Writing a CV for the Health and Safety Industry

So, you have decided it’s time to update your CV. You may have had a long and illustrious career in the Health and Safety industry, or you may be looking to make a career change. We think the Health and Safety Industry is a great place to work. We help keep people safe day in day out and help make sure they go home to their families every day.

As a specialist recruiter in this field we see a large number of CV’s in any given year. We have seen some that are great and others that could be improved. We think your CV should be a positive representative of yourself. It should be professional, to the point and impressive!

We recommend that your CV should be tailored for each role that you apply for. Ideally, it should mirror the language you see in the job description or advertisement. If the advertisement calls out particular skills they are looking for, then these should be the skills you are highlight.

It can also be worth considering exactly what it is that makes you different from the other applicants they are likely to come across. For example, do you volunteer somewhere relevant? Are you involved in a community in an interesting way? What are you passionate about? See if you can work this into the suggested format below.

What to include:

– You contact details including a mobile number and e-mail address
– Your qualifications and relevant industry memberships
– A Career Summary
– Your Work History – the last 5-6 roles is sufficient
– Ensure your CV is in the file format requested by the Recruiter/Hiring Manager.

What not to include:

– Fancy fonts
– Unnecessary Colour
– Spelling or grammatical errors!

What to include in your Career profile:

This statement should summarise your career, include your career goals and
Key strengths and skills. It should be approximately a paragraph long.

For example: I am a health and safety professional with 15 years practical experience in the manufacturing sector. I have in-depth project management experience including stakeholder management and governance. I have a strong track record of facilitating cultural change and developing a strong Safety Culture.

What to include in your Employment History

Your employment history should include dates, the name of the employer and the role. Where it is a lesser known company within the industry, include a short statement of what the company does.
Then go through 6-8 points of the key responsibilities that the job entailed. At the end of each role, include what you achieved in the role in a short factual statement. Using statistics is good. It is customary to state your Employment history in a reverse chronological order.

Career History Example:

Job title:
Dates:
Company:
Responsibilities:

– Facilitated incident investigations and implemented corrective actions
– Developed and delivered safety and compliance training programs to staff
– Built a strong safety culture within the organisation
– Development of safety policies and their enforcement
– Responsible for maintaining data on safety and provision of reports to management.
– Implementing recommended improvements.
– Conducting site and procedure audits to assess compliance.

Achievements:

– Prevented workplace accidents via regular audits. Contributed to a reduction in the overall accident rate of x to y.

Length

Your overall CV should be no longer than 3 pages. You can either include current and relevant referees at the end or suggest that they are available on request.

So, is it time to update your CV? When was the last time you did it? A great CV can definitely help get you onto a short list. It should be approached with the same professionalism and effort that you apply to the rest of your career. If the written word is not your strong point, ask for help from a trusted friend or professional resume writer.

If you are looking for new role in the Health and Safety Industry then Arnold Group can help. We have developed a strong reputation for providing quality recruitment services. We focus on the niche fields of Safety, Insurance and Risk. We invite you to follow our LinkedIn Company page to see available roles and industry news.