Everyone’s experienced it, a pleasant dine-in meal perfected by an expertly curated menu and exceptional customer service, pushing you to leave a gleaming five-star review – but the thought darts away as quickly as it entered your mind.

Now, if the chef made a special appearance and meticulously took you through the recipe, the urge to leave a review would have been more prominent as you would have gained a valuable life skill, thanks to the chef’s selflessness.

It’s the knowledge that helps you throughout your life that is treasured the most, writes Keith Tully, an insolvency expert at Real Business Rescue.

Building a CV is a skill that all candidates will require at different stages of their life as they climb the career ladder; from accepting their first placement, moving into an executive position, to being promoted into a managerial role.

Taking it back to the beginning, new candidates will have numerous encounters with recruiters, but what about catching their attention by offering an invaluable incentive, such as building and nurturing the one skill indispensable to job hunters – building a CV?

Read more: 6 tips to successfully book first interviews with dream candidates.

Showing Selflessness in a World of Fierce Competition

The world of recruitment is powered by fierce competition between recruiters that thrive to build exceptional talent pools that brim with employment potential.

As recruiters battle to supply UK businesses with the next generation of business leaders, the number of recruitment agencies in the UK which currently stands at 27,700, according to Venturi Group, is rapidly growing.

To attract ambitious candidates at the start of their professional life, you need to build a value-based relationship.

As a new entrant into the world of work, any advice instrumental to the employment process is likely to be acknowledged and put into practice.

It’s a common saying – teach a man to garden, and you can feed him for a lifetime, the same goes for equipping your candidates with the skills required to become a self-starter.

By nurturing candidates into employable talent, you can grow your talent pool and make a real measurable change to their lives which is key to a fruitful and long-lasting relationship.

By injecting value into your offering to new candidates, you can multiply your client base.

CV Building – Teaching a Life Skill

Building a CV – it’s a topic that generates millions of search results, from CV templates, CV examples, and CV tutorials.

Looking at Google Trends data for the past 12 months, the fifth-highest related search term was ‘how to write a CV with no experience’ which shows that there’s demand for CV-related advice for those new to job seeking.

Figuring out where to start can be daunting, from deciding on an aesthetically pleasing format, optimum word count, and easily digestible content.

Guiding candidates that enter the working world from day one can instill confidence and help boost interview performance.

Read more: Resume parsing 101: Top benefits of a resume parser.

A typical CV building workshop may focus on the following talking points–

  • Exploration – What’s the end goal? How to tailor the CV to a job role/industry
  • Content – What to include, level of depth required, contact details
  • Language – Professionalism, spelling, grammar, and jargon guidance
  • Technical – CV and cover letter structure, imagery, and formats (written, digital, video)
  • Examples – Real-life examples of CVs to compare format, presentation, and how each is tailored to a different industry
  • Next step – Preparing supporting evidence, such as qualifications, and interview prep

Give the Gift That Keeps on Giving

CV building workshops are often used by job sites to attract job seekers to upload their CVs. Creating a bank of free content on how to write a CV can prove to be a worthy investment as the content often remains evergreen and therefore, requires little upkeep.

As a CV is the first stepping stone to securing a job, a successful job offer on the back of an exceptional CV can not only boost your success rate and reputation but also helps secure loyal lifetime candidates at the start of their career.