Your curriculum vitae
with extensive professional experience

You have a new exciting job in mind, but your extensive professional experience goes beyond the scope of your curriculum vitae? As impressive as a variety of work and qualifications might be, they can have an overwhelming effect on recruiters. The art of any application is to provide a compelling curriculum vitae that impresses from the outset.

Always remember: Your curriculum vitae is the document that you want to sell yourself with. In particular, if you have extensive professional experience, you need to ensure that your curriculum vitae is tailored to the requirements of your desired position and clearly expresses what you have to offer – today, not ten years ago.

Focus on the important points on your curriculum vitae. Present your extensive professional experience in a concise manner that matches your skills and experience. Here you can find tips on how to create a short but effective curriculum vitae even if you have extensive professional experience.

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Keep important points on your curriculum vitae

It is often difficult to condense your individual professional experiences and to present the most important information in a way that makes it more attractive to recruiters or HR managers. You should therefore bring some order and clarity to your list of job titles, skills, qualifications, tasks and experiences. Even if you have extensive professional experience, you can create a short curriculum vitae that draws attention. We will give you tips on how to do this:

Only mention the skills, attributes and responsibilities in your career that are important to your desired position.
Highlight the key skills and attributes required for the position.

It is not necessary to list your education or your initial jobs or professional stages (such as internships). Always bear in mind: Your curriculum vitae should be as up-to-date as possible and should reflect your current skills and qualifications in the best possible way. Looking into the past does not add value.

Condensing your curriculum vitae: Always keep your goal in mind

Now that your curriculum vitae contains only the most important points, you should make sure that they draw the attention of recruiters as directly as possible. Therefore, when you create your curriculum vitae with your extensive professional experience, you must be mindful of your goal: HR managers should be able to quickly and easily identify what you can do and whether you would fit into the company. Avoid overloading HR employees with everything you've ever done. For algorithms, your optimised curriculum vitae is also crucial in grading you as a suitable candidate for the job and not favouring others.

1. Make sure that your contact details match

2. Create a short profile

3. Summarise your skills on your curriculum vitae

4. Condense your professional career

5. Simplify the language and format

1

Make sure that your contact details match

Your contact details are an integral part of your curriculum vitae. In addition, we recommend that you provide a link to your website or social media profiles to better communicate your personal branding. In this case, of course, you should make sure that your profile on LinkedIn and other sites lists identical information and job titles. If necessary, this allows recruiters to obtain additional information and examples of the work that you do.

2

Create a short profile

Your unique selling proposition in particular must stand out at this point. What value can you add to the company? Why should recruiters or HR managers read on? What could no other candidate than you contribute to the company? Address HR managers directly. Also use this section to list relevant and significant successes that you have achieved in the course of your career. Imagine you are applying for a position as marketing manager. Then you can state that you increased the revenue of a particular company by X percent by implementing a campaign that included Y and Z. Provide the reader with facts and figures.

3

Summarise your skills on your curriculum vitae

Briefly list your main focuses of expertise from your extensive professional experience. Combine a list of all the information that may seem important to your desired position but does not deserve a whole section. You can also format your curriculum vitae so that the key points appear on one side, saving valuable space in the middle of the document. A clear division makes the work easier for recruiters.

Download curriculum vitae templates

4

Condense your professional career

List your professional career in reverse chronological order so that your current job is at the top of your curriculum vitae. Describe your current job in great detail and provide less information the further back the jobs go. Were you in a job a while ago that is no longer relevant? But at the same time do you want to avoid gaps on your curriculum vitae? Then list only the job title, period of time and company that you worked for. This saves space on your curriculum vitae without creating potentially irritating gaps.

5

Simplify the language and format

Less is more. This is particularly true when formulating your curriculum vitae. Don't use ten words for something that can be said in five words. Quickly get to the point. You will still have enough time for elaborate storytelling during your interview. Use action verbs as often as possible and avoid large blocks of text as they will deter your readers. Your curriculum vitae must be easy to read and follow, no matter how much professional experience you have. Last but not least, comprehensive proofreading is required! If your curriculum vitae is full of spelling and grammar mistakes, you will lose credibility immediately. You simply have too much experience to afford such mistakes.