Does Your CV Make the Cut?

By Monster Contributor

So you’re browsing through the bookstore in search for a good book to spend your time on during your next holiday break. You’re going to spend a lot of time with it next to the pool so you want to find that gem, that pageturner. You already know that you’re mostly into modern fiction, possibly a police thriller. In French or in English. Well that still leaves a large selection in front of you. Clock is ticking: You also need to go buy new swimwear and some hip new outfit to match the climate. Tick tock, tick tock … pick a book, your holiday entertainment hinges on it.

Welcome to the choices lots of recruiters are faced with when sifting through the sea of CVs at their disposal.

As the saying goes "Never judge a book by its cover." But that is exactly what you are—a book cover—in his limited daily time the recruiter has to judge which of the CVs he will look into more detail and eventually contact by phone or invite for an interview.

Sure your CV contains more details about you and during an interview you’ll get even more opportunity to explain the company why they should pick you. But what if the journey ends .. right there. At the bookcover?

Recruiters want/need some basic info at a glance before going further into the details of a CV.

  1. Your most recent job title: It gives the recruiter a quick view of your actual skillset and experience. If your most recent job matches what the recruiter is looking for, bingo he’s opening and reading your CV.
  2. Your most recent employer: You’re working at a company that operates in the same category/sector as the company that’s hiring. You thus have valuable experience of the market and it’s required skills. You can bet the recruiter will be opening your CV.
  3. Language skills: Sprechen Sie Deutsch ? Hablas español ? Welcome to Luxembourg where being bilingual is a must, trilingual is required and extra languages are an asset. If you tick those boxes... indeed you’ve passed the first selection.

Ok fine, I got your message. I’ve put all this information in my CV.

Sorry to disappoint you, but that recruiter you wanted to impress, he’s not reading the first chapters of your book, he’s only reading the cover remember. So in order to make your bookcover stand out, Monster has created specific fields with the exact info recruiters are looking for: Most recent jobtitle, Most recent employer & Language Skills.

We haven’t made these fields mandatory, so creating and uploading an account stays quick and fluid.

But not filling them in, might mean you’re stuck on the Fiction shelf for a while longer.

Get Off the Shelf and Get Your CV Picked

Now that you’ve updated your CV, how can you make sure it gets read by the most important reviewers? Just upload your CV to Monster, and we’ll take care of the rest. Top recruiters browse our CV database every day to find candidates to add to their must-read list. Plus, we’ll send you our top picks for new job openings based on your work history, so you’ll never run out of reading material.