How to write a great marketing CV

Friday, January 8, 2021
As a marketer, you understand the essential principals to writing any effective piece of communication. Your proposition, headline and call to action. Most importantly the concept of a target audience. The secret in how to write a marketing CV is in taking these essential marketing principals and applying them to yourself and your CV. 

Who is your audience?

On the face of it, your audience are HR managers, heads of marketing functions or recruiters. All of these are potential decision makers in calling you to interview. However, scratch a little deeper and one thing unites them. They are all assessing your CV against the specific criteria within a job description and person specification. Address these criteria effectively when writing your marketing CV and you speak to all your audiences.

Target jobs

The first thing to do when writing your marketing CV is be clear about the types of roles you are applying. Whether you are a digital marketing manager, brand consultant or product manager, align the CV as closely as you can to the type of job you are applying for. A singular, focused message will work much more effectively than a catch-all, generic CV.

SEO and ATS systems

You are no doubt aware that ATS (application tracking systems) filter about 70% of CVs automatically before being read by human eyes. They work in a very similar way to SEO by parsing concentrations of key words in a CV against a specific job description. This is why tailoring your CV is so important. Mirror the key terms and phrases within a job description to give your CV the best chance of getting through ATS filters.

Job titles are the most important key terms

The most important key terms and phrases within your CV are job titles. One of the more unfortunate aspects of ATS systems is the homogenisation of job titles to a few industry recognised terms. The days of being creative have gone out of the window. So, if your job title is ‘Brand Warrior’ or ‘Digital Overlord’, it’s best to use the most common industry understood title in its place!

A great marketing CV is not an exercise in design

There is a tendency amongst some creative marketing professionals to over-design their CV. It is as if their CV is being assessed as a design exercise. This is a mistake. Yes, it is important to lay your CV out professionally with clearly labelled headings. However, it is the content that will be assessed so don’t use design gimmicks to attract attention. The layout should be designed to allow the words to take centre stage.

In understanding how to write a marketing CV, it is all about utilising the key marketing concepts. Make sure your achievements are clearly presented and supported with facts and figures. Following these guidelines in writing your CV will give you a great head start.

This article is written by Neville Rose, Director of CV Writers.

Original Article @ https://jobs.theguardian.com/article/how-to-write-a-great-marketing-cv/?s=44