Deepti Mishra

The best way to commence writing a CV is to give some time and thought to writing a compelling and meaningful “Profile”.

There seems to be three very distinct approaches taken by people who choose to writer their own CV regarding the use of a “Profile” and none of them really helps the candidate’s cause.

Approach One.
Don’t include one on the CV; just produce a very conventional CV that lists jobs and duties.

Approach Two.
Award yourself God like qualities and write a profile about how you are: “visionary, inspirational, a natural leader” and other overblown and unsupported statements.

Approach Three.
Write a list of blindingly obvious statements about “qualities” that recruiters could reasonably assume that every candidate would have anyway. “Hard working, reliable, trustworthy, team player” would be among the favourites. Why not add: “rarely turns up drunk, never takes more than three months sick leave each year, haven’t stolen anything of value from an employer for ages”?

A better approach to Profile writing?

Maybe give some thought to opening your CV with a well thought out and relevant profile that paints a highly positive picture in the mind of the recruiter and immediately begins to set you apart from other candidates. How about: “A highly experienced Project Manager with a 10 year history of delivering multi million pound projects on-time and within budget for the UK’s top Civil Engineering company”.

This approach says several things, all of them extremely positive and offers a skills-set linked to a demonstrable history of success of managing both time and cost effectively. Furthermore, the candidate has worked for the biggest player in the sector and this tells a recruiter that he has a stable work history and is clearly valued by his employer as he has been retained for 10 years during highly volatile employment times. The recruiter would also reasonably assume that the Project Manager is used to working to the highest of standards and successfully complying with a range of Industry and H&S guidelines.

This example has used just 28 words as the opening line for a profile and has probably achieved far more in one sentence than the majority of CVs achieve over several pages.