4 signs your sales CV needs a professional review

Laura Slingo at TopCV, the largest CV-writing service in the world, shares advice on how to know when you need a professional CV review.

Your CV is your personal marketing document, which is essential for landing your next sales job. But you only have one chance to make a great first impression – especially in the sales industry. Not sure if your CV is up to par? Here are four signs you could benefit from a professional CV review.

You don’t know if your CV looks right

Do you know what a CV should look like today? You may have a fairly good idea, but if your CV is at least five years old, chances are you’ll need to revamp the formatting and styling to appear a true, modern sales professional.

Essential information hasn’t changed much over the years; you still need to include your name, contact details, employment history and education. But other details simply aren’t relevant anymore, like your age, objective statement and marital status.

You also need to consider the way your CV is formatted and saved, thanks to the different methods of submitting your CV today. Choose the wrong file type, for example, and you may end up submitting a CV the recruiter can’t even open!

Thankfully, CV review sites are always aware of the latest CV-formatting and style trends. They can help you craft a CV fit for a pro.

You’re not sure how to sell your skills on paper

With such a competitive job market, your CV must go beyond listing your duties, responsibilities and qualifications if you want to stand a chance of landing an interview. While displaying the essential vacancy requirements via your main duties is good, detailing your achievements and the impact you can make is better – especially for a sales professional.

With a quick CV review, you’ll know whether the abilities you’ve listed showcase your true value. And if they don’t, you’ll learn exactly how to correct them.

You can’t make your CV the correct length

The appropriate page length of your CV depends on where you are in your career. Nevertheless, it can be difficult to stick to – or fill up – the correct length.

An entry-level candidate’s CV should be only one page. This may seem like an easy feat because of limited experience, and yet, it’s trickier than you may think. Even without much work history to list, that single page fills up quickly when adding all the appropriate details.

Similarly, seasoned professionals with a rich history of sales experience have difficulty fitting their abilities onto two pages because it’s so vast.

Some professionals even find themselves somewhere in the middle, having multiple years’ experience but seemingly not enough details to fill up the two pages they are allotted.

With a CV critique, the experts can advise you on the best ways to condense or lengthen your CV – without compromising the quality.

Your career path hasn’t been straightforward

We’ll let you in on a secret – it’s very rare for a career path to be straightforward. After all, life happens, and people move on, change and grow. While recruiters are no strangers to candidates that have been dismissed, taken a break or changed careers, they still expect a CV to present work experience and qualifications in a streamlined way.

There are several ways to smooth a bumpy career trajectory on your CV, and a professional review will help you display your career decisions in the best way.

TopCV offers a range of CV-writing services including expertly-written and keyword-optimised CVs, cover letters and LinkedIn profiles. It is currently offering a free CV review to help you land your dream job.