Even the most experienced social worker needs to tweak and adjust their cover letter and CV from time to time. It’s important to keep your CV fresh so that, should you look for a new role, you can confidently send it off knowing it is effective, is packed with your essential skills, highlights certain key strengths and shows off your thorough knowledge about being an effective social worker.
In this blog, we’re going to be offering up some tips and tricks that you can use to create a great CV for your next social work job application. And if you’re looking for a new role yourself, then we can help. We support social workers across the UK, in areas such as Manchester, Liverpool and the surrounding areas including Bolton, Lancashire, or Gloucestershire. Therefore, if you have at least a year’s experience in social work and are looking for a new role, then get in touch with Portman Recruitment today!
Optimising Your Social Work CV
Have The Correct Formatting
You want to make an instant impact with your CV, so ensuring that the formatting, headings and spacing are good are key. Do away with fancy fonts, white space, images or colours and keep things simple so the hiring manager can see what is what, straight away. Detailing work experience and discussing your social work career in bullet points and easily digestible, well-formatted chunks is the way to go.
Tweak Your Social Work CV Based On the Job Description
Every CV and cover letter needs to reflect the social work role, in a local authority, that you’re applying for. If it is a role that works with vulnerable people, for example, then your CV should talk about your related experience and previous duties in that area. This is a crucial step to getting an interview because the vast majority of applicants won’t put this level of work in and it will make you stand out from the crowd.
Less Is More – Keep Things To One Page
You should be able to communicate useful information like your professional qualifications, previous positions and applicable strengths on one piece of A4. Your cover letter should reinforce these and talk about your genuine understanding of social work and why you think your career history makes you perfect for the role so that the hiring manager can see this from themselves.
Clear Contact Details
You want the hiring manager to contact you right? Well, ensure that, at the top of your CV in bullet points or bold font, you have your contact details present. As well as offering up all the relevant experience and professional qualities, you want to make it as easy as possible for a hiring manager, who may be going through hundreds of CVs, to contact you.
Spelling!
This is obvious but here at Portman Recruitment, we’re always so surprised by how many CVs have spelling errors. The quickest way to combat this? Read your CV aloud to yourself – you’ll soon weed out those errors. If this is something you struggle with, have a friend or family member read over your CV, and free software such as Grammarly can also be a big help.
If You’re Looking For A New Social Work Role Then Get In Touch With Portman Recruitment Today.
With 50 years of combined experience, our team here at Portman Recruitment have the knowledge and know-how to help you with your career successes. If you want a move away from your current employment and are looking for a new social work role, have at least a year’s experience and are based in the North West in areas such as Stockport, Cumbria or the surrounding areas of Cheshire, Blackpool or Salford then please get in touch with the team here at Portman Recruitment today.