How Do You Get Your CV Viewed?

Uploading your CV onto jobs boards is a great way to get your CV out there and to be approached by recruitment agencies or potential future employers. However, hundreds of people may be looking for the same role as you and may have similar skills.

So how do you ensure your CV is viewed?

When recruiters search for candidates with a particular skill, a large number of CV's may come up. Although recruiters will look through as many as possible, time is never on their side. Plus it is their job to pick only the very best for their clients' needs. If your CV is on the first page of the job board search, your CV is more likely to be viewed by the recruiter.

So how do you get my CV on the first page of a job board search?

The skills you have and career you want must be mentioned in your CV for it to come up in the search for a role that you may want to be contacted for. Recruiters will search for certain skills/key words to find candidates with relevant experience. These will be picked out on your CV during a job board search. The more keywords found, the higher your CV will be in the search and so more likely to be viewed by a recruiter.

For example, say a recruiter is looking for a Trainee Sales Representative with laboratory experience. In this instance they may be mainly searching for someone who has worked in the lab but wants to get into a sales role. If this is you, your CV would need to mention the word 'lab'/'laboratory' and 'sales'/'sale' a few times. Many CV's only mention these words once or twice under the job description. The more keywords you have, the more chance your CV will be higher up the list and won't be at the end of the 23rd page. If you have sales and laboratory experience you can mention this in different parts of your CV such as: your Summary, Profile, Key words, Education, Voluntary Work, Work Experience, Projects, Hobbies/Interests, Subjects covered and Skills part of your CV (of course your CV has to be a true representation of yourself and flow nicely). It may also be that you've never done sales before but if you're looking to get into sales, you need to put this somewhere (e.g. in your opening statement) so it is clear what you are looking for and you are easier to find.

This doesn't just apply to job boards; this is also good for your LinkedIn profile and good for recruiters just scanning your CV. The more keywords they glance over the more likely they will take a closer look. Now please don't take this as recruiters being lazy or not understanding what is involved in education or jobs. This isn't the case. If you gave just a sentence or two on your education or just your job title recruiters would have an idea of what is involved, but will have a clearer idea if you elaborate.

The more you help recruiters, the more recruiters can help you!