Principles of a Good CV. Jobseeker Basics I

Greg Wyatt • October 9, 2025

Good morning!



I'm transferring over my Jobseeker Basics substack to LinkedIn, so this is the first weekly edition of my LinkedIn 'newsletter'.


Every week you'll received either a chapter from my book, "A Career Breakdown Kit." or an edition of my weekly round-up. (You have a breakdown kit for your car - why wouldn't you in case of an unexpected job search?)


All are guidance on navigating a VUCA jobs marketplace in the UK, mainly at mid to senior level. Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous.


Today's edition is Chapter 30, from Part 3 - Get It Done.


Yes, it's Wall of Text - because it's word for word from the publication version. Something I offer for free to every candidate I represent for a vacancy. Or you can support my work by buying it - click Visit My Store on my profile.


This chapter relates directly to my free CV template. DM me on LinkedIn if you'd like a copy - Greg Wyatt, Bircham Wyatt Recruitment.


‘Ask 9 people for advice on your CV and you’ll end up with 10 CVs.’


A pithy truth that shows how subjective a CV’s quality is.


While also highlighting how frustrating it can be to spend time or even money on perfecting a document that the next person rips to shreds.


The person whose opinion matters most, in a hiring process, is the reader whose finger is on the Reject button.


What are the principles of a good CV?


Not a perfect CV, because perfection is wholly subjective and the path of madness in a difficult job search.


These principles are based on advice I give to job seekers when they ask for feedback.


Principles that come from my own insight, backed up by effective processes from a seemingly different industry.


First, we start with what a CV is and what a CV means.


Did you know the first recognised CV was written by Leonardo da Vinci in a letter highlighting his candidacy for employment? Yes, a CV and cover letter in one!


I’m pleased to say he got the job off his first application.


The notion of a document that presents candidacy dates back millennia with gladiators highlighting their achievements through the Lanista system. This was done to increase their reputation so that owners could earn more money.


A form of marketing document based on provable facts that synthesised their gladiatorial career in written format - a stone slab.


In a sense nothing has changed - your CV is a marketing document, which you use to highlight your candidacy so that your potential buyers invest their time to offer you an interview.


Where it has changed is the medium, given there are many means of presenting candidacy, including LinkedIn, other social media or platforms such as YouTube. You can even parade your portfolio on GitHub (for software), a website or other platforms.


For now, let’s stick to the CV proper.


I read a lot of debate on what a CV actually is and whether it is more of a technical document than a marketing one.


That’s a disservice to true marketing, which always has a basis in fact.


Your CV is there to highlight your candidacy and to give your experience meaning to the reader, helping them make a positive decision on you.


It’s there to get you an interview and for its readers to take you to the next stage.


A hiring process often has several moving parts, each a decision-maker in their own right.


From an administrator who sifts CVs, to recruiters / talent acquisition processes that make a longlist, to hiring managers and their bosses - each has their say on whether or not you might make the cut.


I’m sorry to say sometimes it is arbitrary:


‘If they’re this unlucky, why would we hire them?’ said the hiring manager to the administrator after binning one of the two piles of CVs at random.


While their decisions aren’t in your control, your words and how they are presented are.


It makes sense to create a document that helps the weakest link in the chain see you as a candidate of choice. One which supports other decision-makers, presuming they run the game fairly.


It isn’t only about applications - it enables your networking, doorknocking and speculative enquiries.


The principles of a good CV are the principles of a good marketing document.


A good marketing document at its core creates action - the decision to move forward.


A CV is an advert that should provoke attention, create interest and convert action.


I’m sure you have read much hoo-ha on what makes a good CV in the Talent Acquisition, recruitment, career coaching, and job seeker spaces. Much advice is contradictory, while some of it is cynical.


Instead of joining in that conversation, let’s look to another industry that uses words to convert action, as a basis for the principles of a good CV.


Whose principles are based on user psychology, behaviour and experience, and influence their actions to improve the odds of a purchase.


E-commerce.


A multi-trillion industry built on the words you read, marketing and advertising.


