Tailoring Your Digital Marketing or Ecommerce CV

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Tips And Advice

Writing your CV can be a bit of pain, but once it’s done, it’s done and you can start sending it out. That is, of course, until some pesky recruiter asks you to make a couple of changes and tailor it to a specific role. Don’t they know how many evenings you spent choosing just the right verb? And what does ‘tailor your CV’ even really mean? 

As annoying as it may be, tailoring your CV is important. Honestly, we’re not trying to make you suffer. Here we go over all the reasons why adjusting your CV takes you a step closer to bagging that dream job – some pretty good motivation, right?

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Client knowledge

Your recruiter knows your potential new employer. They’ve gone in to meet them, they’ve explored the office and they speak on an almost daily basis. So, they know what the client is looking for, and what will really grab their attention.

Use this to your advantage. How many other people can find out how to make their CV irresistible to their dream company? Pick your consultant’s brains about what are the most important aspects of the role so you can highlight them on your CV; if they want a high achiever include examples of where you performed above expectations, if they’re looking for a particular piece of experience, put it pride of place at the top of your CV.

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Make you stand out

We’ve all seen the statistics that show hiring managers spend less than 6 seconds looking at a CV. It’s pretty depressing and makes jobhunting feel like a bit of a hopeless lottery. But imagine if you knew what numbers were going to come up?

Tailoring your CV gives you better odds. Highlight your best achievements and the skills they’re looking for in bold so they jump out during a scan read. Make your introduction pithy with bullet points demonstrating the manager’s most desired skills. This will get your CV a longer read.
 

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Narrowing down

In digital and marketing it is very easy to pick up lots of different skills and move between job roles. The temptation is to stick it all in your CV, and why wouldn’t you, you’re proud of it.

However, if you’re applying for a more specific role, you really should narrow down your examples. If you apply for a CRM role and include all your acquisition work, a hiring manager might worry that a) you don’t have enough CRM experience, and b) that you might get bored in a narrower role.

Emphasise your skills and experience in the particular area you’re applying for as well as complementary experience. For example, to keep the CRM analogy running, you might highlight your experience using data or copywriting, but keep the acquisition down to a sentence.

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Tailoring your CV shouldn’t be too much of a pain, and the advantage it gives you is well worth it.  Compare your CV and the job description.

• Does your CV answer the points on the description?
  • anything that’s on your CV but not the job description is surplus - narrow it down, or cut it out.

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Remember the CV is just the first step; the interviews are where you can get deep and meaningful and really sell yourself.