2021 Professional CV format for Dubai: How to pass the ATS and Get your job fast. +Free CV Templates

Job seekers usually are confused when it comes to choosing a CV format for Dubai or seeking, in general, a UAE CV format. Should the CV format be elegant or just the facts? What are the best sources to use? A column, multiple columns? What should be the headlines and CV titles? With Graphics, or without it? Do I have to use a photo, Yes, no? Do I put education first or last? Career objective, summary, functional resume? Word format or PDF? There is so much to consider that it can make you feel that your head is going to explode when it comes to the professional resume format for Dubai & United Arab Emirates.

And don’t bother searching on Google all these questions unless you really want to lose your sanity, because you will get 14 different opinions, some of which directly contradict with anything just read. Isn’t this funny? It is not fun for the majority of job seekers in UAE, but you don’t have to worry. We got the answer and will show you how to format your CV for Dubai in a simple way that will pass any ATS CV test or checks and land you on the interview you’ve been waiting for!

Hang on: If you want to learn how to write a professional CV for UAE in 7 easy steps then you can follow this link: How to write a CV for Jobs in UAE?

What is an ATS and why no one talks about it!?

ATS is an Application Tracking System used mostly by HR and employers to filter thousands of applications submitted to them by tracking and analyzing candidates’ CVs before it reaches to them. It works right after you upload your CV online and hit the “Apply Now” button, the ATS program is designed to go through your CV, for a very simple task, to read and analyze your CV for keywords and match it with your job description of which desired by the employers. Basically, you can consider it a “Resume Filter” which check and test your cv against Job Description and requirements. We’ll show you how to pass easily the ATS filtering test and how to write a professional CV format for Dubai and entire Emirates Easily!

Keep in mind ATS is everywhere, it’s widely used here in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and other modern world countries such as the US, UK, Europe… etc

I’m going to break things down here because the CV formatting topic has multiple components and depending on your career level, your job industry, and your method of writing this resume, the answer is going to vary. Let’s format your CV for Dubai & UAE in 3 easy to follow Steps:

First Step: formatting the resume for the ATS

Let’s start with Step number one, formatting for the ATS, or again, applicant tracking system. You know what? This is such an important one and it’s one that job seekers get really confused about. If you’re planning to apply for jobs via online applications at least some of the time through the course of this job search, You HAVE got to format your CV with the scanning software in mind. to break it down for you it’s a programmed robotic system and these systems were simply NOT designed to admire your custom design logo or figure out which end is up when you use some unusual format or a highly stylized font.

CV format for Dubai: The Irony and the Problem

And here’s the irony, the irony for job seekers in UAE who don’t realize how impossible it is for the ATS to read and then correctly parse a big beefed-up resume is this. The very people who are making the most effort to stand out with a razzle-dazzle resume, they’re often the ones that are most at risk for never being contacted and that’s because the ATS doesn’t know what hit him when you send this super jazzed-up resume right through the system. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t work hard to make your CV format for Dubai look amazing, you really should, and there certainly is a time and a place to use that razzle-dazzle resume, especially if you work in an industry or a role that puts a high value on design flair or creativity.

However, when you’re applying for a job through an online application, meaning you’re filling something out and hitting that Apply Now button versus just emailing the stuff or handing it over to someone who works directly at that company, well, then you really need a UAE CV format that’s specifically designed to play nice with the ATS. So, that begs the question, what exactly is the ATS going to be looking for? Number one, it’s going to be looking for keywords.

What exactly is the ATS going to be looking for?

First and foremost, it’s going to be looking for the keywords that this recruiter or someone on the HR team has programmed into the system and told it to go back in and look for.

Do you want to pass the ATS Checks Easily?  Then You need to understand employer/HR is making decisions on what to program in based on blaring terms within the job description itself, so this is the very first place you should look when you’re deciding on which keywords to include on the new resume. When you’re reviewing that job description to find hints, don’t look for things like detail-oriented or out of the box thinker. Look for specific terms like cross-functional team leadership, project management, cost controls, or even specific software platforms like SAP, Salesforce.com, or SharePoint.

If you line up a few job descriptions and see that certain terms are common across all of them or most of them, then it’s safe to believe that these are the keywords you want to make sure are front and center on the new resume, both within the overall text and within a specific area of expertise or key skills section, and we’ll cover that more other posts. The ATS will be looking at both the context in which these terms are used and the number of occurrences, so be sure and make the ones that appear to be vital prominent and without being totally obnoxious or redundant about it, use those terms multiple times.

How to Format your CV for Dubai that passes the ATS Checks Easily?

The resume you use when applying for jobs via online application needs to be divided into sections, ones with standard CV headers, such as to call the summary section at the top of your resume a career summary or something similar rather than a little bit about me or stuff that I’m known for. Likewise, label your experience section something super straightforward like work experience or professional experience, for instance, rather than places I’ve worked or stuff that I’ve done.

Learn how to write a professional CV for UAE in 7 steps: How to write a CV for Jobs in UAE?

Now, again, if you’re applying for roles within industries or companies that will value that kind of originality or creativity, you can, and in fact, you probably should have a second version of your resume with catchier headlines and maybe a more captivating layout.

Just DO NOT send that one through an ATS because it might not have a clue what it’s reading.

How to deal with years of Experience requirement if your CV Doesn’t match it?

When you’re formatting for the ATS, you should also be aware that it’s going to try and calculate years of experience. So, say you’ve just found your dream job description and it calls for five to seven years of experience in account management or customer service or whatever that thing is that you do, however, you only have three years of experience.

