Ways to Differentiate Your CV for FREE!

Making your CV stand out from the crowd is one of the most important steps you can take to help you gain more interviews for the jobs you really want - and most of it can be done for FREE.

Whether you are an IT contractor or an IT professional in the permanent arena, it is important to differentiate your CV as much as possible to help you gain more interviews for the jobs you really want or get put forward for the most exciting and lucrative contracts.

Yet the part that most professionals forget, is that this can all be done for free!

Here are some key starters which you can implement within your CV immediately:

1. Stop thinking of your CV as a period document and start thinking of it as an on-going project

People (especially permanent) approach a CV in a reactive manner, only creating one when the need arises. Contractors, by nature are better, but even they only look at their CV periodically.

The problem with this is that you will have often forgotten the real value you have added to projects and as such not sell fully them (and you).

So, when you complete projects within your workplace, write a short summary about the impact you made, the skills you learnt or the additional responsibilities you undertook. Do this while the impact of the project is fresh and the results are easily to hand.

This will enable you to immediately turn the emphasis of your CV away from your skills (which is what most people highlight in their CV) and far more into the accomplishments and value-add's that you have created (which is what employers really want to know).

2.  Customise your CV for the different roles you wish to be considered for

A CV is not one, all encompassing document that must contain everything about you - it is simply a mini-brochure which has the goal of gaining you an interview or getting you put forward for a contract.

That is it - nothing more, nothing less.

So, when you are putting yourself forward for roles, send a CV which accurately sells you for JUST THAT role.

Emphasise your skills, responsibilities, accreditations, recommendations and most of all accomplishments that are directly related to the role you're applying for.

Do not confuse the recruiter or employer by promoting information that is not directly related to the role. This just makes you look like a generalist rather than a specialist.

Build up a series of CVs over time which are all suited to the slightly different sectors and roles you operate within.

3.  Gain recommendations from colleagues and line managers

The creation and subsequent adoption of Linked IN, particularly within the IT sector, has made this part of your CV differentiation unbelievably easy.

Firstly, let's start with the reason WHY you need recommendations - simply put, what someone else says about you is about three times as powerful as what you say about yourself.

If you don't quite see where we're are coming from with this, let us put it another way. When you are shopping online, what do you pay more attention to? The company description of the product OR the customer reviews. Exactly.

So, this works in the same way.

Therefore, the rule of thumb is (especially for contractors) that when you approach the end of the contract, gain recommendations from the people you have worked with.

For those in permanent roles, use the same approach but around when you finish a particularly big internal project (ie. you could be working on something with an overseas office - get them to write a referral for you).

Then use these on your Linked IN profile and also within your CV.

Summary:

So, differentiating your CV is something you can do quickly and it is one of the most effective ways of gaining more interviews / being put forward for the roles you really want.