Tips for Creating Your Fashion CV

Writing a CV seems simple enough, right?

You add your name and contact details at the top of the page, fill out your education history and work experience, top it off with a few skills and hobbies, print it out and hey presto!

Okay, perhaps we don’t print our CVs so much anymore – not like we did in the days when we went around companies on foot handing in our pristine copies to the receptionist, perhaps with a neatly handwritten cover letter…

But we certainly apply the same logic – and certainly, make the same mistakes.

For one thing, we believe that “more is more” and pile everything onto the page for good measure. What if the hiring manager likes animals and I fail to mention my volunteer work at my local guinea pig sanctuary? Perhaps the HR person is a champion ten-pin bowler and will be impressed if I mention my passion for skittles – even if the last time I went was with my school friends 20 years ago…

Writing a CV is a skill that requires no small amount of finesse to get it just right with all the relevant information.

When you’re writing a CV for a specific role or industry, it’s even more important to highlight the standout features so the recruiter is left with no doubts that you are the number one candidate to interview.

And this is no mean feat when you consider that an average recruiter has to glance through 250 CVs per job!

It may alarm you to learn that after hours of painstakingly typesetting your CV, lining up all the bullet points, removing all the typos and cutting it down to two sides of A4, according to a 2018 eye-tracking study, a hiring manager will only spend seven seconds looking at it. You have a very short window of time to grab their attention so you don’t end up in the reject
pile.

Worry no more, we’re here to help you out so you avoid the most common pitfalls would-be fashion professionals subject themselves to…

Whatever you’re used to using, be it PDF or Pages, the best thing you can do for readability is to use a Word document

As a designer don’t attach a portfolio to the CV unless asked to – if the hiring manager likes your CV, they will ask to see your portfolio at a later point.

Don’t bombard your CV with tonnes of graphics – content is king here. The hiring manager wants to see you have the right skills and experience for the job they’re advertising for, so keep your CV tidy and clutter-free.

People on the lookout for a new job are often desperate to prove they can turn their hand to anything and everything. They cram lots of skills, hobbies and work history from decades ago – this won’t boost your chances of getting a job.
Where you think you’re being versatile, multi-faceted and interesting, the person reviewing your CV reads someone who can’t make up their mind what they want to do – and worst of all, someone who will get bored three months into the job. Do they really want to take a chance on someone who’ll be looking for new challenges within such a short space of time?

This goes hand in hand with the last point. As well as leaving out skills that don’t matter, keep your relevant, specific skills and experience in. Ensure you’re including everything on the job specification. That means if they ask for skills in a certain design software programme, you add that in. If you leave it out thinking it’s obvious, then you run the risk of someone else getting the interview instead of you.

It’s not just a myth – recruiters and hiring managers do reject your CV if they spot any spelling errors. This is very sad, as we all make the odd typo (even the biggest grammar nerds!) but you can avoid any potential hiccups by getting a friend to glance over your CV, or using a tool such as Grammarly or the spellchecker on Microsoft Word.

While many people will admit to “embellishing” their CVs, you have to be certain anything you do mention can be backed up. For example, if you claim to love going to the cinema, you may get asked what was the last film you went to see. You’d better know you can converse on a very recent movie or they’ll see right through you!