The fine line between modesty and bragging

Your CV has to stand out if it’s going to sell your skills and potential to prospective employers in a tough job market. But if you’re a modest person, unused to taking the credit, how can you showcase your abilities authentically and naturally, without appearing to boast?

CV writing experts generally say that a CV is no place for modesty – you need to overcome any shyness you have about blowing your own trumpet. But your CV also has to reflect you and your personality. You’ll most probably be discussing it at interview stage, so you need to feel comfortable with how it’s written. You don’t want to end up squirming in your chair in embarrassment, or feeling you need to justify or explain what you wrote.

Here are five tips for writing in a style that’s persuasive and effective, but natural and comfortable at the same time.

- Know your own strengths

Before you even start writing your CV, work out what you want to flag up as your strong points – the things about you that make you a great employee. What makes you good at your job? How do you bring value to your employers and how will that be useful to a different company?

Think about personal characteristics (are you patient, organised or helpful, for example) as well as technical or specific job-related skills. Don’t hold yourself back when you make your list – you could find something that could propel your job search into an entirely different sector or role needing your particular skills.

Ask a couple of close colleagues to define what makes you a success at your job. You may be surprised at how others perceive you. This sort of feedback is also helpful in interviews when you may get questions along the lines of “What are your strengths?” or “How would your colleagues describe you?” It’s far more authentic to be able to say “Well, my colleague in the accounting department said …” rather than a limp “Um, I think they’d say…”

- Use the recommendations of others

If you’re too modest to say “I’m a whizz at book-keeping / keeping the files in order / organising my disorganised boss’s calendar” let others say it for you.

Use glowing comments from appraisals, letters of reference or satisfied customers as testimonials on your CV, rather than saving them up for the reference check stage of the job search process. Select a one or two sentence quote which illustrates your working strengths or qualities and place them in as prominent a position as you can. You can add them under your profile, in quotation marks, adding the name of the person making the quote. You can also put them in your Key Achievements or Work History sections to highlight the value you brought to a company.

You can also use them in your covering letter, and on your LinkedIn profile.

For tips on how to select quotes and use them, see how to put your references to good use on your CV.

Louise Fletcher on Blueskyresumes has a great example for using your colleagues to showcase your strengths. Her example is a client who worked for a web development agency who became the one person that everyone went to for help with analytics. On his CV she wrote (paraphrased) ‘Became the ‘go-to guy’ among 25+ employees for all things related to web analytics…”

- Avoid overblown language

Don’t use tired, hackneyed phrases such as “excellent communication skills” or “great attention to detail”. So many people use them that they’ve become meaningless cliches. Instead, show how you’ve got these skills by giving specific details.

“Proofread company handbooks and manuals to eliminate errors, improve readability and shorten text from 50 to 35 pages.”
“Researched travel agency offers to find best possible combination of flights to maximise directors’ time with foreign clients and minimise stop-over times”

See Avoiding the red flag words for more examples of phrases to avoid.

- Be descriptive

Let your achievements speak for themselves. Rather than writing “I was responsible for”, take the focus away from “I” and use a bulleted list of accomplishments. Choose a descriptive, precise verb that shows exactly what you did:

spearheaded / pioneered / launched
introduced / implemented / oversaw
reduced / cut / eliminated / slashed
increased / expanded / optimised
boosted / strengthened / maximised

Where possible, quantify the result of what you did through percentages, £ value or statistics. If this isn’t possible, say how a problem was fixed, a result gained, or your professional stature was enhanced through what you did.

- Project confidence and competence

Although losing a job can be a huge blow to your self-esteem, your CV mustn’t reflect any bitterness or desperation you feel. The key is to focus on the strengths and abilities you can bring to the new role or company, and not why you’re now looking for work. For this reason, avoid stating on your CV why you left a company or lost a job. If your last job ended because the company folded and you want to explain a very short tenure, then a one-sentence explanation might be helpful, but it’s better to save explanations for the covering letter or interview – and then to keep them brief.

Photo credit: mavel