🚀Entering Tech #011: How to write a stellar CV

Some trivia before we begin. Answers are at the bottom of this newsletter. 

A CV—short for Curriculum Vitae—is a document that briefly summarises your work experience for prospective employers.

They’re basically sales pitches that tell employers why they should buy hire you. 

In many cases, CVs are the first impressions of the corporate world; they’re the first thing your bosses and managers will learn about you. 

So to make a great first impression, you have to ensure your CV stands out. 

How do you curate resumes/CVs that shine? Here are a few tips.

1.📈 Show results

A great CV is the enemy of a math teacher- you have to show your results without focusing on the workings. In the tech world, what matters is what you’re able to build and how fast you’re able to build it. If you’re applying for a role as a product manager, your CV must show how many [successful] products you have built.

Instead of just stating what you did in old jobs, show what your efforts produced. Here’s an example:

❌ Responsible for building a newsletter product. 

✅ Contributed to the 4x growth of a digital product within my first 18 months in the role.

Measurable metrics—results—are what matter, and they’ll make your CV stand out.

You may have heard this before but your CV is not your autobiography. It’s your corporate FAQ. 

Only essential information regarding your corporate or work history should be added. Take out information like your date of birth, your primary and secondary schools, marital status, and your physical addresses.

Your CV is selling you and your skills to potential employers. It’s the real-life elevator pitch!

3. 📑 One size doesn’t fit all

CVs are not like wristwatches, one size type does not fit all. You have to create CVs for every job you’re applying to.

The CV you send to TechCabal is not the one you’ll send to Zikoko. Each job has key requirements, and if your CV doesn’t measure up to them, it’ll be tossed aside.

For every job you apply to, modify your CV to showcase the skills and requirements they’re looking for, if you have them. 

For example, a data analyst job might call for expertise in the Python language. A CV that states “proficient in all data languages” will not scale through, but one that specifically mentions proficiency in Python will.

To be clear, we’re not asking you to lie about your skills. We’re asking you to make sure you specify the skills you have that match the job’s requirements.

4. 📶 Size matters

In today’s trivia, you’ll learn how long the average recruiters spend on one CV. A hint: it’s not that long.

Like Joseph Gichuhi said in this edition of #EnteringTech🚀, recruiters get hundreds and sometimes thousands of applications, depending on the role. The longer your CV is, the less time recruiters will have to focus on key aspects of your application.

The optimal length of a CV should be two to three pages.

5. Choose the right format

Finally, the format of your CV will also play a role in which jobs you get interviewed for. You need to make sure your CV is styled to the global standard.

This means no spelling errors, no wrong punctuation marks, and no—we can’t stress this enough—Comic Sans font! Choose a legible or standard font like Arial, Times New Roman, Garamond, or Open Sans. No cursive or showy fonts are needed—unless of course, you’re applying to be a clown.