It’s amazing how shockingly poor many executive CVs and work portfolios are because then don’t know how to write an executive cv, and then the owners get amazed that they are not being headhunted. The big problem is not the lack of jobs (and no, I am not oblivious to the unemployment stats), or the amount of luck and connected friends you have, the problem is in how you professionally market and present yourself to your target employers as an executive.
Let’s take a look at what is an Executive CV, its purpose, and ways to compile it.
What is a CV?
Before learning how to write an executive CV let us first define a CV. We define a Curriculum Vitae as a document that formally represents and describes you, your skills, and your value proposition, a personal marketing document designed to promote and sell who you are and what value you offer.
Most of the CVs I have seen and reviewed are written in a similar, old, and dull way of showcasing your roles and responsibility using an outdated word format resulting in an average attempt to market yourself.
The problem with most of these average CVs lies in many things, a major factor being that they are way too old, they are limiting in visual appearance and formatting, and very common in usage. The old-style CV does not showcase your skills correctly, it is visually unappealing, and the design takes up too many pages.
Gone are the olden days where writing a CV was a copy and paste of your roles and responsibilities, employers want to know your value proposition, how will you help and improve them, they would like to see the results of what you have previously achieved, they don’t want to be stuck with the wrong person for the job.
So, it is very advantageous to craft your an executive CV in a manner that will appeal to your potential employers by showcasing your strength in a simple, elaborate and creative manner, here are a few important points to note:
- Be accurate and straight to the point, don’t write long and unnecessary things.
- Showcase your best and relevant skills; always address your job requirements.
- Showcase your achievements in your previous roles; don’t write about what you did too much but rather what you achieved or implemented in that role.
- Show what is unique about you and the way you addressed your previous roles and what you can do for this next role.
- Be visual, stats have shown that visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text, remember time is money.
- Use pictures, logos, graphs and charts (without getting carried away, keep it clean and professional), and remember to show the numbers if you have them (without bridging confidentiality of cause).
Because the market is so crowded companies are looking for great individuals who are creative in thought and approach, individuals that stand out from the rest, individuals who take their careers seriously so, learning how to write an executive cv that is professional and captivating is important.
Thing to avoid in your executive CV:
- Copy and paste of your Job Spec (roles and responsibilities).
- Grammatical errors, check for spelling and get someone to review your CV, don’t take chances we all make simple mistakes that we easily miss when proof reading our own work.
- Bad pictures, if you are going to use your picture, then please take a professional one and not a selfie.
- Oversharing information, you don’t have to share personal information like your full address or the number of kids you have, keep your information relevant to the job.
- Exaggerating, do not lie about who you are and what you did, things always have a way of catching up.
- Avoid writing a CV in the third person, a CV is a personal document, unless you are a C-Level Executive and your CV includes a Bio.
Having a well-crafted personal brand can help you archive plenty, and having a well-crafted CV is a good place to start.
Benefits of have a great executive CV includes:
- Easily acquiring new opportunities and promotions,
- Being headhunted,
- Being heard, noticed and regarded as an expert.
But, you need to go beyond this, you need to constantly grow as an individual, you have to apply your personal brand on your digital social platforms too, especially LinkedIn.
But remember a great personal brand is like a woman in the red dress, she stands out but whether she is beautiful or not is a story for another day.
If you would like to stand out, be an industry leader, and have a great professional/personal brand then visit elite-cv.com and see some of the amazing services we can assist you with.