While it may not directly relate to recruitment or looking for work, its principles do:


  • Readability
  • Accessibility
  • AIDA (attention interest desire action; a century-old advertising formula that applies response-stimuli psychology)
  • Features (what it does; skills, tools, experience in a CV) and benefits (how it helps; achievements)
  • Search engine optimisation (SEO; keywords to be found) on the Google principles of Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness (EEAT)
  • Conversion rate optimisation (CRO; words that convert)


Job boards and LinkedIn employ many principles of E-commerce in their functionality. These principles are not only equivalent but directly applicable to job searching.


What about assumptions and myths?


  • ATS compliance
  • 7-second CV scan
  • CVs must be 1, 2, 3, 367 pages long
  • Anything people often talk about


These seem like big deals. They’re not, for a simple reason.


If you write your CV for a reader in a way that grabs their attention while following basic rules, you’ll navigate these seeming traps.


Let’s touch on the top three briefly.


  • To be ATS compliant, at worst, you need to avoid tables, columns and images. I say at worst because modern ATSs are less likely to struggle with these (read The truth about the ATS and AI – p18)
  • It’s true that in a volume process, the initial scan may be quick to check for obvious reasons to rule out applicants. If you pass the scan your CV will be read in more depth because you move from elimination to selection
  • Your CV should be… okay this gets its own section:


Everyone has their own opinion on what the length of a CV should be.


The only person who matters in a hiring process is the reader, if they have a strong opinion you can find out.


If you know their requirement for what makes a good CV and you are prepared to play to their whim - give them that.


If not, your CV should tell its story in a way that grabs attention and holds it. Accessibility, readability… those bullet points above.


  • White space is good
  • Unnecessary repetition is not
  • Conciseness is good
  • Ambiguity is not
  • Achievements that show context are good
  • Adjectives are not (strip an adjective out and does your CV lose meaning? If not, why are you relying on them?)
  • ‘So What?’ is a brilliant editing question. If readers have to ask that of your statements, you need to find improvement or excise
  • Show specific and relevant information and don’t bore your audience with things they don’t care about


(If you’re a recruiter, why not apply the same to your job adverts? The reader psychology is the same.)


Grab your reader’s attention in the first half page, so they read the rest. If they don’t read past that first half page, it doesn’t really matter how well written the rest of your document is.


Get these points right, and a good enough CV will often be 800 to 1200 words long across 2 to 3 (even 4) pages.


Okay now on to actionable steps.


Accessibility and readability


Can someone who doesn’t know your domain see what you do from your CV?


If they can’t, there’s a problem, especially if they are the weakest link in the chain.


A good litmus test is to ask a friend you trust to see what they can tell you about you from your CV. What do they think your biggest achievements are?


White space: would you more easily read a condensed document or one that is clearly laid out? Don’t worry about spreading your CV onto a third, or even fourth page, if your experience demands it.


AIDA


The classic advertising framework, and how animals make decisions (look, check, I am hungry, eat). Look to your puppy for confirmation.

In a 7-second CV scan, you grab Attention on the first page with the most relevant information: your job title, key skills and tools that show how you meet essential requirements, and what the vacancy is looking for.


Get past this first test and gain their Interest through a clearly laid out document that shows the passage of your career (reverse chronological order, show company and role context).


Build Desire by showing the achievements that support your candidacy for the role you want. These are the problems you solve and show how you can help your next employer best.


Enable Action by providing clear and accurate means of contacting you - this may seem obvious, yet some forget.


A note on context.


Context is the information in your CV that answers the questions your readers should have.


What does your employer do? How many employees? What size revenue? What was the structure of the team in which you delivered your achievement?


If your reader has to ask a question about your CV, your CV should provide the answer.


Context is what most CVs miss and it lets them down.


One way to show context is to use the interview framework STAR (Situation Task Action Result) - this frames information in a way that has

meaning to your audience.


Features and Benefits


These are the basics of selling.


You don’t buy the technical specifications of a TV. You buy what the TV does for you.


You don’t buy the ingredients of a pizza. You buy the taste, sensation and experience it provides.


Both are important.


Most of your readers know broadly what a <job title> does - there’s no need to say it if the meaning is implicit.


