Your First Opportunity: Getting the

Your First Opportunity: Getting the Interview

If you want the job, chances are so do about a million other eager people, so your application has to stand out from the crowd. The majority of CVs are usually dull and boring, and people create them as historical documents, rather than as marketing tools.

Remember your CV has about seven seconds (yes 7) to make a visual impression. You can dramatically boost your chances of getting an interview by making your CV look and 'sound' special.

• Use good paper
  
• Design a personal logo
  
• Fiddle with the layout to make it easy on the eye
  
• Edit it ruthlessly (everyone always puts in too much detail)
  
• Highlight the bits that relate to the job you're going for
  
• They don't need to know you went to St Mary's School when you were 12!
  
• Put "Who you are now" at the beginning of your CV
  
• Leave education and qualifications for the end.

If you don't have what you think are the right educational qual

ifications, don't worry. Just leave them off. If you include enough interesting and intriguing material about who you are now, what you didn't do is far less important.

Put a short paragraph at the beginning that says something about your personal qualities and your business skills. A short statement about what you're seeking can also go down a treat.

As we know, a job for life is very rare nowadays, that eclectic, unusual and even inconsistent CVs are OK as long as they're presented well.

Depending upon the specific job you're going after, you can be as creative as you like. We've seen CVs presented as graphs, as poems, as drawings, as a route map, as a podcast; you name it, we've probably seen it.

Whichever route you choose, make sure your CV is pitched correctly for the audience who will be receiving it.