Successful Interim Management CVs - What Makes a CV Great?

The principles discussed here apply to interim management CVs but will also be of benefit for non interim management roles.

There are two primary styles of interim management CV: the "chronological" and the "functional".

The "chronological" CV is the style which most career specialists use, and will be discussed first, but many of the guidelines can be applied to both styles of interim management CV.

Black and White

Only use a black typeface on a plain white background (or if hard copy, paper). Attempting to differentiate a CV by using a "novel" form of presentation, like an unusual background colour or design is for most purposes usually unproductive.

Only Sans Serif Fonts

For clarity of presentation use a sans serif (without flourishes) font like Arial, in regular, bold and underline, (avoid italics). Avoid using serif fonts like Times New Roman.

Single Page Interim Management CV

Most CVs are presented on more than two or more pages, but considerable value can be derived from the albeit brutal exercise involved in condensing a CV down to just one page.

A one page CV is necessarily succinct and highly focussed, and it is also easier to read and evaluate. If the content is right, these factors become not insignificant differentiators when reviewers have to sift through dozens of interim management CVs. Don't be too concerned if you have to reduce the font size to say even 8 point.

Main Sections

• Name & Qualifications
• Contact Details
• Profile - the single most important feature of the CV.
• Career History - most recent first - should take 80% of the space on the page.
• Qualifications
• Personal Details

Name & Qualifications

Use your full name and a selction of graduate, post-graduate and professional qualifications. Don't put qualifications which are below degree level here. Use a larger bold font for the name a normal sized regular font for the qualifications.

Example:
John Edward Lancelot Smith BSc MBA CEng MIMechE MCIPS

Contact Details

Try and keep it to a single line. Home address, home phone number, mobile phone number and email address please. For STD codes, rather than the 01XX format use the country code e.g. for the UK use +44(0)1XXX

Profile

In our view this is the most important feature of any interim management CV. The job of the profile is to catch the eye of the reviewer. If it doesn't, even a CV with outstanding content can be overlooked. Focus on the differentiators here. So before constructing your profile, it's worth considering your experience in some detail to distinguish the "differentiators" which make your experience special from the "qualifiers" which anyone who's anyone should have.

In our view the profile should be written in a bold typeface. It should be no more than three lines long and contain no punctuation, which is stronger than a semi-colon (;). Stronger punctuation like a colon (:) can encourage reviewers to stop reading the profile.

Example:
French speaking interim purchasing and supply chain executive experienced in mergers & acquisitions, turnarounds, strategic & tactical purchasing practices, supplier cost reduction programmes and purchasing department start-ups.

Dates and Company Names

Use years (but not months) for dates and present them in a bold typeface. Identify the name of the business unit in which you worked, but if you think this may not be familiar to all readers of your CV, highlight the name of the group of companies in bold, because brand names that are instantly recognisable help reviewers of the interim management CV to easily categorise it positively.

Job Titles

Use job titles that most clearly describe the nature of your roles to third party reviewers who may not necessarily be familiar with the nomenclature used by your employer. Using even actual job titles that can be misleading should be avoided. If for example your official job title was "Commercial Manager", but 95% of your time was spent managing purchasing activities, it would be more helpful to describe this role as: "Purchasing Manager". The details behind this can be clarified at interview if necessary. The job title should be shown in a bold typeface.

Introduction to the Role

Should be no more than two lines long, describe whether "Recruited" "Headhunted" or "Promoted" and identify the number of staff managed during the role. If necessary the nature of the organisation's business can be described here. This should be written in a regular typeface.

Note. A key opportunity here for executive interim managers is to highlight that they operate with professional indemnity insurance through a VAT registered limited company. This is an important differentiator for true executive interim managers by comparison with executives who are interested in temporary opportunities whilst they look for their next permanent role.

Example:
1999-2001: ABC Technologies Ltd. - part of the XYZ Group.
Purchasing Director
Head-hunted to set up and lead European purchasing team & select global supply partners, travelling abroad for up to 50% of the time - staff 7.

Bullet Points

All bullet points should begin with an action word, for example: "Led" "Delivered" "Implemented" "Pioneered" "Developed" "Introduced" etc.

Try to keep the content of the bullet point to no more than one line.

Focus on highlighting achievements rather than the process used.

Try to make the content as quantitative as possible, rather than qualitative but without breaking client or previous employers' confidentialities.

Where possible, avoid using technical abbreviations.

Numbers are best placed at the end of a bullet point line for most visual effect.

Example:

• Delivered independently verified year on year savings of more than 10 %

You can treat the educational elements of your career in the same way as job roles.

Example:

1983-1987: Nottingham University. Sponsored by the Brand Group
Bachelor of Science (2:1 Hons)
Thick sandwich engineering and management degree, with a sponsored industry training programme which led to Chartered Engineer status.

Personal Details

Include your nationality, age and date of birth, marital status, the languages you speak and your degree of fluency and membership of any professional institutions.

Example:

Personal Details
British. Age 41 (DoB 12:11:63). Married - 2 children. Languages: English - mother tongue. French - good. Chartered Engineer (CEng) Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (MIMechE) Member of the Chartered Institution of Purchasing and Supply (MCIPS)

"Functional" CV

Whereas the "chronological" interim management CV, segments a career by time, the "functional" CV is designed primarily to segment a career history by specialist skills. This is particularly helpful if trying to reposition/refocus a career onto a different subset of one's experience profile. For example, if an individual has primarily undertaken operations management roles, which nevertheless contained certain elements of supply chain management, it would be possible to represent a suitable supply chain focus to reviewers by using a "functional" CV format.

It works like this. Instead of the career history being only one section as it is in a "chronological" interim management CV, in a "functional" CV the career history is split into two parts. The first and largest part segments career experience into "functional" (or discipline) related headings, enabling them to be presented separately from the employment record.

Supply Chain Management

• Delivered independently verified year on year savings of more than 10 %
• etc.

Project Management

• etc.

Operations Management

• etc.

Industrial Relations

• etc.

The employment record follows the discipline headings, almost as a footnote.

Interested in Registering?

Don't just email your CV. Read the following article if you'd like to register for interim management jobs

Please Note

Please note that Supply Chainge Management Ltd. can offer no warranty whether explicit or implied with regards to outcome of presenting CVs in the way proposed herein. This information is based upon our experience and is offered in good faith, but we recommend obtaining advice from a variety of specialists in the subject of writing CVs and career counselling.