CV advice for senior positions

[TaigaSno]

I'm trying to put together an up to date CV. I was always told (admittedly, a while ago), that a CV should not be more than two pages long. The problem is, I've been working for 25 years, and for the past 10 years I've been in senior positions with lots of responsibilities and achievements. I just can't for it all into two pages.
How do I make sure I can include enough to reflect my significant amount of experience and industry qualifications, etc to present myself well but without going on for pages?
Is there anyone who can advise me on the current best way of compiling a CV?

don't you just put the recent positions & highest qualifications on your CV?

I would have the most recent experience first, with accomplishments listed and a small spec, but for anything older than that I'd list company, job title and dates.

Bear in mind that your cv will get about 3/4 mins of attention. They are looking for someone to fill a role so tailor your cv to include enough detail 💯 relevant to the role to get you an interview. Most places are not interested in anything over 10 years.

think of your cv as a trailer for a film, rather than a plot summary. Just enough to generate interest & get past phase 1.

Mine goes:

Current job

• summary of my position (number of people I manage, budget, size of company, etc)
• list of daily duties

Other jobs

• summary
• key achievements

No need to go into detail about old jobs. Just list as many as fits in two pages - I have four total.

First page - your current role.

Second page - top half to previous roles within the last ten years.

Second page - bottom half - brief note of roles older than ten years (eg a variety of HR admin roles from small business to global blue chips. Experience includes x, y and z). Then qualifications - if many just add highest / professional ones.

I’ve just redone mine and used a CV person to review it. Mine is 3 pages.

As above, you wouldn't put a full 25 years of work history on your CV.

Mine is;

• Personal profile: very brief little paragraph highlighting the personal attributes that link in with the job I'm allying to.
• Core Skills: Highlighting professional qualifications and perhaps 3/4 skills related to the job I'm applying to (bullet points)
• Work History: covering last two roles (so around 9 years of employment). bullet pointing the main responsibilities and highlighting accomplishments aka : "Credit Control duties [blah blah]. One of my accomplishments related to this duty is that I was able to reduce bad debt by 75% during my employment..." If you really wanted to, you could then simply list previous roles, if you feel they add value. Literally just "Role | Company | 2001-2004" etc - Personally, I think past a certain age and level of experience, its unwarranted.
• Education: List degrees etc. Again, past a certain age or experience levels, no-one is really caring what GCSEs you have.

Don't waste space putting in personal interests or "references on request" etc

You can also get CV templates on Word that allow you to lay out your CV in columns, so fitting more info in per page.

If you need to do a cover letter, I highly recommend ChatGPT. I use it to tailor cover letters per job application as opposed to just sending a standard one. I'd ask something like:

"Please provide me a cover letter related to this job application [copy/paste job description], personalising to my experience [copy/paste CV]. Tweak or ask follow-up questions as required. ChatGPT revolutionised my job searching, as long as you use it sensibly and sanity check what it gives you.

My cv is 4 pages now and successfully got me my current and previous senior jobs and a remunerated board position.

Really concentrate on achievements and your stand out attributes.

The format I use is

Intro paragraph to describe me
Bullet point top attributes
Current positions

• few sentences to describe the role and then top achievements.

Recent positions

• few sentences to describe the role and then top achievements

But anything from more than 10 years ago just gets a few sentences unless there's a stand out achievement or something necessarily relevant to the role I'm applying for.

Education, qualifications and relevant trading
Other interests, skills, volunteering

Make sure everything is tailored to the tile you are applying for.

Thank you everyone, you have given me some much needed focus and inspiration. I'm doing the CV now!