The prospect of job-seeking is usually accompanied by anxiety (and profuse sweating in some cases). The dread and musk of fear fill the air of the interview room, preceded by waiting-room nail-biting as nausea unsettles the stomach. But before you can begin to enjoy these typical interview ‘goodies’, you must first get that crucial phone call: the initial sounding-out and (hopefully) an invitation to interview. Really it all comes back to that CV (and your cover letter).
A CV (Curriculum Vitae), according to Oxford, is defined as: a written record of your education and the jobs you have done that you send when you are applying for a job. It is your career history and is also referred to as a résumé. A job seeker must have a CV ready to present to a potential employer or a recruitment agent/consultant before and at the interview stage.
Imagine that the job recruiter/hiring manager gets on average 100 applications for any 1 role. They are not going to have the time to read each CV and cover letter word-for-word. They are going to skim-read applications, searching for specific key terms and skills that fit the job description. This can even be done with automated CV-screening software and often is. This game-changer means that your CV has to be tailored to every job type, every organisation’s job description, every job application, every time.