π Selling & marketing Β· E-book
Two Pages, Read Twice
A CV built on evidence rather than adjectives
Your name
TWO PAGES, READ TWICE
A CV built on evidence rather than adjectives
A4 Β· this is a layout preview in the βPosterβ design. When you generate, the studio writes every chapter in full, paints the cover and chapter art, and composes a downloadable A4 PDF with your name, bio and store link on it.
A CV is a short document read quickly by someone with a stack of them. That is the whole design problem. This book works from that constraint outwards: what goes in the space that is definitely read, how to write a role so the reader can see what you did, and how to handle the parts of a history that are not tidy.
What's inside
- 1Who Reads It, And HowDescribes the realistic conditions a CV is read in, including screening software, recruiters and hiring managers, and what each is looking for. After this chapter you will design for a fast first pass rather than a careful one.
- 2The Top ThirdCovers what belongs in the first section: a plain summary, current role and the two or three facts that decide whether the reader continues. After this chapter you will have a top third that says what you are and what you have done, in four lines.
- 3Writing A Role: Task, Action, ResultGives a repeatable pattern for describing a job so responsibilities become achievements without inflation. After this chapter you can rewrite any bullet on your CV so the reader can see the work behind it.
- 4Numbers You Are Allowed To UseShows how to find honest quantities in work that felt unquantifiable, and how to describe scale without claiming credit that is not yours. After this chapter you will have real figures attached to at least half your bullets.
- 5Gaps, Short Stints And Changes Of DirectionDeals with career breaks, redundancy, caring, illness and jobs that lasted three months, in the words to use and where to put them. After this chapter your history will read as a sequence rather than a set of things to explain away.
- 6Layout, Files And TailoringCovers typography, length, file format, naming and how to adapt a base CV to a specific advert in fifteen minutes. After this chapter you will have one master CV and a routine for producing a tailored version quickly.
A sample from chapter one
Adjectives are free, so they count for nothing
Every applicant describes themselves as hard-working, detail-oriented and a strong communicator. Nobody writes the opposite. Because the words cost nothing to claim, the reader has learned to skip them, and the lines they occupy are the most valuable on the page. Removing them is usually the fastest improvement available to a weak CV.
Put evidence in the space instead. Not a claim of attention to detail, but the fact that you rebuilt a reconciliation process that had been producing monthly errors. The reader draws the conclusion themselves, which is more convincing than being told, and you have used the line to convey something only you could have written.
- Delete every adjective describing your character and check whether the sentence has lost any information.
- Start each bullet with a verb that names the action, then state what changed as a result of it.
- Give scale even when you cannot give an outcome: team size, budget, number of sites, volume handled.
- Save the file as your name and the role, so it is findable on a desktop with forty other applications on it.
Key takeaways
- A CV is skimmed before it is read, so the top third has to carry the decision to keep reading.
- Evidence lets the reader reach the conclusion you would otherwise be claiming, which is far more persuasive.
- Tailoring means reordering and trimming a master document, not writing something new for every application.
The studio writes every chapter from this outline, paints the art and hands you a PDF you can sell the same afternoon.
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