Why should submitting your curriculum vitae be like serving toast for breakfast?

Imagine you were cooking breakfast for your prospective future employers. There they are – maybe 6 people sitting around your dining table – and you want to impress. You want to be the host with the breakfast these employers remember. What do you do?

Option 1. Grab the white bread, shove it in the toaster on the same setting, wait until it pops up, spread butter on each piece, add thick-slice orange marmalade and serve.

You have done the same thing for 6 different people. It was the easiest thing for you to do – but here’s the rub, it’s unlikely your breakfast is going to be memorable.

Option 2. You ask your breakfast guests how they’d like their toast. You take the time to research their preferred bread-type, how dark they like it toasted, whether they prefer salted or unsalted butter (maybe no butter at all) and what topping spread they’d like on their toast. It’s not as easy for you as the host, but you’ve tailored your breakfast to the six individual employers. It’s all still toast. But each person received exactly what they wanted – and your breakfast is therefore memorable.

How do you serve your curriculum vitae?

Do you send the same identical CV to every company you are interested in employing you? Do you serve it up like the Option 1 breakfast?

Or do you spend some time researching and “tweak” your CV like the toast in Option 2 to make it personal to the prospective employer?

Next time you send your curriculum vitae to a prospective employer think about how you’d like to serve your toast in a way that makes it memorable.

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I first worked with Will whilst I was a junior member of a teaching team. I worked closely with him for around three years and he became a true mentor to me. During this time Will helped encourage me to discover my own leadership style and he mapped out what it takes to be successful. I highly recommend Will for life and career coaching.

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