CV and Cover letter

Your CV is the first information an employer will receive about you when you apply for a job, so it is vital to improving your chances of securing a new job. The aim of an effective CV is simple - to get you an interview with a prospective employer. This may sound straightforward, but remember, an employer will potentially be looking at as many as 100 other CVs, so your CV needs to stand out to ensure you make it to interview.

Therefore your CV needs to demonstrate that you are the right person for the job by highlighting:

• Specific skills you have to offer the employer.
• Your previous relevant experience.
• Appropriate personal qualities for the role.
• An understanding of the job requirements.

What's more, given the volume of CVs an employer will receive, your CV should be: short enough to read quickly and ideally no more than two sides of A4. Your CV is a reflection of you, so make sure that it looks professional. Choose a clear, professional typeface to ensure that it can be easily read. Avoid typos or spelling mistakes, not only by spellchecking but by proofreading your own CV, or asking someone else to proofread it. Organise your document into clear headings (work experience, education) so that these can easily be scanned. Order your experience and education into reverse chronological order to highlight your most recent experience.

In general, your CV should be clear enough for an employer to scan and understand quickly, while also easy to appraise your key skills and experience to determine whether you are appropriate for the role.
When writing your CV, you should aim to sell yourself as much as possible to a potential employer. To achieve this, you should describe yourself in terms that make you sound positive and proactive, such as accurate, adaptable, confident, friendly, hard-working, innovative, proactive, reliable and responsible.

If don’t have much experience in a role or are changing careers completely, you should still try to highlight your skills to an employer. An effective way of achieving this is by including a “Career Objective” section, which allows you to describe what you’re looking to achieve in your next role, as well as highlighting any experience in a different field that might still be appropriate in the job you’re applying for.

How to write the perfect covering letter

Covering letters are used by employers to view a quick summary of an applicant’s skills and experience, and will sometimes be used to prescreen applicants before viewing CVs.

So, your covering letter needs to ensure that you promote the skills you have which are appropriate for the role you are applying for. It also needs to provide a good reflection of the experience and qualifications noted down on your CV.

In short, your covering letter is a marketing document to sell your relevant skills and experience for a role, to ensure your CV receives a proper viewing, and to help get you through to the interview stage.

Covering letters, like CVs, will vary in content depending on the role you’re applying for and your own skills and experience. However, employers will generally expect to see the following information: 

• Contact details (generally your address and phone number, as well as email address for online applications).
• Details of the job you’re applying for and where you saw this advertised (if not a prospective letter).
• A brief summary of your recent experience and what you have gained from this.
• Why your skills and experience are suitable for the role (in response to the job spec where applicable).

 

To make your covering letter as effective as possible, here are some useful guidelines:

• Address the letter to the right person. It may sound obvious, but when writing a covering letter you should always try to address the letter to the person handling job applications. If you’re unsure of the right contact, don’t be afraid to call the practice/PCT to ask for a name.
• Keep it brief. Covering letters should be a summary of your CV, matching your skills and experience to the requirements of the role. As such, these should be kept as short and concise as possible, and certainly should not exceed one page of A4..
• Refer to your CV. The covering letter should highlight the key points of your CV that will be of interest to the recruiter.
• Match yourself to the job. Always read the job description and person spec and relate this to your own experience, CV and any supporting information. You would be surprised how many nurses don’t do this. Remember, employers use covering letters as a means of prescreening applications, so you need to show that you meet their requirements.
• Explain gaps in work history. Your covering letter provides an ideal opportunity to explain what you were doing during the gaps, and sell any skills you might have picked up on the way.
   

Sometimes the recruiter hasn’t asked for a covering letter. This is often the case when applying to jobs on job sites. However, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t include one. Remember, a covering letter is an opportunity to sell yourself and improve your chances of getting an interview, so you should always make the effort to write a tailored letter for each application.

 

If you don’t have all of the experience or qualifications necessary for a specific role, your covering letter is a great place to confront this. So, when outlining your relevant skills for a role, you should be able to highlight areas where you can make up for a lack of qualifications/experience, and why you still believe you would be able to meet the job requirements.