What we want to know is how it helps.


An administrator may do administration. How does it help?


Do they arrange travel cost efficiently, take away the admin burden from the directors, save time?


Those are the benefits, even better in the form of achievements.


SEO


SEO primarily relates to keywords. Think about how you search on Google. We do much the same when scanning and searching on CVs.


Are the keywords from the job description or advert clearly stated on your CV?


These are typically the essential requirements, and this is a rare piece of ALWAYS advice. Always show how you meet the essential requirements.


Rely on EEAT in that list above. Show these keywords without looking cynical or careless.


Some career coaches advise a ‘white text keyword bomb’ as a hack - if a reader thinks you’ve employed a hack, you may be seen to be cheating, and that rarely goes well.


If your CV has the right keywords, it will be easier to find on CV databases.


You can use the same keywords to make it easier to be found on LinkedIn.


Which are two ways to be considered for unadvertised jobs.


CRO


The main point of a CV is to prompt positive action - the second A in AIDA.


The crux of a CV is to show the reader how you can solve their problems.


The problems that are at the heart of their vacancy.


Do this in a compelling way, and you’ll improve your odds.


CRO is built on psychology and understanding how your readers make decisions.


Think about the flow and readability of your CV - this is how websites work.


Everything in a well-designed website is intentional. Is your CV?


I find CRO fascinating - worth a read if you want to go down a rabbit hole.


While CVs are important, many people place too much importance on their place in the process.


A good enough CV is your best step forward. If you are a no anyway, perhaps it wasn’t meant to be.


Or maybe the decision was already made if you are in a demographic the reader chooses to discriminate against.


That may not even be for illegal reasons, if they decide you live too far away, are too expensive, or that you love Agile when they love Waterfall.


Go for good enough - it is a challenge to get there, but once you do, you can build on it for life, and it will help you get a job.

