In part one of our two-part guide to transforming your CV, we covered CV length and structure, the value of a targeted introduction, as well as the importance of highlighting relevant content from your degree, and where applicable, of relevant work experience. In this final part, you will learn about evidencing your skills and leadership potential, expanding on relevant interests and tailoring your CV. Please download our example ‘before’ and ‘after’ CVs which help to illustrate the steps and suggested changes.

Provide clear evidence for key skills
One of the most impactful changes you can make to your CV is to evidence your skills. As the majority of candidates applying for placements and graduate roles have no or little previous work experience in that sector, employers focus heavily on applicants’ skills set and their future potential.

Failing to provide clear evidence for your skills set is likely to see your application for a placement or graduate role confined to the ‘reject’ pile. Knowing that you can do the job won’t be enough – you’ve got to show the employer that you can do it!

• Start by looking at the key skills required for the job (as stated on the job advert) and use these as your sub-headings in the skills profile, so you can tailor this section specifically to the requirements of each role.
• Then think about examples from your studies, work, volunteering, and extracurricular activities where you have used those skills. Choose a few examples for each skill, ideally from a variety of contexts.
• Do you have any examples that might make you a more memorable candidate? For example, any student could talk about a group presentation from university to illustrate their teamwork skills, so if you have different examples of teamwork from organising a fundraising event with other volunteers, achieving success with your sports team, or leading a team in your part-time job, use these to help you stand out!

Don’t just include the when and where, but concentrate on the how. For example, when discussing your organisation and time management skills, don’t just say that you demonstrated these in your part-time job as a customer service assistant – tell the reader what approaches or tools you used, e.g. creating a to-do list for every shift to help you prioritise tasks by urgency and importance and to monitor your progress.

Review the two ‘After’ CV examples for further ideas and then have a go at your own skills profile. The Careers & Employability Guide for your course also includes example CVs, so download yours for additional inspiration.

Show your motivation and leadership potential
Whether this is specifically mentioned on the job advert or not, all employers looking to recruit placement students and graduates want to add motivated individuals with leadership potential to their workforce, who will make a valuable contribution to their organisation. Think about situations where you have shown your drive and/or ability to take on responsibility:

• This could be in an academic setting where you have achieved excellent marks that might have been recognised with an award.
• Are you a course rep or involved in a leadership role with a student society?
• You might have led your team to sporting success, or demonstrated your determination to progress through different levels in a martial arts discipline.
• If you play an instrument, have you shown your commitment by completing various grade exams?
• Are you an active fundraiser for a charity?

All of these, and similar roles or achievements, would be great to include on your CV either in a separate entry, or as part of an ‘Additional Information’ section.

Add relevant interests
Any professional interests relating to the job or sector are a great way of illustrating your enthusiasm for your chosen career. If you don’t already have any, it’s very easy to build up this section of your CV! You could engage in some free online learning via websites like Futurelearn, join a professional body as a student member, subscribe to some relevant newsletter or podcasts, or start networking with professionals in your industry on online platforms like LinkedIn. More informal situations can also make great examples: are you an IT student who likes helping your friends and family to resolve their IT problems? Are you a fashion student who has designed and made a wedding dress for a friend? Are you an arts student selling your work on Etsy?

Tailor your CV
It is really important that the structure and content of your CV are tailored to each vacancy, so make sure you amend your CV accordingly for different positions to reflect each employer’s requirements. This doesn’t mean that you have to write a new CV from scratch every time, but would involve simple steps like:

• tweaking the wording in your personal profile based on key words from the job advert
• choosing the most relevant modules and practical aspects of your course to expand on
• matching the skills addressed and evidenced in your skills profile to the job advert
• highlighting relevant interests.

Once you have followed the steps above, compare your original CV against your updated CV in your own ‘before’ and ‘after’ scenario. You probably won’t recognise your new ‘paper self’!

Covid-19 and your CV

Are you concerned that Covid-related restrictions limited your opportunities to gain relevant work experience or that you missed out on practical aspects of your course? This will have been the same for your peers, so your CV or application should not stand out negatively as a result. Many employers cancelled or cut short their own work experience programmes recently and are likely to be understanding of the challenges students faced. You can still make a good impression if you show a real interest in their industry/organisation and can talk about positive steps you have taken to develop this – see the section about relevant interests above. If you have had a part-time job during Covid-19 in an unrelated sector, e.g. working in a supermarket, this will have helped you develop many highly-transferable employability skills, like adaptability, problem-solving, communication skills and resilience, which will be valued by employers.