225+
5 reviews
MikeMike
16:04 13 Mar 23
Highly recommended! Josh and Sarah have been fantastic at Astute. They've found and placed me in 2 jobs now between them, both really responsive and excellent at keeping you up to speed with things. Very knowledgable about the roles and happy to talk to companies with any queries you have.
C R.C R.
10:45 27 Jan 23
Great agency one of the best ones I've worked with! Liz has been a great help and support in helping me towards a new direction in my career life. She is very attentive and keeps me in the loop at all times! She makes the extra effort to work with my preferred requirements for work and even if it isn't completely attainable she meets me in the middle and does as much as she can to help! Also Liz is very funny might I add 😂 and I'm happy that I can now put a face to the name after all these years! Thank you again Liz for all your help and support! 😊
ChristineChristine
10:32 20 Dec 22
Josh and the Astute team was very swift to help me to find roles that matched my profile. They are really reliable and will help through every step of the recruitment process going out of their way to assist and follow up when needed. Could not find a better recruitment agency!
Helen PinegarHelen Pinegar
16:19 18 Dec 22
Fantastic recruitment agency.. Josh was extremely enthusiastic, encouraging and clearly knowledgeable about what was needed from both the employee and the employers point of view. Extremely supportive especially in regards to interview preparation and endeavoured to procure feedback promptly. Wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Astute in the future to both candidates and recruiting businesses particularly for the right fit for the role!!!
Lisa LeighLisa Leigh
11:56 30 Nov 22
I have worked as a candidate for Astute and they have been excellent. Super friendly service and professional agents keen to fit the right person to the right job. It has been a pleasure dealing with them and I would happily work for them again in the future. Highly recommend this agency.
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Derby
Suite 1, Ground Floor West,Cardinal Square,10 Nottingham Road,Derby. DE1 3QT
Nottingham
Stanford House,19 Castle Gate, Nottingham, NG1 7AQ

Astute Recruitment Ltd

Your CV Profile –

 

Increasingly for candidates, anything that can flag a CV to a potential employer is great.

But what to include? What to specifically cite? How to keep things concise but genuinely show you have made a difference and why you stand out?

 

Below is part of the profile for an experienced Finance Director who Astute Recruitment has worked with for a number of years.

  • Experienced SME Finance Director with a proven track record of success, supporting strategic objectives with financial acumen and operational pragmatism.
  • Facilitated ‘fundraise’ with PE – pre and post-acquisition
  • Pro-active manager and influencer, empowering staff to take ownership
  • Providing coaching, training and mentoring to build cohesive teams and business partnering senior management.
  • Proven experience working alongside MDs and Senior management teams driving businesses forward
  • Focussed on achieving individual targets and company objectives and offering excellent relationship management skills.
  • Experienced in financial and corporate management to ensure the achievement of commercial goals within budget.
  • Extensive SME experience and management of external relationships with banks, insurers, suppliers and investors.

 

Driving business projects to deliver business strategy”.

 

This is someone who one of our Directors has personally known for a while and who has sat on both sides of the client/ candidate fence. Their words and the way they succinctly covered their key attributes was great and we wanted to share this.

 

The candidate identifies specific, key deliverables and specific, defined savings they have made to the business and specific ways they have delivered success in their previous roles. They did this citing in percentage terms, the differences to the profit and balance sheet of their company. Where they had saved time – they cited the exact amount of time. They were clear that they had taken ownership of the improvements cited.

 

Another key part of this is to ensure that all the Job Boards you are registered with and your LinkedIn profile also all reflect accurately the most up to date version of your CV. Often we discover a candidate’s online profile varies to the latest CV they forward to us. Consistency in all things applies – especially in terms of your own candidate CV, personal profile and branding online.

 

For obvious reasons – we cannot state the identity of this eloquent person, as they are still in a permanent role!

Nor can we cite specific deliverables or critical success factors for confidentiality, but if you are reading this and your business needs someone like this – let our Qualified Team know and we will gladly facilitate an introduction!

 

We hope the above provides some inspiration for those struggling to write up / update their own profiles/ CVs.

 

Astute’s Team! 

 

Richard Bowe – Senior Consultant Interim Qualified Accountancy

Tom Norton – Senior Consultant Permanent Qualified

Andy Lilliman – Recruitment Business Development Manager

Sarah-Louise Wykes – Manager, Interim Transactional Finance Staff, Part-Qualified to Qualified Accountants

Charlotte Sproat – Permanent Transactional Finance Staff, Part-Qualified to Qualified Accountants (Derby, South Derbyshire, North Leicestershire, Staffordshire, South Notts)

Debbie Jackson – Permanent Transactional Finance Staff, Part-Qualified to Qualified Accountants (Derby, North Derbyshire, North Nottinghamshire)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Astute Recruitment's Top CV Tips To Make YOUR CV Stand Out
Astute Recruitment’s Top CV Tips To Make YOUR CV Stand Out

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some of the latest top tips and suggestions to help ensure your CV is destined to help steer you to the job of your dreams.

