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If you are an energy expert and looking for a new assignment, writing an attractive, personalized and relevant CV is the first step to increase your chances of being selected for an interview and thus help our recruiters to enhance your profile on energy projects all over the world.
Mustapha Letabi, Senior Recruiter at Altea Energy, shares his best practices to help you improve the presentation of your CV and give you every chance of finding the job of your dreams.
“Imagine that the recruiter reviewing your application is not necessarily an expert in your field. That’s where a well-designed resume comes in. It’s your first opportunity to make a strong impression. It should not only reflect your professional background in a clear and concise manner, but also highlight your specific skills and achievements,” explains Mustapha Letabi, Senior Recruiter at Altea Energy.
First of all, remember that you have 30 seconds to convince because a recruiter can go through hundreds of CVs per day! Motivations, key skills, and strengths of your profile must be immediately visible.
This is what we call the “Career Summary”. Located just below your contact details, it must be adapted to each application and correspond to the needs and expectations of the project and the sector to which you are applying.
“Candidates should remember to be concise. The career summary should be straight to the point and expressed in a few sentences. Candidates must explain what they want for the future by highlighting their most relevant achievements for the position in question (projects carried out, skills, certifications, etc.). This must demonstrate the relevance of their application, their motivation and their desires. This is not, however, a cover letter. The way you write the “career summary” is essential. The candidate must favor the use of action verbs, speak in the past tense, ban the “I” and make the information as objective as possible.”, explains Mustapha Letabi, Senior Recruiter at Altea Energy.
Although it may seem obvious, it is important to only apply to job openings that are ideal for you, based on your experience and skills. This is the only way to find your ideal job.
The more personalized your CV is and adapted to the job you are applying for, the more you prove to the recruiter your understanding of the job offer and the sector and demonstrate your commitment and relevance.
“Our mission is to help energy experts find the perfect assignment. Unfortunately, we regularly have candidates who send their CV for 10 different jobs at the same time, without correlation with their experience. This is damaging because it can reflect a lack of seriousness to the recruiter and it does not increase their chances of being contacted. We often have very little time to offer clients the best profiles for their projects from among the several hundred applications that we receive. We must be responsive and relevant. The language of the CV, the location and the experiences must be personalized and in line with the position targeted to have a chance of attracting our attention.”, adds Mustapha Letabi.
Beyond contact details, your career summary and languages which are essential to identify the strengths of your profile and contact you quickly, other information is important to detail so that the recruiter and the client have a complete vision of your experience.
“Professional experiences are the heart of the CV. The candidates must present them from the most recent to the oldest and detail for each the dates, the company they worked for, the sector (oil and gas, offshore wind, etc.), the project (drilling, engineering, etc.). ) and the position (drilling supervisor, well integrity engineer, etc.). They can even briefly explain their main responsibilities for the most relevant experiences to the position for which they are applying. As with the career summary, they should favor action verbs and not use “I”.”, continues Mustapha Letabi.
If you have gaps in your career, with periods not worked, do not hesitate to note them explicitly and explain them briefly: training, family care, travel, etc.
Likewise, if the type of projects you work on requires you to have short-term contracts, specify this to remove any ambiguity about the volume of experience and regular job changes.
“The candidate’s qualifications are also essential, particularly for positions which require a minimum level of qualification. You must specify the title of the diploma, the date obtained, the school or university and the country in which they were obtained, and present them from the most recent to the oldest. In the same way, all the training followed and certifications obtained to specialize in subjects during professional life are very important to mention. This demonstrates the candidate’s desire to continue training and progress throughout their career.”, specifies Mustapha Letabi.
You must also specify the technical skills mastered but also the individual general skills that you have developed such as communication, leadership, adaptability, problem solving or time management. These skills can be integrated into the section “career summary” or detailed in a separate section.
“For each skill, the candidate must specify their degree of proficiency to allow the recruiter to identify the strong and weak points of your application. If the candidate’s background is ideal in relation to the client’s needs but they have some skills to improve, it is important to know this in advance and in complete transparency and consider training that can compensate.”, explains Mustapha Letabi.
Even if this information is not essential for the selection of the candidate, specifying your extra-professional activities can say a little more about your personality, your open-mindedness and your commitments.
The format of your CV must be taken care of to be sure that your application is uploaded to our recruitment software. Only Word or PDF formats where the text is editable and automatically recognizable by our ATS are studied.
“We sometimes receive applications in Excel format or CVs scanned in image format. Unfortunately, our software cannot process them and when we search for profiles by keywords, these applications do not appear in the results, even though their experiences could be perfectly suited to the position given by the client.”, explains Mustapha Letabi.
In terms of format, good news for you, the energy sector does not imply that you are artists and that your CV is colorful or at the top of the design!
On the other hand, it must be well presented and written respecting the right rules to enhance your image: write in the 3rd person, objective information, action verbs to introduce the missions carried out (leaded, participated, managed, framed, designed, …), length of 2 pages maximum.
Please note: in the majority of cases, the photo is not mandatory, unless it is explicitly requested by the customer, which will be specified in the job ad.
To help you improve your CV: >> Download our CV template
Once you have worked on the content of your CV, do not hesitate to update your LinkedIn profile as well. Energy recruiters rely heavily on this professional network to find, select and communicate directly with candidates.
Since 2008, Altea Energy has accelerated the success of tomorrow’s energy projects by finding the best match between oil and gas, renewable and nuclear experts and companies looking for specialized skills.
Our team of recruiters helps energy experts find their dream job every day and offer them the best possible experience.
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