Creating a Searchable CV &

LinkedIn Profile
Before you Begin
When beginning your search for your next job, it all begins with the CV. The vast majority of people write a CV,
then start looking for jobs to apply for, but this is actually the wrong way around, as that approach will lead to
you creating a CV which is purely a record of what you’ve already done. This could be fine potentially, if you’re
looking to continue to do exactly what you’ve already been doing; otherwise, it’s important to have a clear idea
of what job you’re seeking, so that you can create a CV to help get you there.

Before you begin, there are a few things to consider:

Who is going to read the CV?

The first person to read your CV, and make a decision on whether to consider you further or not, will normally
be a recruitment consultant, in-house recruiter or HR person. This person will often be inexperienced, and will
almost certainly not be technical, so will likely make their decision on the basis of word/skill-matching only. As a
result, the CV needs to be clear, accessible and easily understandable.
A lot of people make the mistake of writing their CV for the person they want to read it (usually the hiring
manager), not for the person is actually going to read it.

What will happen to it?

When applying to adverts, your CV is likely to go
through parsing software of some kind - before it’s
actually read by anyone - to create a record for you
on an ATS or CRM. The CV therefore needs to
contain the information required for that record to be
created.

How will people find it?

Whether your CV is on an ATS, CRM or online job
board, people will search for your CV, usually by
creating either a raw Boolean string or using a
Boolean generator. Search strings will typically be a
combination of job title, technical skill and functional
experience.
Your CV therefore needs to contain a collection of
relevant searchable terms, titles and phrases, to
ensure that you come up within as many relevant
searches as possible. Search results are usually
generated and ranked by algorithms, which search for
the term/phrase initially, then order the results by
how often that term/phrase is repeated, together
with where in the document it appears.
 Creating a Searchable CV &
LinkedIn Profile
Where to Begin
It’s not really possible to create a CV that’s relevant/applicable to more than one function, so you need to have
a clear idea of what you want your next job to be. From there, it’s a case of carrying out some simple research
on a couple of the relevant job boards, such as CWjobs, Jobsite and Jobserve.
You’re looking for adverts that match the path/function you’ve decided to pursue, and it’s Important to be
realistic – you’re not looking for adverts describing jobs you wish you could do, but adverts that you recognise
yourself within.
Other things to look out for:
From this research you’re looking to ascertain three
• Common skills/experiences being sought within
main things:
those adverts, as these are likely to form the basis of
Number of available, relevant roles – is your
the searches being run by the people trying to fill
chosen function in high or low demand?
those roles.
An idea of market rate from the salaries advertised.
• Gaps in your experience, such as a particular
The job titles currently being used most commonly
certification/qualification being sought. If the majority
to describe that function; this is key – make a note
of jobs you’re interested in request a qualification you
of the three or four most common.
don’t currently have, it’s a gap you could quite easily
fill.
• Relevant agencies – if the same names keep
cropping up, they might be good agencies to register
with proactively.
One further resource that you may find useful during your research is www.itjobswatch.co.uk. Information is taken
from all the major job boards, and it’s possible to search on different skills, job titles and locations, to see the
number of roles that match, and how those rank in terms of demand and the increase/decrease in that rank, as well
as average salaries, etc.
 Creating a Searchable CV &
LinkedIn Profile
Creating a Searchable CV
Having carried out your research, and armed with the information/insight you’ve gained as a result, you’re now
in a position to create a CV, optimised for search, so that you appear in as many of the relevant searches as
possible being run by recruitment professionals on a daily basis.

Contact details
You need to make it easy for people to contact you, so have a mobile number and email at the top of the first
page.
Parsing software will look for a location for you, as nearly all searches will be location-based – candidates within
xx miles of a company’s location – so include town, county and postcode, as all three are potentially searchable.

If you’re looking for a job in a location different from

Optional: where you’re currently living, it’s advisable to put the
Nationality, date of birth, marital status, driving town and county where you’re moving to, using a
licence and visa status. None of these is local postcode too.
essential, but visa status – making it clear Otherwise, you’ll only appear in searches for positions
whether or not you require sponsorship – will that are local to you now.
ensure that you receive contact only about jobs
for which you are eligible. Include a link to your LinkedIn profile, as well as any
professional portfolios/profiles, such as Stack
Overflow and GitHub, to make it easy for people to
find out more about you.
Personal profile/summary
This is the most important part of the CV, as, if written well, it will grab the attention of the reader and set the
scene/context for the rest of the CV, as well as providing you with your first opportunity to deploy searchable
content.
As most adverts/applications no longer require a covering letter, this section replaces that in many ways, and
therefore needs to cover the same things as a traditional covering letter:
Who I am: Describe yourself using either the job title of the role you’re applying for, or the most common of
the three or four job titles identified from your job board research.
What I can do: Highlight briefly your main, relevant experience, again, reflecting either the skills/experience
the advert you’re applying to requires, or the common skills/experiences you’ve seen required from the
adverts you looked at for your job board research.
What I’m looking for: Use the remaining common job titles from your research as alternatives to the title
you’ve led with, e.g “now seeking my next opportunity as a Web Developer, Software Developer or Software
Engineer”.

