How to write a CV that serves your audience
A challenge I see repeatedly when it comes to CVs is the difficulty of distinguishing between what feels important to us personally, and what's actually going to be relevant to the person deciding if we get that all-important first interview.
Sometimes people will present me with career histories that span decades, filled with achievements they're proud of, but that don't serve their current narrative. The art isn't just in choosing what to include - it's in understanding how to provide the right context and content without either over-explaining or leaving readers baffled.
Set the scene: your experience in context
Here's something many senior candidates miss: even if you've worked for a household name organisation, no one knows what it was like, in your specific role, while you were there. Your experience is unique, and that uniqueness is precisely what employers need to understand.
The key is setting the scene properly
Your CV is an account of what has already happened, and things will have changed since then, for every past and even current role. Putting a pin into the relevant time – showing the reader what the organisation was like when you were there in terms of the organisation’s scale, complexity, activities, challenges and dynamics – gives them the context they need to understand your achievements.
As one client put it recently: “It’s like the blurb on the back of a book - just enough of the right information to compel you to read the whole thing.”
What context should you include?
Not all of these may be relevant, but this is a useful starter checklist.
Ownership and stage: Was it private equity backed? Early stage? A multi-national, publicly listed company? A not-for-profit? Family owned and run? Had ownership changed or was it about to?
Scale and reach: Was it a domestic UK company with international customers? Regional European? What was the revenue, number of employees, or assets under management? Be mindful of commercial sensitivity – if figures aren't publicly available, indicate scale in other ways.
Market position: Was the organisation or market growing, changing, or in difficulty? What were the main challenges or opportunities during your tenure?
Your role within it: What were the organisation’s main purpose, activities and goals? If you weren't CEO of the entire organisation, how did your department, division, or geography fit into the bigger picture? What was the relationship like with investors?
The gap between expectation and reality
In my previous article, I talked about the gap between what you might have expected on day one in a job, and what you actually found – this is often where the really interesting stuff happens.
The difference between the job offer stage 'sell' and the true situation can include less hopeful financial circumstances, toxic work environments, entrenched resistance to change, or legacy acquisitions that were never properly integrated. How you dealt with this disparity often reveals your adaptability, capability and initiative.
Successfully managing difficult circumstances is far more impressive than achieving results in ideal conditions. If you don’t set out the context, the reader may just assume everything was straightforward.
Killing your darlings
It’s hard to know what to leave out of your CV, particularly when you've had a long and varied career.
When I’m working with clients, I encourage them not to edit what they already have – it’s too hard to let go of what’s there. Instead, start with a skeleton: job titles, employers and dates. Then add in the context and build it out with achievements, asking yourself: “What is still relevant to my audience today?”
Some business stories and achievements are now best relegated to reminiscences with old colleagues…
In my twenties, I walked in at 7:30am one morning in my second week as HR Manager for a substantial manufacturing plant to learn that a group of employees had (unofficially!) manufactured and successfully detonated a 2m cannon in the basement of the plant, destroying a supporting wall. I didn’t go home for two days, dealing with the disciplinary investigation, police involvement and other repercussions. This was a winning example of crisis management at the time, but now it's irrelevant to who I am and what I do today.
A client a few years ago presented me with a CV that went into huge detail back over two-and-a-half decades, including his time as Head Boy at school. He conceded with a chuckle that only his Mum would still find this interesting. Irrelevant information doesn’t just use up valuable space, but it also detracts from the real value you can bring and can raise questions about your judgement.
Make it accessible: ditch the jargon
All groups are prone to use of exclusive, specific language and acronyms. For years I struggled to understand and occasionally deployed the novel words and phrases my teenagers used. Epic fail, apparently.
The bottom line is that we were far better served using commonly understood, modern language when communicating with each other. The same goes for professional terminology.
Be ruthless about language. Review your CV, and ask yourself these five questions:
Says who? Is this just my opinion of myself, or am I providing evidence of my skills and experience?
So what? Why should this information be included? Is it relevant, not just generally, but for this specific role?
Is this me? Do I recognise myself and the unique experience I can bring in what I’ve written?
Can I expand on this? Have I thought through the information so I can expand on it confidently in an interview?
Does this serve my audience? Have I provided the information that’s required by, and of interest to, the people I hope will read this?
Finally, keep it concise
Much of the skill required is using as few words as possible to convey maximum information. With that in mind, I’m signing off! But before I do… one final thought:
Think about layout and readability too. People want to find the same information in the same place across different CVs. Make it easy for them – clear headings, consistent formatting, and information that flows logically from one section to the next.
We’ll expand on this next time.
If you're struggling to identify what context matters most in your career story, or finding it difficult to distinguish between personal pride and professional relevance, I'd be happy to help. Please contact me for a brief conversation about how we can present your experience most compellingly.