with 'Responsible for…' and make bullets no more than 2 lines – they are supposed to be easy to scan. You can always do a sub-bullet if necessary.

We hope you enjoyed this article.

If you would like support in 'Creating Confidence' then Andrew is able to help you. In just one hour, he will share the same process and tools used by Formula 1 drivers and Olympians. He will help you to not only reduce the anxiety and build-up of pressure, but he will also give you a life changing tool that will help you create confidence each and every time you need it.

Andrew will also match the 20% discount Becky is offering if you quote this article when enquiring.

For more details on Andrew's sessions, please visit www.abperformance.uk and to book a session email him at andrew@abperformance.uk

Thank you for reading, and we wish you all the success you deserve in your job hunting.

Good Luck
Andrew and Becky.