Another thing you might want to include is company size/environment. If you’ve worked in both corporate and
SME environments, then say so, as this will highlight your relevance/ suitability, no matter which environment is
required.
If you want to work only within one or the other, though, then make that clear here. Same thing with industry,
whether you want a hands-on/hands-off position, to focus on a particular technology, etc.
 Creating a Searchable CV &
LinkedIn Profile
Creating a Searchable CV
Skills/technical summary
List the skills/technologies you’ve worked with in order of relevance/strength, but be sure to list them all! The
more skills/ technologies you can reference, the more searches you’ll appear in.

Employment history
Your employment history should be written in reverse chronological order. Include a brief description of each
company you’ve worked for, covering what they do/their industry and potentially, the size of the organisation.
List your key responsibilities, ideally in bullet point form, being guided by the things you could see companies
were interested in from the adverts you’ve looked at as part of your research.
Include the technical environment/technologies used. In addition to your skills summary, this gives you some
useful repetition and also shows where and when you’ve used the different technologies.

Qualifications and certifications

Generally best to list these in order – most recent first. If you’re a recent graduate, this section should appear
higher on your CV – probably after your personal profile/ summary – as it’s one of the main criteria your
application will be judged against.

Hobbies and interests

A good opportunity to provide a bit of insight into who you are as opposed to purely what you do, and this can
help you to stand out. Also, this could just resonate with the person reading the CV, if there is some common
ground.
 Creating a Searchable CV &
LinkedIn Profile
General CV Guidelines
Although it's true that your CV needs to be an accurate reflection your professional self, there are some basic
guidelines you should consider to make sure that you're presenting yourself in a clear, professional and
engaging way.

Font
Stick with a professional, clear font, such as Arial or
Calibri, in a sensible point size, and avoid using too
many colours, if any. Avoid tables and
headers/footers – Parsing software can struggle to
read the content.

Length
Two to four pages is generally fine, but this is
dependent to some extent upon your level of
experience. There’s no real reason for a recent
graduate to have a four page CV, but condensing 20
years of experience to just two pages can be difficult!
If the content is relevant and furthering your cause,
then keep it in. If it isn’t, then remove it.

File format
Best to use .doc or .rtf as opposed to pdf.
Accuracy
Proof-read it carefully and get someone else to as
Continuity well.
Explain any gaps on the CV, and ensure there’s a Consistency is key – Particularly with regards to style,
complete record, from education through to the formatting, font type and size.
present day. Irrelevant and/or distant experience can
always be abbreviated to just date, job title and
company, if necessary.

References
Best to remove any referee information/contact
details. You should never need to provide the details
of referees until you have been offered a position, so
there is no need to provide this information with your
CV. Parsing software can also pick up your referees’
contact details rather than your own, which can lead
to inappropriate/potentially embarrassing contact
happening!
 Creating a Searchable CV &
LinkedIn Profile
What to do with the CV you’ve created?
Upload your CV to the online searchable databases
There are a plethora of these databases out there, so you can always upload your CV to more, but we’d suggest
starting with the main ones: CWjobs, Jobsite, Monster, Reed, Indeed and Dice.

Use all the available fields Refresh your profiles once a week
The job boards want to make it easy for you to Most of the search results default to candidates
register with them, otherwise, you won’t! To that end, registered in the last seven days, so if the person
there are very few mandatory fields. However, there searching finds what they want within those results,
area multitude of fields made available to recruiters they’re not going to look any further back. Whatever
for searching purposes, and recruiters prefer to run as timeframe is chosen, most people will order their
few searches as possible to find the candidates they search results by date anyway. Therefore, set a
want. If they’re searching fields you haven’t reminder for once a week to log into each of your
completed, you won’t come up in those searches. profiles, amend something and “save”, to reset your
Think about what people are likely to search on to profile to “today”. That way you’ll always appear at
find you – make sure it’s that content you put in the the top of search results. Recruiters can also sign up
relevant fields. to a service whereby CVs that match certain criteria
they’ve set, are emailed to them as soon as they’re
Required salary registered. Regularly updating your profile will ensure
Set your required salary at least £5k below what you that your CV ends up in the relevant recruiters’
would ideally want to accept. You might still want to inboxes.
hear about a role that is close to home with an
excellent package, but where the basic salary is lower Tweak it
than what you’re ideally seeking. This should be a dynamic process, so experiment with
Be careful with locations the alternative job titles you’ve selected for inclusion
Listing a handful of towns may mean that you’re not in your personal profile. If you continually receive
contacted about a role that comes up in a location you contact about a particular role/job title that isn’t
didn’t think to include in your list, but that is actually relevant to you, simply remove that particular job title
the same distance away as those you did! Depending and replace it with a new alternative.
on the format of the field, a “mile radius” may be Keep experimenting, until you’re getting the contact
better, or listing counties rather than towns. that you want.

