The CV is no longer a dry text with your work history. It`s a “dream job”-winning tool, which drives attention, stands out and tells a story. Your story – about you, your career aims, your career progression. The companies are more than ever focusing on high potentials and achievers. For most of the employers it is not enough to bring a specific experience – they are searching for result-oriented innovators, who will bring value, generate revenue, and make a remarkable impact.

Before you sit down and draft your CV, think of yourself as a person and of your job. If you are in a creative role or in engineering, go ahead with a crazy format, add colors, show your skills in graphic design or how good you are at summarizing data. Do not write down your work history in a “tasks” language, tell your story in achievements and contributions. Specific experience like a programming language needs to be measured. Focus on the areas, in which you are an expert. It`s not enough if your C++ programming skills are just good. A High-Tech Startup would be looking for a C++ Rockstar. The above examples are to make you think of your biggest strengths. What is it that makes you special and stand out? This is what you need to focus on before drafting a CV.

There might be moments in your life, in which you want to change everything – a job, a partner, a location. If you are thinking of a completely new job, this would make the job search more challenging, but not impossible. In this case you need to focus more on motivation and passion than on the experience you offer. Don`t count only on a motivation letter, but make your motivation clear in your executive summary right at the beginning of your CV.

If you have a clear picture in one of these moments of change, where you want to go next in your career, dare to dream and make the change. Should you still search where you want to go, don`t be scared. This is natural even for individuals with a high self-esteem and clear plans about the future. It helps a lot to invest time in interviews with different companies or for different roles. While you might think something is a dream job or a dream company, it can turn out that there are much greater opportunities out there.

There is nothing wrong with not knowing what you want – search for it deep in your heart and picture yourself in a future role. A blurry image of your future-self will become clearer the longer and deeper you search. In this process of finding your dream job don`t forget to remain true to yourself.