Mid-Life CV

Your CV is a document to demonstrate that you are suitable for a job.

The following tips are recommended to help improve your chances of securing an interview:

• Keep your CV brief (2 pages maximum)
• Focus on your achievements
• Take care with words (consider the tone of your writing)
• Don’t include dates on your CV if they are not necessary - dates around education can give your age away and allow recruiters to unconsciously discriminate, so remove all dates from older qualifications and just leave the name of the course.
• Only include the last 10 years of work history on your CV – if you want to go back further, just include a few paragraphs starting with “Prior to this, I worked for (Company Name) as (Job Title)…” and/or “I started my career as (Job Title)…”

Provided by National Careers Service Delivery Team Manager for South East London, Trudy

Learning

A great way to improve your skills is to take a short course in something relevant to the role you want to do, such as IT.

Achievements from short courses can give you an advantage when applying for jobs.

You could also take a leisure course in something you enjoy so that it's not all about work, such as Photography.

Not only could this help improve your confidence, self-esteem and motivation, but it will give you something to discuss on any future applications and at interviews to demonstrate your openness to learning.

If you're short on funds but are still interested in learning, why not check out some free accredited courses? Check out the websites below or, if you are in receipt of benefits, why not speak to your local college who may run free course for claimants. 

http://www.free2learn.org.uk
http://www.vision2learn.net
http://www.alison.com
http://www.elearnuk.co.uk
http://www.reed.co.uk/courses.free

Provided by National Careers Service Adviser for Central London, Denise