An impactful CV is the first step towards success because it is the deciding factor as to whether you would get to face the interviewer or not. It is not merely a piece of paper wherein you scribble your name, education and job experience. It is a professional document which gives the prospective employer a way to gauge your potentials remotely. So you should be extra cautious while preparing your CV so that it is error free and impressive. Here are few tips which can help you do so.

CV should be concise: Recruiters get tones of CV’s daily and don’t have the time or patience to dig through an incoherent document. Only a punchy CV can get you noticed in the first place. So keep it short and effective. Make it no more than two sides of A4 paper and save the real detail for your interview. The layout should be simple, uncluttered and in an easy-to-read font.

Avoid gaps in between jobs: Even if you were out of employment, you can develop soft skills such as communication, teamwork or project management. You should update your CV regularly, so that you don’t have to recall distant points in your career and there is no ambiguity in your CV.

Make sure it’s error free: One of the easiest ways for a recruiter to throw out a week resume is by scanning it for errors. If you fail to check your CV for basic spelling and grammatical mistakes, you are hammering your own chances of getting a call in the first place. Most errors can be detected by using PC’s spell-checker, but you should also ask someone else to read your CV and give you their opinion.

Be brief with your personal information: Putting in a lot of personal information is unnecessary and it only makes the CV lengthier than required without doing any value addition. Just include your name, contact details and nationality. The recruiter is more interested in knowing your skills and expertise in the field rather than knowing you personally through your CV.

Highlight on your career history and key skills: Your skill set and your career history are the two major things which the recruiter would be interested in. So pay special attention to these two areas. Be as specific and detailed as possible to avoid any ambiguity or confusion to your potential new employers. Give the dates that you started and finished the role, the job title, the company for which you worked and give a short one-line description of the company’s activities and its website. List your key achievements in the roles you mention.