Thank you for sending your CV. Please find our comments below.
First impression:
On the whole, fairly nicely laid out with a good use of bold, headings and capital letters to highlight and divide the different section. Your use of bullet points is effective and the font is clear, a good size and easy to read.
In terms of formatting I noticed that the bullet points under “Other Skills and Qualifications” are inset less than across the rest of your CV which looks a little odd.
Also, other than your personal details I would stick to the left hand margin for all headings, rather than centring them – it just looks better that way.
I noticed that you have a 2 page CV but I wouldn’t worry about this. It used to be the case that CVs were restricted to 2 pages but this is when we generally sent everything via the post. These days with the majority of correspondence done online this need has become irrelevant. At your stage in your career it would not be unusual to see CVs of 3 or 4 pages! So, bottom line, don’t feel you need to restrict what you write unless it is a load of waffle!
Personal details:
We are seeing more and more CVs with a link to candidates LinkedIn profile so if have one worth adding on. Just adds an extra smidge of professionalism and makes you look social media savvy.
Otherwise, this section if fine.
Personal Profile:
Conventional to have a short personal profile section after your personal details. This is 2 or 3 sentences to say what you are (i.e whether paralegal or solicitor), what fields of law you have experience in and what role you are looking for/future ambition. Don’t need any more than that really. Keep it objective. We see a lot of CVs using subjective language things like “an ambitious, team player with excellent communications skills” but I would advise using phrases like this. Anyone can say things like this but doesn’t mean it is true. Save subjective statements for interview where you can back them up with evidence.
Education:
First of all, I would either put the names of the establishments in bold, bullet point the qualifications or both. I would also have a line space between your university and school.
I don’t think you need the brackets around the location of your school/university.
If there are any modules where you have done particularly well (2:1 standard), put the percentage you scored in brackets after the module.
Rather than saying a Dissertation on Child Law, I would put down the actual title. Makes for an easy interview question as well if you have done something interesting or relevant to the role you are applying for.
For a future date, if and when you do the LPC, as well as the overall result, add in your LPC electives especially if relevant to your career
Employment History/Voluntary Experience:
A lot of my advice is going to be what to do when you have legal experience and add it to your CV. Although is the Agnes Smith Advice Centre a legal advice centre or a benefits advice centre. You might want to consider it a legal placement and split this section up now following the advice below.
When you gain some legal experience, split this section up into Legal Experience and Other Experience and put the Legal Experience section first.
Put your volunteer work under a separate section titled Voluntary Experience.
When you do gain legal experience, give the most space to those roles. Once you have a couple of placements, give the most space to your most current role.
Then, what I would consider is under the company name is to write a couple of sentences to explain who the company are who you worked for, especially for your current role. Would be useful to have a couple of sentences to indicate size of firm in terms of number of partners and turnover as well as main areas of practice of the firm i.e if they are predominantly company commercial or a conveyancing firm, whether they are particular know for a specific area within this such as tax, IP, data protection, commercial dispute resolution etc.
Also worth mentioning if the firms are members of the Magic Circle or Legal 500.
What we like to see is some facts & figures for each legal role – things like: your size of caseload, what the contracts were worth, size of contractual disputes/litigation matters, value of conveyances, any cost savings you made within the company or for clients etc.
At the moment, you can consider adding in a sentence to explain who the company is for your non-legal roles, given that a legal person receiving your CV might not have a clue who or what the businesses are that you have worked for in the past.
I put Hedena Health GP Practice as the name of that place to make it clear at first glance who you were working for. A sentence saying who Jon Richards are for the uninitiated would be useful.
Be specific about exactly what you do. For example, you mention completing application forms. Do they have a specific title? If so state exactly what they are. You mention recording follow-up actions but what follow-up actions were there. Don’t just say working with vulnerable clients but say what work you did or measures you undertook for safeguarding procedures. Don’t just state “Drafted letters/Document” but say exactly what letters/document you drafted.
Especially important when you gain paralegal roles. We see a lot of CVs saying something like “carried out legal admin tasks” instead of stating exactly what they did.
By the way, you don’t need the capital letter on document and I think an extra space has crept in before the /.
As you gain more legal roles you non-legal roles become less relevant. You can then reduce them to a couple of lines and eventually take them off your CV
The same will apply to your voluntary work. Any legal voluntary work (pro bono or McKenzie Friend matters) will form the bulk of the section with any other voluntary work you do at that time. Past voluntary roles you can take off your CV.
Additional skills:
Or Other Skills – you don’t need to put and Qualifications.
This section should include any languages you speak at a reasonably high level (state degree of fluency), IT skills including any specific legal software packages, case management systems, legal databases you use, driving license.
So basically you are spot on with what you have written and I wouldn’t change anything.
Interests:
Don’t write in the first person on a CV. That includes this section. Keep it list like and take out “I”.
Good to see you have an interests sections – most candidates don’t bother but it is important for the following reasons:
Firstly, it is a way of adding some colour to your CV and a way of making you stand out from the crowd especially if you have an unusual or particularly impressive interest.
Secondly, it is a way of showing you are a rounded individual and have a life outside work.
Thirdly, you just never know but if the person reading it shares a similar interest or is so intrigued by what you have written that it might get you an interview.
You need to be more specific though so state what classes you go to at the gym. State a few of the recent books you have been reading. State if there is a particular genre or author you enjoy. Keep things factual as well. You don’t need to justify or talk about the benefits of the gym – save that for interview.
State any recent notable cases you observed at Court, why they were of interest and what was the outcome.
References:
If you have 2 references lined up put their names, organisation they worked for, job title and contact details on your CV. One should be ideally from one of your most recent assignments.
Or it is acceptable to write “Available on request”
