Tips for strengthening your CV's experience section 📝

While you may have a good grasp of the CV writing basics, it's crucial to delve deeper to increase your chances of securing an interview. Optimizing your experience section is essential to stand out among other applicants. It's an opportunity to showcase your hard skills and differentiate yourself from others.

Samuel Knight Tech have compiled five tips to consider to strengthen your CV’s experience section.

1. Make sure your experience section is highly technical, prioritize technical projects and outcomes, and avoid irrelevant details or everyday tasks. Only include experiences where you exceeded expectations and achieved significant outcomes.

2. Keep it concise and impactful. Use action verbs and numbers to convey your achievements efficiently. We’d recommend you use bullet points for each experience. For each bullet point, describe what you did, the technology you used, and the concrete impact it had on the project, and if possible, the organization.

3. Emphasize your strengths and avoid overcompensating for your weaknesses. Focus on what you excel at and only include what you are proficient in and can confidently speak about. Prioritize your strengths and showcase projects that you are most proud of.

4. Make it about you. The employer wants to learn about your unique impact, so be specific about the project and focus on your contribution. Highlight the technology used, timeline, and outcome. Your experience section will provide the talking points for the interview, so focus on what you want to discuss in more detail later in the process. Use this opportunity to differentiate yourself from other applicants by showcasing your most impressive experiences and the technologies that demonstrate your skillset. Leave out anything that doesn't directly sell your strengths.

5. Use numbers to showcase your impact. Avoid hypotheticals and quantify your work to demonstrate the actual impact of your actions. The hiring manager is interested in the problem, the solution, and the impact on the project and the organization as a whole. Don't just state what you did; provide specific details on how you accomplished it. Remember that showcasing the actual impact of your work is essential in demonstrating your value to potential employers. As you progress in your career, your experience section will naturally evolve. If you find it challenging to provide specific numbers, focus on identifying trends and use strong action verbs to describe your work. Qualify your achievements by highlighting the impact you made through your actions.