Jump the shark. A Recruitment AiDE, pt 13

By Greg Wyatt • January 29, 2026
May 2023 You’ve heard the phrase, I take it – “jump the shark”? It’s the moment when one surprising or absurd experience can indicate a rapid descent into rubbishness and obscurity. When it’s time to get off the bus. Typically in media. Jumping the Shark comes from an episode of Happy Days in which the Fonz does a water ski jump over a shark. 👈 Aaaaay. 👉 A sign creators have run out of ideas, or can’t be bothered to come up with fresh ones. In movies, sequelitis is a good example of this – an unnecessary sequel done to make some cash, in the hope the audience doesn’t care about its quality. Sometimes they become dead horses to flog, such as the missteps that are any Terminator film after 2. It’s an issue that can lead to consumers abandoning what they were doing, with such a precipitous drop in engagement that the thing itself is then cancelled. Partly because of breaking trust in what was expected to happen next. And because it’s a sign that the disbelief that was temporarily suspended has come crashing down. If you don’t believe that your current poor experience will lead to further, better experiences, why would you bother? Once you’ve had your fingers burnt, how hard is it to find that trust in similar experiences? It doesn’t have to be a single vein of experience for all to be affected. Watch one dodgy superhero movie and how does it whet your appetite for the next? You didn’t see The Eternals? Lucky you. Or how about that time we had really bad service at Café Rouge, a sign of new management that didn’t care, and we never went again? Just me? Did they sauter par-dessus le requin? Here’s the rub – it matters less that these experiences have jumped the shark. It matters more what the experience means for expectation. So it is in candidate experience. It’s not just the experience you provide that tempers expectations – it’s the cumulated experience of other processes that creates an assumption of what might be expected of yours. If you’re starting from a low trust point, what will it take for your process to ‘jump the shark’ and lose, not just an engaged audience, but those brilliant candidates that might only have considered talking to you if their experience hadn’t been off-putting? Not fair, is it, that the experience provided by other poor recruitment processes might affect what people expect of yours? Their experiences aren’t in your control, the experience you provide is. Of my 700 or so calls with exec job seekers, since The Pandemic: Lockdown Pt 1, many described the candidate experience touchpoints that led to them deciding not to proceed with an application. These were calls that were purely about job search strategy, and not people I could place. However, one benefit for me is that they are the Gemba , and I get to hear their direct experiences outside of my recruitment processes. Experiences such as - ‘£Competitive salary’ in an advert or DM, which they know full well means a lowball offer every time, because it happened to them once or twice, or perhaps it was just a LinkedIn post they read. Maybe it isn’t your problem at all, maybe your £competitive is upper 1% - how does their experience inform their assumptions? Or when adverts lend ambiguity to generic words, what meaning do they find, no matter how far from the truth? How the arrogance of a one-sided interview process affects their interest. The apparent narcissism in many outreaches in recruitment (unamazing, isn’t it, that bad outreach can close doors, rather than open them). Those ATS ‘duplicate your CV’ data entry beasts? Fool me once… Instances that are the catalysts for them withdrawing. I’d find myself telling them to look past these experiences, because a poor process can hide a good job. It’s a common theme in my jobseeker posts, such as a recent one offering a counterpoint to the virality that is “COVER LETTERS DON’T M4TT£R agree?” Experiences that may not be meant by the employer, or even thought of as necessarily bad, yet are drivers for decisions and behaviour. I can only appeal to these job seekers through my posts and calls. What about those other jobseekers who I’m not aware of, who’ve only experienced nonsense advice? What about those people who aren’t jobseekers? What about those people who think they love their roles? What about all those great candidates who won’t put up with bad experiences? The more sceptical they are, and the further they are from the need for a new role, the less bullshit they’ll put up with. What happens when an otherwise acceptable process presents something unpalatable? Might this jumping the shark mean they go no further? Every time the experience you provide doesn’t put their needs front and centre or if it’s correlated to their bad experiences…. these can prevent otherwise willing candidates from progressing with your process, whether that’s an advert they don’t apply to, a job they don’t start, or everything in between. Decisions that may stem from false assumptions of what a bad experience will mean. Instead, look to these ‘bad experience’ touchpoints as opportunities to do better: instead of £competitive, either state a salary or a legitimate reason why you can’t disclose salary (e.g. “see below” if limited by a job board field and “we negotiate a fair salary based on the contribution of the successful candidate, and don’t want to limit compensation by a band”) instead of a 1-way interrogation… an interview instead of radio silence when there’s no news - an update to say there’s no update, and ‘How are things with you by the way?’ instead of Apply Now via our Applicant Torture Sadistificator, ‘drop me a line if you have any questions’ or ‘don’t worry if you don’t have an updated CV - we’ll sort that later’. Opportunity from adversity. And why you can look at bad experiences other processes provide as a chance to do better. With the benefit that, if you eliminate poor experience, you'll lose fewer candidates unnecessarily, including those ideal ones you never knew about. Bad experiences are the yin to good experience’s yang and both are key parts of the E that is Experience in the AIDE framework. The good is for next time. Thanks for reading.  Regards, Greg

