If you consider the piles of applications that recruiters have to go through, first screening will last only 10 seconds and poor presented CV’s and Coverings will be balled-up and thrown into the trash.

If you want your application to stand out and win you an interview, you have to research what recruiters really expect from an applicant. Read on and see some basic CV and Covering tips that will get you an interview.

CV tips

• Presentation: Sometimes presentation is even more important than the information itself; for the moment, you have to think of yourself as a “product” that has to be perfectly marketed to the “client” recruiter. A good presentation will rescue your application from the 10 seconds’ screening I have just mentioned.  Use either ‘Times New Roman, Arial or Verdana font, font size 11 or 12 and please do not use colours. Use bullet points and small sentences to describe your job specifications and finally leave some blank space to facilitate the reader in making notes
  
• Do not include: your photo or other confidential information. Recruiters do not have to know if you are married or not, if you have children, your place of birth and your age. Keep this information aside to make sure you will not be a victim of any form of discrimination
• Person: Use third person instead of first
• Words that sell: Start your sentences with words that “Sell”. Such as, Managed, Achieved, Coordinated, Maximised...
• Length: Keep your CV in one page; two pages CV is hardly recommended especially for a young student
• Order: Many people are questioning what should be placed first; career or education? See what your selling point is and place it first. Whichever section you place first or second, make sure you keep reverse chronological order within these sections

Covering Letter tips

• First impression matters most: As we have already mentioned on the CV section, presentation is of the same importance as content. Visit a library or check online for covering letter layouts. Adopt the one that suits mostly to your industry
  
• Repetition: Do not repeat yourself; e.g. if something has been already mentioned on the CV it does not have to be repeated on the covering letter
  
• Do not use funny emails: When I started applying for my first post-graduate job, I was mistakenly using the following email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ; what recruiter could have been taking me seriously with such email? Luckily, one of them advised me to change it. To be honest I saw more recruiters getting back to me after that
  
• Dear...: try to find out who’s the one that comes up with the decision of whether or not you should pass in to the next stage ‘interview’. Then, address your cover letter to their. ‘Dear’ followed by their title ‘Mr., Mrs., Dr...’ and then their last name. Never the first name or full name! Dear Sir/Madam is how you should start if you are not in a way to find out the name of the decision maker
  
• Closing: there is a basic rule; if you don’t know the name of the person to whom you are addressing yourself, finish off your letter with ‘Yours faithfully’. If you do know it, sign off your letter with ‘Yours sincerely’
  
• Length:  keep your letter as short as possible; there are piles of them that have to be read. One page covering is the optimum length

All these clauses are basic rules that have to be followed by students applying for jobs within the UK. I couldn’t fit a lot of details within this brief article, so head on to the closest library or bookstore and conduct a further research at their career building section. You can also ask your university’s career centre if they would be willing to proofread your CV and Covering.

By Emmanuel Linardatos