Just as dressing a certain way creates an impact when meeting people for the first time, so the ‘Power CV’ creates an impact when it lands on your future manager’s desk; after all, ‘you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression’.

Many of us only update our CVs when we decide it is time to look for another job. This then consists of taking five minutes to add another line of text to highlight the current position and a few lines to highlight role duties.
We then send this off to a few agencies, upload it onto a jobs website and hope for the ‘ideal position’ to coming floating into our inbox. After getting a minimal response at best, we say, “all those job websites and company/agency sites are a waste of time; I submit my CV and it gets lost in a black hole!”
Your CV is your ‘window to the world.’ It needs to create an impact that makes the person reading your CV respect your achievements and want you at the same time!

Follow the Redhunt Resume Rules™ of Layout, Content, Clarity and Conciseness and create a CV with impact:
Name, Address, Contact details
Personal Profile: a summary of the key relevant skills, experience and qualifications that shows the manager that you are the person for the job and encourages them to read on.
Career Profile: this should list your main jobs (most recent first) and key achievements in each role (try to limit this to no more than 5 achievements in each role). Steer away from listing only your role duties, as managers already know general role profiles. It is your achievements and successes that get you an interview (and subsequently, a position) and not the duties you were paid to do.
Education & Qualifications: this should be used to supplement and reassure your hiring manager of your academic credentials and industry/jobspecific qualifications and training (e.g. ABPI, CIM, CIPD, MBA etc).
Product Experience to Date: highlight any relevant therapy areas you have worked in, and any launch experiences you may have. This can differentiate you from the competition and show the breadth and depth of your product/therapy area knowledge. This is especially helpful for contract sales reps, to highlight the broad therapy experience gained as syndicated teams.
References: include these in the footer to your CV as ‘available upon request.’

That’s it! Clear, concise and to the point; just wait for the interviews!

Som Jandu is Managing Director of Redhunt Ltd

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