You used to have seven minutes to make an impression with your CV, now it’s more like seconds – eight tips to make it count

Financial services recruiters in the Middle East are being harsher than ever with the CVs they receive. With fewer vacancies, an excess of candidates and more demanding requirements from employers, recruiters have little time to review each application and only they strongest applicants grab their attention.

Some candidates are making life harder for themselves by sending through a poor CV, however. Gareth El Mettouri, senior manager, Robert Half UAE says that you only “get one chance to make a first impression” and many applicants spurn this.

How much time do hiring managers and recruiters spend sifting through your CV? Robert Half suggests that seven minutes was the average in Dubai, but in the current climate – where it’s not uncommon to receive 40-50 applications for a single role – this “decreases significantly”.

What can you do to ensure your CV makes the cut?

1. Make sure you’re the right nationality: As harsh as it sounds, employment law in Gulf states allow job advertisements to state the preferred nationality of potential recruits. Usually, this means UAE, Saudi or Qatari nationals. If you see this, and you’re an expat, don’t bother applying.

2. Explain any gaps: Job-hopping was common before 2008 in the Middle East financial sector, but these days hiring managers want to see “longevity in each role, career progression and logical decisions” in employment moves, says El Mettouri. In other words, try to disguise or explain a less then linear career path.

3. Keep it relevant: A career switch is unlikely these days, so don’t expect a hiring manager to consider you if you don’t match the job spec. This doesn’t just mean, say, moving from investment banking into private equity. These days, even risk managers who’ve worked in a retail bank won’t be considered for a switch into corporate or investment banking, for example, suggest recruiters.

4. Keep it short: Two pages is acceptable, one page is better. Include four bullet points outlining your key skills and achievements before your career history and education, suggests James Collin, business manager at Reed Banking UAE. This will pique a recruiter’s interest and is a valuable alternative to a waffling (and often vacuous) personal statement.

5. Five bullet points as maximum per job: If you’re an experienced financial services professional with multiple jobs over a number of years, your career history could end up longer than a Stieg Larsson novel. If you’re junior, it’s tempting to highlight every single achievement in order to mask your inexperience. Keep it to five per role, says El Mettouri: “Refrain from including every single function performed and instead concentrate on those areas where you can provide tangible and measurable statistics.”

6. If you can’t talk about it, don’t include it: Yes, even hobbies can make a difference to your application. It’s perfectly feasible that a hiring manager or recruiter could share your interest in pre-Raphaelite art (or Spiderman movies), so if you can’t expand on this, don’t put it in. Obviously, this also extends to skills, experience, employers and education.

7. Brands matter: As the proliferation of designer shopping malls in Dubai shows, there’s a taste for international brands in the Gulf. This applies to employers – Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley or HSBC, for example – and universities (think Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge). If you don’t have them, this could affect your chances.

8. Include a photo, but make sure it’s a good one: Sadly, unlike other parts of the world where photos are considered to unfairly influence the recruitment process, it’s important to include one for roles in the Middle East. Invest a little money getting a professional looking one, though, don’t just head down to your local passport photo booth.