The following is a Template to assist you with adapting your
CV to Israeli requirements:
Most Israelis will tell you, you MUST keep your CV to one page, a feat which is rendered difficult by English being “riddled” with vowels, making it 30% longer than Hebrew.
Keep in mind that, while not to be taken as a commandment, it is sound advice. However, one page for 10 years’ experience would be more along the lines of what is efficient, and efficient is what you want to be, in a market where recruiters have a very short attention span and literally hundreds of resumes to review.
What you need is a CV that will catch the reader’s eye and allow them, at a glance, to understand who you are, professionally, and why you would be the perfect candidate for them. So, if you have had a long career, do keep the most important information on the first page.
To ensure that is so, I strongly recommend you include a summary 3-5 sentence long, that begins with your title and ends with your soft skills. If you are not sure how – look at any ad and see how they are phrased. In the example, below you can see the ad starts with the title – Media Buyer / Campaign Manager, continues with the job description and ends with the requirements. This should be the order of things on your CV.
Ideally, you have experience with all that is required (referring to the example below – from working with publishers and negotiating media buying campaigns to the good analytical skills)
Notice how some requirements are “a must” and others “an advantage” also, the order of things – we usually write the ad beginning with the most important parts of the job and conclude with the soft skills (good analytical skills and in some cases – good interpersonal relations, team work etc.).
If you already have a CV, consider adapting it to the specific ad, to increase your chances of being asked for an interview.
Resume-writing for the Israeli market. – courtesy of Vanessa Rudolph
- Cut out the fancy formatting. The worst thing to happen to resumes was the phasing out of typewriters. Back then, they all looked alike and were readable because they arrived in the Post. Chances are a recruiter is opening your resume directly from an email program rather than saving it down and opening it in a word processing program. That means that, depending on their email software or web-based email, any fancy formatting will cause problems like overlaid text, making it look like gibberish, or missing text. Keep it SIMPLE. Send it to yourself and open it directly from your email program and a web-based email program and see if it looks the same. HERE’S A TRICK. Save your resume as plain text. Close it. Open it. If it’s still readable, and all your information is there, you are golden.
- Stop using so many tabs. The tabs make your text jump all over the place when it is opened incorrectly (see number 1). I purposely open resumes incorrectly just to see what recruiters are seeing, and I can say with confidence that many people aren’t getting calls because their resumes are unreadable.
- DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME AND CONTACT INFORMATION IN A HEADER (see number 1). When they open it, they won’t see your name or contact information, and they will got to the next candidate.
- Do not put your street address or your birthdate on your resume. NEVER REVEAL YOUR AGE! If you are younger than 30, it is OK, but over 30 (and I am over a certain age, so I can say this), stop broadcasting it.
- As per number 4. Don’t have any experience that is from more than 10 years ago. If you graduated from college with Albert Einstein as I did, just put the degree, major, minor, institution, and country of origin.
- The order of your resume should be:
- Name
- Contact information
- Skills
- Professional Experience (with clearly written job duties)
- Education
- Languages
- A note on languages spoken: If you speak only one language fluently, put it HERE. If you speak another language at an intermediate level, say: “conversational” (but don’t lie). If all you can say are “dog,” “ice cream” and “cake,” leave it off. If you speak two languages fluently (again, don’t lie), move it to the TOP above skills. If you speak, two or more fluently, or two fluently, and one or two others conversationally, put it at the TOP in a LARGER font. That is a huge asset here.
- Do not list your references on your resume. You will have time to provide those later, and you don’t want them calling your old boss (or your ex because you accidentally left that on your resume) without your knowledge.
- Don’t pick a font because you think it is pretty. Readability is the key to the resume. Use a simple and easy to read font like Arial, Calibri, Cambria, Georgia, Lucida Sans, Verdana, Tahoma, Garamond or Century Gothic with font size between 10 and 12 points. Using a clear, readable font will help make your resume appear more professional. 9. To repeat number 1 again: KEEP IT SIMPLE. Even if you’re saving them as PDFs, any fancy formatting can cause you problems if the recruiter has a simple Reader program or your program saves it improperly.
- do not include your picture with the CV.