Emma A fundamental element of one’s curriculum are certainly work and professional experiences: but how to insert them in the curriculum in such a way that they stand out and highlight our skills? In this guide we give you some tips to present your professional skills at their best and to help you create the CV that will get you the job of your dreams.
Professional skills: the key element of a CV
CVs are not all the same and reflect the personality of those who write them. But there is information that all CVs share and that are inevitable: among these, the presence of personal information such as name and surname, telephone number and email address. Obviously, the information dedicated to professional skills and work experience is part of that package of information that every good CV must contain, as it allows recruiters and employers to select the best candidates for the position in question.
Are we obliged to provide information on our work experiences?
Of all the information we have to include on the CV, work experiences are among the fundamental. There is no law that requires us to specify what we know how to do and what we have done, but it is good practice to include as many indications as possible in this sense to allow recruiters to evaluate our professionalism in relation to the job for which we are applying.
Please note that a company recruiter receives an incredible amount of resumes for open positions and that he is forced to select based on the information the candidate has provided: this means that to be noticed for a certain job position is necessary to present yourself at your best.
Presenting your work experience on your resume specifically gives you a competitive advantage over others.
The benefits of professional CV skills
The professional experience you mention on your CV represent a resource for your application, they must allow you to stand out from other candidates. For this reason you have to decide which ones you want to include and which you can omit, always remembering that each resume should be customized in relation to the job offer.
If you specify what your professional skills are, you will be able to:
- Detail the various experiences in order to show how your career has evolved over the course, specifying the starting point and the point current arrival: if you started as a clerk in a shoe store and today you are responsible for the whole company nationwide, make it clear;
- Prove you are an expert in the specific sector for which you are applying: how and why you acquired these skills, what were the jobs that led you to this, etc;
- Demonstrate that you are adaptable, highlighting when you have adapted and specific circumstances.
How to choose the professional skills to include on the CV
It is not worth mentioning all the work and professional experiences that have brought us where we are worth mentioning, but they are worth mentioning only the best ones or those closely related to the position for which we are applying.
It is a good idea to avoid specifying experiences, especially if they are not relevant to the job for which you are applying.
Let’s take some examples:
Example 1
You are applying for a position as Marketing Manager: you don’t really need to include your work as an assistant in your local gym in your experience, but you need to specify what your experiences are in the same sector.
Example 2
You are applying for a position as a bartender and have experience as a bartender but also as a waiter and in various catering sectors. Enter all the experiences you have accumulated in relation to that specific position.
Example number 3
You are applying for a position as an assistant in a nursery, you have no experience in this regard, but you are a mother: leave out all information regarding your position as a mother, and focus on everything you can somehow benefit yourself (by specifying your experience as a mother in the section dedicated to other extracurricular experiences).
Talking to the potential employer using his or her own language
It is good to remember that if we use the same language used by our potential employer, effectively mixing the our experience with the qualifications required by the company increases the potential of being called back for an interview.
For example:
Job offer as Supervisor for restaurant management.
If you are experienced in the field, using the exact same sentence to summarize your professional experiences will immediately capture the attention of your interlocutor and have more chances of being called for an interview.
What happens if we have professional gaps on our CV?
It may happen that even the best of curricula have gaps, the so-called professional “gaps” that may be due to a break due to personal reasons or even related to one’s career. For example, something like this may happen:
March 2016 – January 2017: Social Media Manager at AZIENDA1
September 2017 – March 2018: Social Media Manager at AZIENDA2
The gap is evident and does not go unnoticed so in such cases it is good to look to include an explanation relating to the professional gap between one experience and another if you do not want to include this information on the CV, you must be prepared to face the questions that will surely come up regarding this hole in the CV during the interview.
How to put your professional experiences on the CV
Once you’ve decided which experience to highlight, how do you make sure that the structure of your document is logical and allows the recruiter to quickly scan your resume to choose you or not for the first interview?
There is only one rule: entry in chronological order, from the most recent to the oldest, always taking into account the job for which you are applying.
Remember that recruiters are not interested in your financial position but only in the position you have held and how relevant it is to the position you are applying for, so omit all unnecessary information.
What to do if you do not have relevant professional experience?
When you enter the world of work for the first time, it may happen that you don’t have professional experience to mention on your resume.
While this situation can cause problems when writing a resume and applying for a job, in reality it can also be considered an opportunity as it gives the company the possibility to train a candidate from scratch and integrate them perfectly, making it a more important and larger part of the company over time. If you find yourself in this situation, under Professional Experience enter any other experience attributable in some way to the job you aspire to: a seasonal job, a student job, an internship but also an experience as a volunteer. This will give the company a way to evaluate you for what you can potentially bring and learn in that particular job position.
In summary
- Professional experiences are one of the most important parts of the CV;
- It is always good to insert the most relevant professional experiences for the position for which you are applying;
- The relevant professional experiences should be inserted from the most recent to the furthest;
- If you have no professional experience, please enter any other professional information that you may notice.