Advice Centre - Hamlin KnightAdvice Centre

CV guide

Your CV is your opportunity to market yourself to a potential employer. Essentially it should work as the tool that secures an interview. It should document your profile, experience and skills in a concise and clear manner.

There is no such thing as the perfect CV. However, we have put together some useful information to help you construct the best possible CV for you:

Presentation:

  • Keep the length of your CV to 2/3 pages
  • Your CV should be typewritten
  • Use a good quality white paper
  • Check qualifications, spelling and grammar
  • Use bold to highlight each section
  • Use bullet points to highlight responsibilities and achievements
  • Use a clear font, such as Ariel. No smaller than 12pt

Structure:

Structure your CV in the following way:

  • Personal details
  • Education/Qualifications
  • Professional qualifications/skills
  • Employment history
  • Personal interests
  • References

Personal details:

This should include:

  • Name
  • Address
  • Contact telephone numbers
  • Email address
  • Nationality
  • Visa details (if applicable)

Education/Qualifications:

Start with the most recent. This should include:

  • Degree/college courses (if applicable)
  • Secondary education qualifications
  • Include name of the school/college/university, number of qualifications and grades obtained

Professional qualifications and skills:

Start with any professional qualifications (if applicable) and include:

  • The type of professional qualification that you have
  • Dates, where you studied (if applicable), number of qualifications and grades obtained

Next state any relevant skills that you have, this could include:

  • I.T skills and level of proficiency
  • Language skills and level of proficiency
  • Typing skills

Employment history:

Start with your most recent/current job and include:

  • Company name and description
  • Job title
  • Dates employed
  • Description of the position
  • Description of responsibilities and achievements (use bullet points)
  • Reason for leaving
     

Personal interests:

Keep this section short and be concise. Your interests are important as they say a lot about the type of person you are

References:

There is no need to list your referees simply state:

  • References available on request

Other important advice:

  • Be 100% honest
  • Explain any gaps 
  • Tailor your CV to the job you are applying for, highlighting in more detail relevant experience, skills, responsibilities and achievements
  • Ask your Hamlin Knight consultant for advice and feedback

Interview guide

Your Hamlin Knight consultant will brief you fully before every interview. However, you can never do enough preparation. Our advice to ensure you have every chance of success is as follows:

Before the interview

  • Research the company on its website  
  • Search the internet for press articles regarding the company
  • Write down your reasons for wanting to work for the company and what you feel you can offer
  • Read through the job description and think of how your experience and skills fit with the job on offer
  • Read your CV again and think of specific examples of achievements that fit with the job on offer
  • Plan your journey to arrive 15 minutes in advance  
  • Dress code- professional and smart
  • Women- skirt/dress with jacket or trouser suit. Shirt/blouse.
    Tights if wearing a skirt/dress. Understated jewellery and make up 
  • Men- business suit, tie, shirt, polished shoes
  • On arrival in reception be positive, smile, introduce yourself and ask for the interviewer by name
     

During the interview

  • Greet your interviewer with a smile, and a firm handshake 
  • Ensure you keep eye contact throughout the interview
  • Listen to the questions asked carefully. Think before you speak and answer questions factually, completely and to the point
  • Be honest at all times, never over state your role, experience or responsibility- good interviewers will always catch you out
  • Never be negative about a previous/current employer or line manager
  • Give examples of situations you have experienced relevant to the question asked
  • Ask questions yourself; this shows your interest in the job and also the company. Examples include:
    • Why do you (the interviewer) like working for the company? 
    • What are the career development opportunities like?
    • What training/development would the successful person get?
    • Ideally, what would you like the person who fills the job role to achieve?
  • Don’t ask about salary or package at first interview stage; you do not want to create the impression that  you are only interested in the job because of the money and benefits on offer
  • Leave on a positive note - ask about the next stage in the process and, if you are interested, make the interviewer aware of your interest
  • On leaving offer a firm handshake and a smile and thank them for their time

To help you prepare fully we have listed some typical questions that might be asked during the course of the interview. 

Typical Interview Questions

Below are some examples of general questions asked

  • Why are you interested in this job/dept? (be prepared with 3 or 4 examples) 
  • Why are you interested in this company? (be prepared with 3 or 4 examples) 
  • Tell me about yourself (allow 1-2 minutes) 
  • What can you bring to this job/company? (be prepared with 3 or 4 examples)
  • Why did you leave your previous jobs? 
  • What did you like/dislike about your previous jobs? 
  • What aspects of your work do you consider are most important? 
  • What is the most responsible/challenging duty/task you have performed? 
  • What else should I know about your qualifications for this job? 
  • How do you like to be managed? 
  • What motivates you? 
  • What are your strengths and weaknesses? 
  • What personally frustrates you at work?
  • What three words would describe your personality best? 
  • What are your career aspirations? 
  • What else should I know about you? 
  • Why should I offer this job to you, rather than someone with more experience/skills than you?

Competency-Based Questions

Some employers will question you about your competencies. They can establish these by asking questions that mean you need to draw on personal experience. You need to give very specific examples of how you demonstrated the particular competency in real life. You also need to stress how you behaved, not the team or the company. The interviewer will be interested in hearing about “I”, not “we”.

It is very important to prepare for Competency-Based Interviews, because it is difficult to think of a good example from recent experience at short notice. So, you should think about the competencies required for the position and then think of examples where you have successfully demonstrated these in practice.

Here are some examples of competency-based questions:

  • Describe a situation where you have had to communicate a complicated idea to a colleague. How successful were you? What made it complex? 
  • What kind of written work does your current job require? Can you give me some examples of the more significant pieces of work? What made them significant? How were they received? 
  • What is the most difficult/important presentation you have had to make in your current/past roles? How did you prepare? How did you hold the attention of your audience? What was the outcome? 
  • What experience do you have of working within a team? What role do you tend to take? What impact does that have? 
  • How do you share/encourage ideas from others? Give me an example. 
  • How have you taken the important decisions that have affected your career? What factors influenced you? 
  • What has been the hardest decision you have had to take in your current/last job? What reasons made the decision hard to take? 
  • Can you think of an example of a good decision you have taken recently? What options did you have? Why do you think your choice was the right one? 
  • Describe a work situation where you took the lead to create an innovative solution. How did you take the lead? How did you manage the process? How did your leadership contribute to the quality of the solution?