New Year Resolution - keep your CV up to date

A new year is often a time for reflection and forward planning, and this can be the case for our careers too.  Whether you are currently looking for a new role or not, the new year is often the perfect time to reflect on key achievements over the past 12 months.  It is easy to forget, or underestimate, our achievements when updating a CV just before applying for a role.  So instead, put aside some time to remember these key moments and add them to your CV now even if you don’t intend to send your CV off anywhere yet.

Achievements are sometimes the key defining points in your CV being more appealing than your peers and giving you a better chance of successfully securing a new role.  Think about any key projects you’ve been part of, a way you have cut costs, or saved time during month end for example.  These clear examples of achievements will be far more attractive to a potential new employer than just listing your day-to-day duties. 

Not only are you getting these achievements down while they’re fresh in your memory, but you are also ensuring your CV remains as up to date as possible in case that dream role suddenly opens that you want to apply for.

So why are achievements so important on a CV?  As a Chartered Accountant, being able to perform usual daily and monthly tasks is already assumed, but individual achievements can show the impact you have had on your company, and how you have gone above and beyond to add value to the work you perform.  They can also act as evidence to your skill set, and really indicate your key capabilities in a role.  As mentioned above, they can make you stand out from your peers too.  Again, considering all Chartered Accountants are already qualified and experienced in their field, you need to ensure you have a defining factor to stand out in a very competitive job market.

Thinking ahead, these achievements can also prove as interesting talking points in future interviews.  Employers will likely want you to expand on the achievements in more detail, how you identified a problem, what you did about it, what obstacles did you overcome and ultimately how did you get to the end point knowing it had been successful?

So why wait until the job you aspire to do becomes available?  You may find it harder to think of what you achieved or what your key successes were from 5 years ago in your role, so the New Year is a perfect time to reflect on the past 12 months and keep that CV as up to date, accurate and impactful as possible.