Tailor your CV to each application

This CV that you’ve created is a “control” CV, designed to ensure that you come up on as many relevant
searches as possible.
When you have a specific role to apply for, and can see what skills and experience are required, it’s important to
ensure that your CV reflects that.
Lead with the advertised job title – “I am an experienced VB.Net Developer with more than five years’
experience of…”, and remove the alternative job titles from the “now looking for my next opportunity as a…”
section.
Make sure you order your skills/technical summary in line with what they’re asking for.
Make sure that your descriptions of the roles you’ve held match the duties/responsibilities required by the
role for which you’re applying.
 Creating a Searchable CV &
LinkedIn Profile
Creating a searchable LinkedIn profile
Whilst search options vary according to the type of account held, it is generally possible to search on
“Keywords” – which searches pretty much the whole profile – and then various fields including “Name”,
“Company” and “Title”.
It is therefore important to ensure that your profile contains the necessary searchable content to come up in
relevant searches.

Change your “notify your Experience

Again, this should be more or less copied from your
network” settings CV, but with particular attention paid to your job
Before making any changes to your profile, change the titles, as it’s possible to search on both current and
setting that notifies your network when you make a past titles.
change to your profile, as this can at best irritate your
connections and at worst, draw attention to the fact
With that in mind, if your actual job title is either
that you’re looking for a new role.
unique to your employer or not representative of the
role you do or the role you want to be found for, then
Professional headline you have two options:
Most people’s professional headline is their current You can either pick a more standard or
job title and company, but you can change it to say representative title, but this may raise some
whatever you want. eyebrows/lead to some questions from your
Unless you have a paid account, the only information current boss.
shown when you appear in a search is your photo, Or you can use “/” or brackets, e.g. “Support
name and this professional headline, so it’s best to use Manager / Infrastructure Manager” or “ICT
the most common of the three or four job titles Customer Engineer (Support Analyst)”
identified from your job board research, e.g. “Talented
and innovative VB.Net Developer”.

If you’re able to advertise the fact that you’re looking

for work, do so here as well:
e.g. “Talented and innovative VB.Net Developer –
immediately available” or “Talented and innovative
VB.Net Developer – currently seeking a new
opportunity”, etc.

Summary
This should be pretty much copied and pasted from
your CV. If,though, you’re currently employed and
your employer isn’t aware that you’re looking, you’ll
need to remove the “now looking for my next
opportunity as a…” section.
 Creating a Searchable CV &
LinkedIn Profile
Creating a searchable LinkedIn profile

Get a photo
LinkedIn research suggests that profiles with a picture
are 14 times more likely to be viewed than those
without. Pick a photo that is recent, just of you, has
you smiling/looking friendly and approachable, and
ideally has you in smart or smart-casual clothing – a
“professional” photo rather than a personal/Facebook
photo.

Contact details
One of the challenges from a recruiter perspective of
using LinkedIn to find candidates, is how to contact
someone you find, as well as not knowing how
receptive they’ll be to that contact.

You can send an invitation to connect or an InMail,

but these are often ignored and/or go to spam folders.
InMails also cost money. If you make it easy for the
recruiter to contact you outside of LinkedIn, they’re
far more likely to do so, so the best thing to do is to
simply include your email address and mobile number
at the end of your summary. This is unlikely to raise
the suspicion of a current employer, but will serve as a
bit of a “flag” to a recruiter that you are open to being
contacted. If you’re not comfortable with giving out
your number, then an email address will suffice.
Some candidates create a separate email address
purely for when they’re job-hunting. If you’ve done so,
you can use that address here.

Contact us for more information.

We’re more than happy to talk you through creating your CV and LinkedIn profile, and to offer guidance where
we can.

Oxford: The Magdalen Cente, Oxford Science Park, OX4 4GA Tel: 01865 784 336
Bristol: Temple Quay, 1 Friary, BS1 6EA Tel: 0117 344 5004
[email protected]
corriculo.co.uk