CV Partner blog

How to use bullet points in professional services CVs and resumes for bids and proposals

News
Technical
Sales and marketing
Productivity
Design

In business school you are taught that bullet points can replace almost any text and that the reader only has time to read the bullets to get a summary of the content. Being precise and able to narrow down your content to readable key points can be a good exercise, but you also need longer paragraphs when describing your colleagues, their work experience or education. In CV Partner we have together with leading professional services bid teams found a hybrid solution that offers the best of both worlds.

From a design perspective, bullet points done right translate well into different designs. However, you might have a long form Word template, and a short form PPT template and need other templates for specific bids as well. If you have your own template as well as use government or NGO specific templates sticking solely to bullet points will not work, as the bid or proposal guidelines does not allow extensive use of bullet points. The same applies if you are collaborating with a partner in CV Partner.

Also, if you are submitting a bid with multiple profiles, then consistency is key, you cannot submit one CV with lots of key points, and on the next page have another setup.

There are a few things to consider, but using CV Partner you get the best-practice from hundreds of leading professional services firms, a nicely configured template and combined with the "myCV" user interface and the master data tool, this will help you get the best of both worlds and win more bids.

Using bullet points in your summary, project description and role

For each summary in CV Partner, you can have bullet points (called key points) and even key point descriptions that are longer text associated with the summary). This allow you to have both a longer "About" or "Executive summary" text, and add relevant key points that connects to it. Here is an example of how it can be done in exported CV from CV Partner:


The longer text descriptions can then be used in many different templates as well as other people's CVs, resumes, and case studies.

When linking CVs resumes and case studies, consistent use of longer texts and bullet points is... key. A case study cannot all be bullet points, therefore use the dedicated fields used as intended allow you to re-use the content.

Bullet points are also less likely to be standardized across CVs, how bullet points are written vary, but having the dedicated CV Partner fields and relevant help texts will guide your users to create better content, that can be used in bids as well as case studies.

Use bullet points when it makes sense

  • Related to a summary called key points
  • Listing of skills, roles or industries either standalone or in the projects (or highlighted on the front page)
  • Certifications and or courses, as highlights without duration and longer texts
  • Summarizing all projects, or all clients in a list separate from the full overview
  • Exporting key (highlighted) information on the front page of a CV or resume

CV Partner can combine use of bullets as well as dedicated sections with more details. Example is the front page exported most relevant items as bullets, while the rest of the CV or resume has the detailed information. This is handled automatically by the template, and the consultant or engineer does not have to worry about formatting, they simply follow the help texts and complete the "myCV" interface.

See some examples of great use of bullet points in an exported CV or resume below:

Using CV Partner templates you can easily change the type of bullet point by using another template, or changing the default template in the account. If your designers want a certain look, or if you have rebranded or even want numbered points instead of bullets then this is a very quick change in one template and all your CVs and resumes. This allows you to get bullet points when needed, and to not use them when a bid or government proposal has different requirements.

Learn more by contacting CV Partner