Having a CV with IMPACT!

A personal CV is an increasingly important document. When you apply for a vacancy, how it is formatted, written and presented is equally as important as your past accomplishments, and competencies. A CV also acts as a predictor of your future capabilities, but increasingly within the employability sector, I see hundreds of individuals failing to use the CV to highlight and sell their potential to employers as they don’t pack it with quality information. Whether it is a poor personal statement with little or no personal branding, filled with lots of irrelevant attributes and values rather than using the opportunity to define their skills and capabilities. With so many job seekers going for similar positions, a CV’s writing, formatting and impact are equally as important as the content.

Colour

The use of colour in a CV is vitally important. From researching and testing marketing and branding theories on ‘Interpolation’ within the use of CV’s, I have demonstrated the positive strategic and psychological aspects of using colour and how it use can enhance an individuals interview opportunities and impact a recruiter's behaviour and decision. Incorporating colour into a CV branding and marketing increases an individual's CV brand recognition, impacts getting noticed and if chosen and used correctly can be the defining component that will grab the attention of the recruiter.

Graphic designers and marketers alike, have for many years chosen to represent business brands with the careful choice of colour. The use of colour within a business identity is inextricably linked due to the fact that colour has a massive impact on getting noticed and can instantaneously convey meaning and a message without words. Colours can enhance and influence a viewer's mood and behaviour from the psychological influence it has on the viewer’s mind. Certain colour can impact people’s emotions and use them successfully can increase the effectiveness of a CV's branding methods.

Our minds are programmed from childhood to respond to colour. The science and research on this subject is increasingly interesting and completely underexploited. Consider for example Road Safety Signs or Health and Safety Signs. Blue normally give the reader mandatory instruction, red warns of prohibition, danger or alarm, yellow often means a warning. We stop our cars for a red light and go on green.

This subtle use of colour in a CV’s design can set a mood, drive home a point or even be used to subliminally manipulate a reader to take more notice of yours above others and read it for longer than the seconds most recruitment consultants will spend skimming.

Can Colour influence us?

There are many theories on the use of colour in branding and marketing. Colour theorists, Neuroscientists and researchers have demonstrated that specific colour designs can psychologically impact and influence us.

Red is often stated as presenting a sense of urgency, action and youthfulness. It is associated with high energy, strength, movement, excitement, and passion.

Blue is often used in brands to present calmness, security, order, honesty, trust, dependability, stimulate productivity and highlight reliability. You’ll see a lot of Social Media, IT and Communication/Customer Service companies using blue.

Green is often associated with nature, health, growth and the environment.

The Von Restorff effect (named after psychiatrist Hedwig von Restorff, also called the isolation effect), states that an item that "stands out like a sore thumb" is more likely to be remembered. Research clearly shows that individuals are able to recognise and recall an item far better (be it text or an image) when it blatantly sticks out from its surroundings.

As much as possible, a CV should subtly use personal branding, clever font formatting with colour to set it apart from its peers. It’s no longer just about having the correct dates, selling your skills, experience and knowledge.

Are you brightening your CV with flair, formatting and colour to increase its vibrancy and isolate it?

Photo: Flickr.com