As an experienced educator, it is likely you’ll have an extensive career history filled with many roles and responsibilities across a variety of schools. This may seem like comprehensive, relevant information for the job you are applying for. However, busy recruiters do not have time to look through pages and pages of a CV to find the job-specific skills they are looking for.
In fact, if a recruiter spots a CV that’s over two pages, it is more than likely to go straight in the bin. To keep your recruiter happy and to help make sure your CV lands in the ‘yes’ pile, the secret is to condense your CV into a short, concise document which shows off your skills as well as possible. So, what should you cut from your teaching CV?
Cut irrelevant roles
Internships and pre-teaching roles are highly unlikely to be relevant to the teaching job you are applying for. If you have plenty of experience in teaching or classroom support, then all of the additional roles in unrelated fields will not be what recruiters will be looking for. Instead, your most recent teaching roles need space and priority on your CV.
Similarly, if you have many teaching roles in your work history, try to summarise the teaching roles in your early career to just a couple of sentences.
Keep your CV professional, not personal
Recruiters don’t need too many personal details about their candidates. Initially, they will be looking at the skills and experience each candidate has rather than what their personal circumstances are. In any case, recruiters need to ignore most of this information as it could be a basis for discrimination.
The key details which you should include;
- Full name
- Phone number
- Email address
- Location (not your whole address).
Details which you should remove include your marital status, gender, full address and date of birth. If you have a photo on your teaching CV, then this should definitely be removed. It not only takes up valuable space, but it is likely to put your CV at a disadvantage as recruiters can’t be seen to discriminate.
When it comes to your personal statement or discussing personal interests, remove anything that isn’t relevant to the role you are applying for. Unless playing tennis for your local sports club adds to your ability to meet the requirements of the teaching role, then delete it. This goes for cooking, spending time with friends and watching films too.
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Be specific
Jobseekers waste so much time on their CV by adding irrelevant clichés that don’t add value. Get rid of meaningless statements about being ‘results-driven’ or a ‘hard-worker’ – every candidate will say the same. Instead, prove your capabilities with hard facts and specific data about your achievements.
This goes for the skills section too. As an experienced teacher, they’ll know you have communication skills, so focus on the job-specific skills that the recruiter is looking for.
By following these three tips, you’ll be able to get rid of the meaningless bulk in your CV and create a much cleaner, sharper and more effective CV that will help to get you noticed.
About the author
Andrew Fennell
Andrew Fennell is the founder and director of StandOut CV, a leading UK careers advice website. He is a former recruitment consultant and contributes careers advice to publications like Business Insider, The Guardian, and The Independent.