How To Network For A Job - Jobseeker Basics XIV

By Greg Wyatt • January 26, 2026
The following is Chapter 42 in A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) . In a sense it's a microcosm of how any commercial activity can see a better return - which is to put the needs of the person you are appealing to above your own. It feels counterintuitive, especially when you have a burning need, but you can see the problem of NOT doing this simply by looking at 99% of job adverts: We are. We need. We want. What you'll do for us. What you might get in return. Capped off by the classic "don't call us, we'll call you." If you didn't need a job, how would you respond to that kind of advert? In the same vein, if you want networking to pay off, how will your contact's life improve by your contact? What's in it for them? 42 - How to network for a job Who are the two types of people you remember at networking events? For me two types stand out. One will be the instant pitch networker. This might work if you happen to be in need right now of what they have to offer or if mutual selling is your goal. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this but it’s a selling activity pretending to be networking. If you want to sell, go and overtly sell rather than disguise it with subterfuge. Lest we mark your face and avoid you where possible in future. The second is the one who gets to know you, shows interest and tries to add to your experience. You share ideas, and there’s no push to buy something. They believe that through building the relationship when you have a problem they can solve, you’ll think to go to them. It’s a relationship built on reciprocity. One where if you always build something together there is reason to keep in touch. And where the outcome is what you need if the right elements come together: right person, right time, right message, right place, right offering, right price. Job search networking is no different. The purpose of networking in a job search is to build a network where you are seen as a go-to solution should a suitable problem come up. In this case the problem you solve is a vacancy. Either because your active network is recruiting, or because they advocate for you when someone they know is recruiting. It is always a two-way conversation you both benefit from. Knowledge sharing, sounding board, see how you’re doing - because of what the relationship brings to you both. It is not contacting someone only to ask for a job or a recommendation. A one-way conversation that relies on lucky timing. That second approach can be effective as a type of direct sales rather than networking. If you get it wrong it may even work against you. How would you feel if someone asked to network with you, when it became clear they want you to do something for them? You might get lucky and network with someone who is recruiting now - more likely is that you nurture that relationship over time. If your goal is only to ask for help each networking opportunity will have a low chance of success. While if your goal is to nurture a relationship that may produce a lead, you’ll only have constructive outcomes. This makes it sensible to start by building a network with people that already know you: Former direct colleagues and company colleagues Industry leaders and peers Recruiters you have employed or applied through Don’t forget the friends you aren’t in regular touch with - there is no shame in being out of work and it would be a shame if they didn’t think of you when aware of a suitable opening. These people are a priority because they know you, your capability and your approach and trust has already been built. Whereas networking with people you don't know requires helping them come to know and trust you. Networking with people you know is the most overlooked tactic by the exec job seekers I talk to (followed by personal branding). These are the same people who see the hidden jobs market as where their next role is, yet overlook what’s in front of them. If you are looking for a new role on the quiet - networking is a go-to approach that invites proactive contact to you. Networking with people who know people you know, then people in a similar domain, then people outside of this domain - these are in decreasing order of priority. Let's not forget the other type of networking. Talking to fellow job seekers is a great way to share your pain, take a load off your shoulders, bounce ideas off each other, and hold each other accountable. LinkedIn is the perfect platform to find the right people if you haven't kept in touch directly. Whatever you think of LinkedIn, you shouldn’t overlook its nature as a conduit to conversation. It isn’t the conversation itself. Speaking in real life is where networking shines because while you might build a facsimile of a relationship in text, it's no replacement for a fluid conversation. Whether by phone and video calls, real life meetups, business events, seminars, conferences, expos, or in my case - on dog walks and waiting outside of the school gates. Both these last two have led to friends and business for me though the latter hasn’t been available since 2021. Networking isn’t 'What can I get out of it?' Instead, ‘What’s in it for them?’ The difference is the same as those ransom list job adverts compared to the rare one that speaks to you personally. How can you build on this relationship by keeping in touch? Networking is systematic, periodic and iterative: Map out your real life career network. Revisit anyone you’ve ever worked with and where Find them on LinkedIn Get in touch ‘I was thinking about our time at xxx. Perhaps we could reconnect - would be great to catch up’ If they don’t reply, because life can be busy, diarise a follow up What could be of interest to them? A LinkedIn post might be a reason to catch up When you look up your contact’s profile look at the companies they’ve worked at. They worked there for a reason, which may be because of a common capability to you Research these companies. Are there people in relevant roles worth introducing yourself to? Maybe the company looks a fit with your aspirations - worth getting in touch with someone who may be a hiring manager or relevant recruiter? Maybe they aren’t recruiting now. Someone to keep in touch with because of mutual interests. Click on Job on their company page, then "I'm interested" - this helps for many reasons, including flagging your interest as a potential employee Keep iterating your network and find new companies as you look at new contacts. This is one way we map the market in recruitment to headhunt candidates - you can mirror this with your networking The more proactive networking you build into your job search, the luckier you might get. While you might need to nurture a sizeable network and there are no guarantees, think about the other virtues of networking - how does that compare to endless unreplied applications? I often hear from job seekers who found their next role through networking. This includes those who got the job because of their network even though hundreds of applicants were vying for it. While this may be unfair on the applicants sometimes you can make unfair work for you. It can be effective at any level.