#5 How Being Specific on your CV sets you apart!

“Become a Meaningful Specific, not a wandering generality!” – Zig Ziglar

“Proficient in Sales”, “Effective communicator”, “Hard worker”, “Good Organisational Skills”, “Excellent Managerial Skills”, “Very Experienced”, “Motivated”, “Determined”…

If you have similar expressions on your CV currently, you’re in luck, this tip is for you!

If you think about it, what do these expressions really mean? Take “Proficient in Sales” for example, How Proficient? Is this an opinion or a statement? How can you prove it?

Expressions like these are empty of meaning. The sad thing is that we see them on most CVs… They are general and not specifics. If anything, employers are busy and they’re after specifics when reading your CV, or they will move on to the next one…

Think of your expertise / skills as a service that an employer would “lease” every month by paying you a salary. Like most expensive products, you will usually find a card describing the products’ key features, in the same way your CV describes yours!

Now imagine going to the shop to buy a camera for example and you see on the card: “Very Proficient Camera”, “Excellent ability to take pictures” “Great Battery Life”… you would probably not know how well this product ranks against the other cameras. And you will naturally be attracted by cameras with more specific descriptions, “18 Megapixels”, “48 hours battery life”…

Employers are the same, they look for specifics, when they are looking to buy someone’s services (in other words recruiting…). So every time you make a statement, prove it and be specific.

For example, do not say “fluent in English” without adding “mother tongue” or “lived 7 years in the UK”… Because everyone writes just that: “Fluent in English”. So don’t be everyone! Be Specific!

In the same way avoid saying “Proficient in sales” but rather “Currently the 2nd best salesperson in a team of 15 people!” It will be hard for an employer to skip your CV!

By being general, you are being forgotten! And by being specific, you are being unique.

Think about it this way, every statement on your CV is wrong until proven otherwise. So prove everything!

Change this and you will start speaking the same language as Employers, which is the language of buyers that yourself speak when you go shopping!

Y’Allah, until our next email, I wish you all the best in your job search!
Hamza Zaouali