Now the question that begs is, “how much does it really matter?” I have to break it to you, it doesn’t.
Yes you heard it right, it doesn’t matter!
Of course, the broad ones like not leaving white spaces and structuring your CV in a certain way matter in the sense that they make your CV standard. And the biggest irony is, you will be spending most of your time in trying to make your CV stand out, whereas what really matters is how standard it looks to the other 400 odd CVs!
This might seem very counter intuitive. But bear with me for now.
I am sure that all of you know the companies spend not more than 15-20 secs per CV. I am also sure that you know each type of company is looking for a specific thing in a CV. No matter how much you try to anticipate this, you have no control over it. You prospective employer will spot that one thing in your CV in a matter of 3-5 secs on an average. He knows exactly what he wants and he will look just for that. To help him do this, the best you can do is standardize your CV as much as possible so that it is easy for him to locate exactly what he wants. A very important concern to address here is the rat race for Consulting. With almost everybody wanting to land an MBB placement, people do all kinds of things to their CV to highlight their so called “Spikes”. Trust me, it doesn’t matter. If you have spike, they will see it. If you don’t, they won’t shortlist you. Nothing you can do to change this; no matter how much you try to dress your CV up. The faster you accept this fact, the easier your life will be. Be open to the plethora of jobs that are available and do not restrict your mind.
To summarize, I would advise that take care of the basic hygiene steps in making your CV according to the standards. But remember to stop at just that. At standard. You are going to stand out because of what you have achieved and you must believe that your dream company is capable and experienced enough to spot that one thing on your 1-page that they are looking for. Try to do too much and you are just wasting your time. It takes a lot of courage to stand out when your best friend is consulting 25+ seniors. It is even more difficult to filter out the noise of the crowd and hear your own voice when it comes to this 1-page. But you must think about the million other things that you can do with the time you just freed up by going for quality over quantity. If you are looking for some motivation to stand out against the herd mentality, I will leave you with the following quote –
“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking!”
P.S. I have consciously referred to your CV as "1-page" because you must remember that that is what it is. Just 1 page! Also, I had tried to dress up my CV in all possible ways to get a consult shortlist but failed to get one. My so called CV which I had made in a way that "consultants want" got me all the Investment Banking shortlists because that is what my profile was suited for. I ended up interning at J.P. Morgan in the Investment Banking Division. I have written this article in a very blunt way because I want you to learn from the needless time I spent and saw others spending on preparing this "1-Page"!
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