CV Health Check

So what kind of shape is your CV in? Go through the list of  health check questions below and score your CV. This will tell you how likely it is to get you the interview that you want.

1.    CV Contact Details

• All my details including name, address, email, mobile, and phone number are at the top of page 1 – 5 points
• My contact details are elsewhere in my CV – 3 points
• I have not included all my details for privacy reasons – 1 point

 2.    Profile

• I have a profile beneath my contact details that tells the recruiter in no more than 5 lines who I am and the skills and experience that I offer – 5 points
• My profile includes lots of adjectives describing me, such as; motivated, committed excellent communicator. It also details my skills and experience – 3 points
• There is no profile on my CV – 1 point

 3.    Key Skills

• Beneath my profile I have listed my 5 or 6 best examples of my skills and experience that are most relevant to the job for which I am applying – 5 points
• I have a standard list of skills that I use for all applications – 3 points
• I do not have a list of my key skills – 1 point

 4.    Career History

• For each job I have 1 or two bullet points which describe the scope of the role and the company. I have listed my achievements starting with an action verb and detailing the result of what I did – 5 points
• For each job I have listed my responsibilities and duties – 3 points
• For each job I have written a couple of paragraphs on my job description – 1 point

 5.    Qualifications

• I have highlighted my most significant qualifications and grades. I have also included professional qualifications and memberships relevant to the role – 5 points
• I have listed every exam I have taken and the grades. I have also listed every professional qualification I have taken such as First Aid Certificate – 3 points
• I have not included a section on qualifications – 0 points

 6.    CV Length

• My CV is no longer than 2 pages – 5 points
• My CV is 3 pages long – 3 points
• My CV is 4 or more pages long and tells my life story – 1 point

 7.    CV Presentation

• My CV has a businesslike font (Ariel or New Times Roman) size 11 or 12, and there is a clear margin on all sides. It uses bullet points and the layout is consistent – 5 points
• My CV uses a font size of 10 to ensure it is no longer than 2 pages – 1 point
• My CV uses an artistic font such as Gothic Copperplate and the layout of things in bold or in bullet point lists is inconsistent – 0 points

 8.    I Target my CV

• I change the profile, key skills and my achievements so that they are clearly focused on how I meet the requirements of the job for which I am applying – 5 points
• I change one of the above sections to make my CV a bit more relevant to the job for which I am applying – 3 points
• I send the same CV out for any job – 1 point

Total Scores

So how did your CV score on the health check?

• A score of 35 points or more means your CV is likely to be doing it’s job but may need some minor tidying up in parts – well done!
• A score of 24 – 34 means your CV needs an overhaul to enable you to stand the best chance of getting an interview
• A score of less than 24 means you are unlikely to get an interview and your CV requires major surgery

Want to Know More?

If you want to understand the basis of this health check and the scores please read our article on How to Write a CV that gets you Interviews . This article explains how and why you need to write your CV in a certain way. There is also an example CV at the end.

Keywords; CV, CVs, CV Profile, CV Key Skills, Key Skills, CV Career History, CV Checklist, CV Presentation