CVs
General Tips from
University of Nottingham Business Society:
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Keep the font and font size consistent for both the titles and body of text
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Try to keep it to 1 page - if Elon Musk's CV is one page there's no reason yours should be longer
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Use industry buzzwords and figures to quantify your work e.g. "I surpassed my sales target by 32% over a 2 month period"
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Separate the content into paragraphs and subheadings
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Use Grammarly to check for spelling, grammar or punctuation errors
Making a CV AI Won't Reject
When applying to most graduate jobs or internships, your CV will be automatically screened by application trackers. Much like SEO, an AI program will score your CV based on the fit for the job by comparing the language used to keywords in the job description or a companies values. These programs will often start by looking at the requirements - qualifications necessary to be able to perform the job. The program will then sift through the CV again, ranking the candidate based on the knowledge, skills and abilities the firm is looking for.
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To optimise your CV, it is important you tailor it to each role. You must ensure your CV contains the terms and competencies defined in the job description. Secondly, use adjectives and adverbs - such as "significant" and "successfully" - as these can boost your score. Finally, unique artwork and cool fonts may make your CV look nice, but they can also cause a low score on the AI test.
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Because CVs are often sifted through by AI, your Cover Letter is more important than ever! This is because it is what recruiters will read as AI programs for Cover Letters are not currently effective. Your cover letter should be an argument for why you would be a great fit for the team, the company and the culture. Also, whilst it is important to fit in keywords, you shouldn't try to achieve a 100% compliance score. A CV which is overly filled with keywords can seem disingenuous, so it is important to find a middle ground. Moreover, AI can also learn to filter out commonly used words such as "innovation" or "leadership" so try to use synonyms for commonly used words