If you’re constantly looking at the available agricultural jobs, you know that there’s a lot of competition for the best positions. Once applied you might be up against dozens of other people for the same position. You might all have the same qualifications and similar experiences, so it’s often your personality that will win out in an interview.
However, that’s where many people looking for agricultural work stumble. They can often be charming in an interview, but getting to the interview is the challenge. For this, you need to send in your CV and covering letter.
Those that have the best CVs and cover letters will often be invited to interview. If you can’t convince the hiring team that you’re worth speaking to, they won’t invite you. So, what can you do to make your CV stand out? Here are some suggestions.
1. Start strong
Your CV will be skim read in a matter of seconds. Therefore, you want your CV to start strong and tell the reader why they should pay more attention to the rest of your resume. The resume should start with a personal statement. This is your chance to tell the reader who you are, what main skills you have and what your aspirations are.
One of the important aspects of your personal development is to show your ethical alignment. Many recruiters will rather have someone who has the potential to grow into a role but is aligned to the company goals compared to someone with the skills but has conflicts with the company’s goals. If you can show why you’re a great match for the brand and their goals, you have a better chance of being selected for interview.
2. Emphasise your results
While skills are vital, many people can probably claim to have the same skills, variety and experience as you. You’ll be lucky to get noticed among dozens of the same applicants. Therefore, you need to switch focus and concentrate on results rather than skills.
What results you can showcase will largely depend on the roles you want to do. For instance, if you’re looking at agricultural marketing jobs, then you can state that in one campaign you achieved sales worth £x amount.
When you quantify your skills, you’re not just proving that you have the skills, but you’ve got the talent for the work. You should use power words like adaptable, implemented, achieved and innovative within your CV to highlight results. These are also keywords that hiring teams look for on CVs.
3. Customise the CV for the role
While you might be looking at the same titles or roles when looking through vacancies, not all jobs are created equal. Different farm jobs will have different priorities. Some might want someone with five years of experience of tractor driving while another wants something completely different.
So, don’t just send the same CV to every position you apply for. They all need to be different. Look carefully through the job advert and pick out the important aspects. Then you’ll need to look through your CV and determine which parts of your resume correspond to these points. Finally, you can spend time editing your CV to ensure the focus is on the right skills for the position.
This should be done every time that you apply for a job. Every CV you send should be unique.
4. Show personal development
Those hiring want to have someone who will grow within their team. Therefore, you need to showcase your personal development so far to the ones reading your CV. Write in each job how you changed, what skills you learnt and what the result is.
By showing that you can develop and change over time, you’re demonstrating that you can be trained. A recruiting manager’s ethos is often to find the person with the right attitude who can be trained, not just someone who just has the right skills.
5. Show communication skills
While not always a top highlight on agricultural job adverts, communication skills are still a vital asset that needs to be demonstrated. There are several ways that you should showcase these on your CV. Firstly, you need to show networking skills. So, on your CV ensure that you name drop people who you’ve worked with that the recruiting team might know of. A good example would be when you’ve had meetings with a director of marketing at another company.
Next, you need to show that you regularly sent communications to other people that could be acted on. So, any time that you’ve taken the lead with a project or task, showcase that in your CV prominently.
6. Showcase your knowledge of the industry
You’re applying for agricultural jobs, so make sure that you’re demonstrating knowledge of the industry and use keywords appropriately when dealing with important issues. The best place to showcase your knowledge of the industry is within the personal statement. However, you should place keywords within the job responsibilities area.
If you’ve been to some expos or trade shows, also show that you were there. If you represented a past employer there, say so. This shows that a past employer recognised you as a good enough expert to speak to potential customers.
7. Check your CV for spelling mistakes
One of the biggest issues that can happen on your CV is a spelling mistake. While they do happen, it shows to a recruiter that you don’t have the time or professionalism to check your writing. This is translated into how you will approach work. If you can’t be bothered to spell check your CV, what will make you check your work for the business?
If you’re unsure of certain spellings, you can use free grammar checkers online. Two such examples are Grammarly and Scribens, which are both free and can help you spot errors throughout your CV.
Conclusion
If you’re looking to secure an agricultural job, then you first need to get to interview. This can be challenging when there are numerous other applicants, many of whom might have relevant experiences and qualifications.
To stand out and be invited to interview, you, therefore, need to turn your CV into a sales letter where you’re putting your best foot forward. Be sure to highlight exactly why you’re the best person for the role. This should include highlighting achievements over skills and personal development over qualifications.
If you make these changes to your CV today, you’re more likely to achieve success and get the agricultural job of your dreams.
If you're looking for work in the agricultural sector, Agricultural Recruitment Specialists can help you find the right niche in the UK, Europe and beyond. We can assist in finding which doors are open for you with your specific background and even advice on what you could do to improve your prospects.
Agricultural Recruitment Specialists are worldwide recruitment experts in agricultural, food, farming and rural recruitment and have a variety of executive and management positions available within agriculture, horticulture and the food and rural sectors throughout the UK and the rest of the world. To find out more about our agricultural job vacancies and discuss your future career, contact our team of agricultural recruitment professionals. You can visit our website here: www.agriRS.co.uk or call our team on: 01905 345 155 or email us at: info@agriRS.co.uk
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