 

 

1/ Highlight your affinity with technology.

Nearly all jobs now require some interface with IT, especially jobs in accountancy, where there are myriad CRMs, ERPs and other systems which need to have their data migrated to Excel to produce the best financial reporting and analysis. One of the Big 4 firms recently stated that nearly 80% of CEO’s regard abilities around AI to be THE number one asset of a business.

 

2/ Showcase your SOFT SKILLS. Nearly 60% of senior leaders state soft skills as being more important than ‘hard skills’.

Examples of soft skills: –

 

  • Ability to adapt i.e. How can you embrace change?
    • Think of examples where you have successfully adapted to change and include these on your CV.

 

  • Your ability to be creative in thought & deed.
    • AI is only as good as the programming it has been given. It cannot ‘think ahead’. People can. The ideas of tomorrow are what the bosses of today need from their teams and employees. Highlight how you are an ‘ideas’ person and how your creativity has: –

“made positive changes in your work/ or for your team/ or in your business to the company’s performance”

 

  • Talking for Success – Ability to communicate;
    • Employers now need employees who can collaborate better, build stronger relationships, motivate more effectively to ultimately drive increased productivity and performance. SO, in your CV you need to showcase your verbal dexterity across negotiation, collaboration, and presentation. Just don’t forget to listen!
    • Don’t forget to include your latest Skills Learned! In your second job, you may have mastered world-class skills in the IT package of the day, but the employee of tomorrow needs their CV to show an affinity with the current and emerging technologies and software. Always showcase new skills learned over the last couple of years or even in the last few months! These new skills may be the very ones that make you stand out from the crowd and secure an interview.!

 

So, now you have an idea of the content for your CV – you now need to hotwire it with the ‘keywords’ that many search firms program their algorithms to pick out. Yep – your CV won’t be picked out by a human being – more likely,  if you are applying to one of the larger, national and international recruitment agencies – your CV will need to stand out in a sea of applicants screened by non-human eyes.

Increasingly, even smaller search and recruitment agencies are turning to algorithms to ‘sift’ through CVs. However, at Astute Recruitment, we offer the human touch and always will, to pick up the nuances of individuals. But this point in general about larger recruitment agencies is key.

 

How can you ‘proof’ your CV and application to overcome these algorithms?

 

1/ Keywords all the way!

Not just any keywords, but the ones that are specific for the targeted jobs that you are applying for. So, if you are an accountant, make sure you include keywords relevant. So for example, if you are looking for a role as a financial accountant – keywords like Balance Sheet, Consolidations, Audit, Group Accounts may well be worth you including in your skillset! Equally, if you are a Management Accountant, keywords including Variance Analysis, Profit & Loss, Cost Centres, Cost of Sales, Gross Margin Reporting, Stakeholder Engagement may be wise to include!

 

2/ Softskills

Again think about the soft skills that your potential boss will be looking for… “Communication” “within budget and “deadlines”. Now for the big tip. Most people include the former – but don’t qualify what they mean. i.e. “OK – you completed X, Y, Z but how much did you bring this in less than budget?” or  “How much faster did you achieve your project than the original deadline? 10% faster? 30% faster?” Define your achievements with definite numbers and percentages. Make your achievements quantifiable. Show how they are continuous and year on year rather than just something achieved several years ago in a role since which you have received several promotions.

 

3/ Check your profile is good on social media. (Hint: This doesn’t mean having a great photo of you at the trendiest wine bar on Instagram (unless you are going for a bar job! 😊)

Instead – LinkedIn is now one of THE main online spaces for any professional employee to showcase their skills. Use the summary field, for short, succinct snippets to showcase your key attributes in work. And to do this – again use our new friends, ‘keywords’. Keep job titles straightforward. In-house recruitment specialists, HR professionals, and recruitment agencies and search firms will conduct ‘keyword’ searches on LinkedIn to identify as narrow a shortlist with the most relevant profiles for their roles. You need to try and make sure your profile is the one that appears in their searches. Avoid glitzy, busy icons, anything too ‘random’ and ‘out there’.

Yes, you want to come across as someone with ideas and creativity of thought, but you need to also come across as someone who can fit into the professional, flexible, 21st century working world.

 

For personal, one on one advice about your CV, or anything to help you take the next step in your career, contact our team for

confidential and tailored advice on 01332 346 100

or by email to Mary Maguire