You have conquered the world as a top professional with vast skills and successes! Ironically, this can make top CV preparation for the next job a more difficult challenge! Preparing your executive resume can be daunting no matter how much experience you have in your chosen field. With that in mind, we wanted to share a few ideas on how experienced candidates can conquer that challenge and get their top CV right for the new opportunity!
When it comes to submitting your executive resume, one size simply doesn’t fit all, but it is important to spend some time putting together a core document that you can build your applications around. This may be time-consuming but will be worth it in the end and it is something you can enhance and enrich as you go through your career. Tailor your CV to each position that you are applying for, reflecting the language used and highlighting the experience that is directly relevant to the role. It doesn’t have to be two pages, but equally, don’t rely on a 5-page executive resume – the key bit is to make sure all the most important information goes on the front page.
We are big fans of a “Professional Profile”, a short paragraph at the beginning that summarises you. It should briefly list years of experience and qualifications in a career summary. This allows the reader to get a feel for the applicant but should be interesting enough to encourage them to read your executive resume. We find this is very important for experienced candidates as while there may be less competition for some roles, the competitors are skilled and fierce with all having a fantastic experience.
When you have been in the workplace for over 20 years it can seem difficult and perhaps unfair of you to reduce a wealth of experience to a few pages. Remember though – an executive resume is just the carrot on the stick to get you that interview. You can expand further when you get past this first stage and a succulent top CV is key. It also shows your fine-tuned communication skills and your ability to strip back your entire career and pull the salient points to the front that matter to the client.
If you are looking for permanent employment your two most recent roles are the most relevant. Briefly introduce the company you worked with, and your role by title followed by a bullet point description of what you do or did! The information should be easy to read with the right, consistent font, paragraph, and spacing. The reader is under time and attention pressure so help them spend more time on your executive resume! It should almost feel like the relevant information is jumping off the page rather than something that has to be combed through with a magnifying glass.
Do not hesitate to reach out to us to ask for help. Send us your CV, our recruiters will contact you if they find a job that suits you the best and supports you through the interview process.
