photo (49) photo 2 (36) photo 3 (28) photo 4 (26) photo 5 (25)As of last Monday, I started working in the marketing department of Fake Bake. Being a massive fan of the tan, I am very delighted to be working for such a world renowned brand.

Fake Bake has a wealth of great lotions, liquids and aerosols to give you a golden glow and enhance a natural/ fake tan and so at the moment everyday is a learning, and my obsession with learning as much as I can, as soon as possible, is a reason for my lack of posts of late. I am however very much so enjoying it, the team are great and the icing on the cake…my tan is deepening every day!

When applying for jobs I have to admit I had a bit of an advantage, as recruitment was always part of my role at Blue-Chip. There were times I had a pile of 20+ CVs from which to shortlist interview candidates and when tasked with this, I gained a great appreciation of how important it is to make your CV stand out – so here are some of my tips on how you can do this…

  • Add a picture – this simple element provides your CV with personality and leaves the recruiter feeling familiarised with you. Beware! The picture has to be suitable, no cleavage or skimpy attire please(!) but rather you wearing work clothes, or a collared top against a nice backdrop

  • Add some colour – why not set your headlines in your fave colour? Mine of course were pink. I even took it that bit further and changed the online background colour of my CV and I just used a free Word CV template to create this

  • Be concise – your CV is not a ‘This is my life’ piece, it’s aim is to market your educational history, experience and interests to a new employer, enough to make them want to find out more. A CV should never be over two pages, and should never go below 8 point for the text size

  • Tailor it – if you are going for jobs in different industries you may want to tailor your CV to suit the skills and interests needed for that particular job

  • Add personality – when you are reading CV after CV, you not only favour the ones that stand out visually, you also like to be able to gain an understanding of the candidate’s personalities through what they say. Beware, an understanding of this cannot be gleaned from ‘I like reading, shopping and socialising’. You have to be subtle in your explanation as to why your interests would aid with the job you are going for, e.g. I noted down blogging as an interest of mine and then highlighted that this has enabled me to gain skills in the content management of a website and using Social Media as a tool to promote the blog

  • Don’t be modest – sell yourself! Start with an intro paragraph which states your major strengths and achievements thus far in life, e.g I mentioned being part of the award-winning team at Blue-Chip

  • Proof read – be sure to have someone else proof read your CV.  You are likely to read it over so much that you will stop noticing grammatical errors and so having another pair of eyes look over this is ideal

  • Put effort into your Cover Letter – if you are applying for jobs in the same industry, it is likely that the cover letter will be the most tailored piece you send back to a prospective employer.  Use this to explain why you are suitable for the job. For example if the job advert states they are looking for someone creative, give an example of your creativity in the cover letter (you may not have space for this in your CV, or you may ant to draw out further information from the CV)

If you have any queries on how to spice your CV up, then please do get in touch!

Leaving Blue-Chip was a very hard thing to do, but the final day went out with a bang.  There was hampers, champers, Oreo cookie fudge, popcorn and hard(on) sweets – all in the name of a very fond farewell.  There’s some people you meet in life who you know will always be a big part of it and that is how I feel about the girls at Blue-Chip.  Sadly as we all know however, nothing lasts forever, but it was bloody great whilst it did.

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