Everyone looking for a job has a CV, and after being in recruitment for almost 20 years I can tell you the CV’s and applications forms all blend into the same thing after a while.

How to stand out from the crowd?

When I took redundancy over a year ago, I wanted to make sure my CV stood out. After all, a CV just needs to be enough to get you an interview and at the interview, you can talk about you! This is where a recruiter will be amazed by all that you are, your CV is just the invitation to get to know you better!!

I looked at different templates and formatting, fonts and colours and came to one conclusion. All a recruiter needs is the information to be clear and the skills easily recognisable for the role they are recruiting for. The formatting is window dressing. It was then that I found someone on LinkedIn sharing a timeline style CV.

This was such a unique style of CV that it think it nearly broke LinkedIn with people trying to get a copy. Needless to say, I didn’t manage to get hold of one, but it led me to think about what I would put in a CV like this. I’ve always loved graphic design so I created my own version on a PowerPoint slide.

It is all the basic information a CV usually has, but in a snappy bullet point format. I’ve included key achievements, core skills and a timeline of my career history. I have included this in addition to my traditional CV as I’m not sure if the world is ready for just this version but I presented it to one recruiter who was fascinated by it. I think this style would really work for graphic designers or project manager type roles.

If you would like to know more about standard CV templates and what to include, or to get the template for my timeline style CV, head on over to my Resources page.