I have been flabbergasted at the quality of some of the CVs I have recently received for an Operations Director role. With over 18 years recruiting senior logistics and supply chain management roles, I find it difficult to believe how there can be so many candidates at a senior level within our industry that still don’t know how to set out their work history.
To this end I have decided to share 5 tips to ensure your experience stands out on your CV.
1. Order – Reverse chorological order, so you most recent employment is the first.
2. Employer – Assuming that everyone will know what your employer does is a huge mistake. Often the first person to review your CV at new potential employer is a HR Assistant. They may not be clued up on all their competitors and/or not understand the relevance of the company you currently/recently worked for. So ensure you provide a brief overview of your current employer. One or two lines should cover it.
3. Overview – Provide a brief overview of your role including scale & dimensions. This will help to ensure hiring managers can quickly understand the level of responsibility you have held.
4. Achievements – In a managerial role it is expected that you will have achieved improvements in areas like profitability, sales, cost control or productivity. So ensure these are easy to spot in a clearly defined section for relevant to each position. I recommend listing achievements below the overview of your role and ensure where possible all achievements are quantifiable.
5. Avoid Waffle. Keep each sentence short, precise and to the point. Writing long winded paragraphs can result in the reader missing your point.
I hope you find these helpful.
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