New Teachers: How to Make Your CV Stand Out

By Debbie Fletcher

Your CV is probably the first thing a potential employer will see, so it needs to be good. If you can make a great first impression from your CV, then it's going to give you more of a chance to get to the interview stage. Let's say you've found a great job over at EduStaff, take some time to look through these tips to make sure you send over a winning CV.

1. Refine your personal profile

Open with a strong profile that highlights the best of your abilities and show exactly what you would bring to a role. The rest of your CV should back this up. Tailor your personal profile to the job you are going for. Irrelevant information isn't going to impress anyone.

2. Keep it concise

Don't make your CV more than two pages of A4 sized paper. It needs to be simple, easy to read and quick to glance over. After looking through 10 CVs, an employer will probably just discard yours if it goes on for pages and pages.

If you need to elaborate on something, do it in your cover letter.

3. Target your CV

Don't send the same CV to every school with which you want to work. Tailor your CV to the job with your most relevant skills and experience near the top. For example, if you're applying for a specific topic, open your personal profile with your degree in that area and weigh your experience to reflect how good you'd be teaching that subject. If you're going for a wider role, keep your experience generic to show how good an all-rounder you are.

4. Be truthful

It goes without saying that you shouldn't lie on your CV, but you also shouldn't wildly exaggerate either. If you did help to take a school from 'requires improvement' to 'satisfactory' between Ofsted inspections, great. But don't say you are the sole person responsible for that success.

Similarly, don't say you regularly covered for the head teacher when, in reality, you only did it twice.

5. Ask someone to look through it

Ask an honest, trustworthy friend to look through your CV and give you feedback. They'll need to look for typos, spelling mistakes and general layout problems that you'll need to fix before you send it out.

6. Consider an alternative CV

If you are going for a job where your art, design or video-making skills are required, it might be worth doing an alternative CV. Perhaps give your CV an edgy design or, if you're going to teach film or media studies, make a film showcasing your skills.

It's often a good idea to have a website, too. This is something you can show to the people you meet when you network. It's less formal than a CV but will still showcase what you can do. There are plenty of free services out there that will allow you to make your own site, but you should get your own domain name as this make you look more professional.

Image credit: Flickr/rjoanne

Debbie Fletcher is an enthusiastic, experienced writer who has written for a range of difference magazines and news publications.