Transcript

JULIE THORNTON

When we're recruiting, we always recruit against a CV and usually a covering letter, and what we're looking for is where people have actually really tried to focus on what they have done and how that relates to the very specific job. So we will have given people a job description to look at, and it is really trying to match those two things together.

But we're also looking at other things, which is if you've got a large application pool, you are looking at some of the more basic things – typing errors, grammar. Is the CV well laid out? So those really simple things that actually can make you stand out very quickly for the good or bad reasons – so information that we don't really need is things like what your interests are. So it might be interesting to you, but actually, it doesn't tell us anything about how you're going to do the job or how you've done your job in the past.

So really, what are your skills? What are your experience? Very clearly around the size of projects maybe you've been involved in, the level of responsibility that you've had, what you have actually done. Sometimes, CVs have got quite a narrative about the organisation or the project, but actually not a lot about the individual, and we're really looking at you as an individual.

So my advice would be keep things brief. Keep them simple. Keep them clear. And really, always try and reflect back in your CV what's been asked for in the job description.