Current Vacancies
Thinking of a new role in social care or education? View our current job opportunities.
How to write an effective CV
What makes a good CV that will get you the job you want? If you ask ten different recruiters, you’ll probably get ten different answers.
But so long as your content is accurate and easy to understand, you’ll be streets ahead of most candidates.
Here are some hints
Remember to include your name and contact details, including email and the best phone number to reach you on. These usually go at the top. (We know, that’s obvious, but it’s amazing how many people forget to include how an employer can contact them quickly and easily.)
Include a few short sentences as a personal statement, perhaps including your values and the sort of job you’re looking for.
List your main skills and achievements from your career. Try not to be too vague or general. Saying “I’m good at helping people” is one thing. Saying “I supported someone with a disability to plan and achieve his lifetime goal and go sky-diving” is a much more impressive statement. Think about your life and your career; be proud and specific about what you’ve done.
List your employers, in date order, starting with current or most recent.
Include the company name, your job title and a few sentences for each role about your actual duties. Include a brief explanation of any gaps of more than a month or so (this is a requirement for social care roles).
If you’re a student just leaving full-time education, include any weekend or holiday jobs, any volunteer work or similar.
Your place(s) of education and any qualifications gained, and any vocational qualifications.
Some people like to include an outline of their hobbies, interests and volunteer work. This isn’t vital, but can give a human voice to your CV and help an employer get a feel for who you are and what makes you tick.
Finally, get two of your friends to proofread your CV. Get them to look both for actual mistakes and for things that don’t make sense. It’s amazing how blind we can be to our own errors and omissions.
What you don’t need to include
Age, date of birth, marital status, whether you have dependents, your NI number, bank details or anything like that. A photo (including a photo on a CV is normal in some countries but unusual in the UK).
It won’t go against you if you include any of these things, but they’re not necessary. Also, you’ll want to think about privacy and security with some of them. (MacIntyre will always keep your data secure, but if you’re applying for multiple jobs and posting your CV to job boards, your information may not be secure everywhere.)
Also, keep the formatting simple. Unless you’re applying for a job as a graphic designer, don’t try to be too clever or complicated with layout.
We hope that’s helpful and as always if you have any queries, give our recruitment team a call on 01908 357016.
More about careers in MacIntyre
Work for us
You could work with children and young people, with adults, or in one of our specialist roles.
10 best things about MacIntyre
We asked our staff what they value most about working at MacIntyre. This is what they said.
Diversity and Inclusion
Our differences are the things that make us special and that's why we want to do everything we can to be an inclusive and diverse organisation.
Employee Benefits
Competitive pay, free sector-leading training, career progression and our rewards and perks schemes are just some of the benefits we provide.
How to apply
We’re really glad you’re thinking of applying for a job at MacIntyre. Here are your options.
Humans of MacIntyre
Read the stories of staff from around MacIntyre
Recruitment FAQs
Wondering whether this is the right work for you? Here are the answers to some questions we get asked a lot by people interested in working with us.
Safer Recruitment
Here are some details about the pre-employment checks we'll need before you start working with us.
Students and Graduates
We do everything we can to help students and graduates to develop both personally and professionally throughout your time with us.
Working in Wales
As a leading employer in our sector we are always looking for fantastic individuals to join our teams across the country.