Well, you can do a couple of things here. First, you could consider finding and endearing yourself to someone on the inside of that company. So, maybe you don’t even need to submit your resume through the ATS in the first place. Or you could consider adding years to your experience if you’ve maybe done something similar as an intern or somewhere on a part-time basis throughout your career. Just realize this, for now, the ATS is likely going to be comparing the number of years experience that this job description calls for against the number of years you have working in similar roles and this result will be a part of your overall match score.

Likewise, the ATS scanning software is going to be looking for the number of years you have with certain required skills, like Java or user experience design or Google Analytics, for instance. Thus, if you see specific skills like this called out as requirements on a job description and the job ad lists the number of experience for that particular skill, you’re going to want to make it clear where you’ve used these tools or gained that specific experience and when. And last, the ATS will probably be programmed to go and look for required degrees or certifications that are listed in that job description.

So, if you have them, be sure and spell them out in the same way that you see listed on the job description. And if you lack a required degree or certification but really, really still want that job, you’re going to need to find a way to apply for it without going through the ATS. In other words, you’re going to be best served by finding an in at that company and then appealing directly to the decision maker. There are no gray areas with applicant tracking systems, it’s black or white, yes or no, so for that resume version that you intend to use when you apply for jobs via online application, you’ve got to construct CV format for Dubai in a way that takes into consideration how the ATS works and how it evaluates candidates.

4 Things to avoid to successfully Pass the ATS CV Checks & Tests

As for the UAE CV format itself, for your ATS-friendly resume version, you should eliminate the things that tend to make the ATS kind of crabby and confused such as:

1.  Infographic CVs & Graphics, pretty much any kind. That includes logos, photos, snazzy icons, and design elements, stylized section dividers, really, any pieces of flair because the ATS can’t read them, it can’t parse them, and it might overlook some vital information while it’s trying to deal with them. It’s just not worth the potential cost.
2. Special formatting characters. Simple bullets are fine, custom designed one, not so much. Leave the special characters off, even if you think the standard ones are a little bit boring. Also, avoid abbreviations and jargon. Remember, when in doubt, spell it out for the ATS.
3. Multiple column formats. You know, I’ve seen some breathtakingly cool two and three column resumes, and these might be great when you’re handing one of these bad boys out directly to a contact because people like pretty, they like original, they love style, however, the ATS is just going to choke when you try to put a multiple column resume through it, so stick with a simple, straightforward CV format for Dubai instead.
4. Unusual Fonts. when you make a CV format for Dubai want to avoid when constructing this resume is unusual fonts. The ATS just can’t read them. Stick with standard PC fonts that are common and widely used, such as Arial, Veranda, Georgia, Tahoma, or the dreadfully boring Times New Roman.

Important: Avoid infographic CV format when applying online at any cost. ATS scanning program will NOT be able to read throughout your CV and all your hard work will be cast aside and will never reach to your potential employer, HR, and recruiters in Dubai & UAE. PERIOD.

Note: Keep reading to know when strategically using the info-graphic CVs safely and creatively.

Bonus: If you want to see a sample ATS-friendly format, just click on the link at the end of this article. This is a Word formatted template that we’ve tested through our own ATS, so feel free to use it if you like the style and at the very least, it will give you a feel for the simplicity that you need for your own ATS-friendly resume.

Tip: Now, if you want to go with a wild, pretty one, go ahead, but save that for your second more stylized CV format for Dubai, the one that you distribute directly to recruiters and other decision makers. that’s enough said about the ATS, now let’s talk about formatting your resume with the human reviewer in mind.

Second: Formatting your resume with the human reviewer in mind.

We need to wow these people with a professional resume too! The human reviewer is looking for many of the same things that the ATS looks for, such as obvious signs that you’re qualified to do this job, number of years of experience that you have, and keywords that match up to the job that you’re hoping to land, but the humans, they’re also looking to be emotionally moved.

Recruiters, HR managers & employers want to be able to quickly detect that you’re a high performer, that people like working with you, and that you’re someone who will likely fit in around the place if they hire you. In short, the human reviewer is looking at both your hard skills and the softer ones like personality, level of performance, and cultural fit. Humans also appreciate visually pleasing resumes, ones that don’t force them to go on some 20-minute research mission just to get to the meat of what makes you special. a professional CV format that helps them see almost immediately that you’re worth calling in for an interview. 

FYI: this is the right timing for using your infographics resumes, Humans –Recruiters, HR managers & employers- tend to like a well-formatted resume, elegant yet easy to navigate.

4 Tips: for a Professional & Friendly CV format for Dubai & UAE

When you’re formatting your CV for the human reviewer, you want to make sure your resume includes these key ingredients.

1.Consistent formatting.

You need to make sure that you break up each section in a way that’s easy to read, makes good use of white space, and utilizes bold or italics consistently through the entire document.

If you’ve got inconsistent formatting going on, the reviewer is probably going to assume that you’re either careless or lazy and these are pretty much the last things that you want them to conclude when they look at your CV Format for Dubai.

2.Readability.

a key ingredient of a human-friendly resume is a font size that’s actually readable. It always kills me when I see a resume that’s written in eight or nine point font and typically this happens when someone is trying like mad to keep their resume into one page because somewhere along the line, someone brainwashed them into believing that the world’s just going to fall to pieces if their resume exceeds one page. And so, rather than constructing a legible two-pager, they cram everything into one page in a teeny, tiny font with very little white space seriously, don’t do this. You’re going to annoy pretty much everyone and for those human reviewers that maybe don’t have great eyesight, you’re going to prompt them to bail out on this thing altogether.

3.Placement of the most important information

ingredient is strategic placement of your most important information and we’re going to cover this one in more detail as we work through the Article related to each specific resume section, but for now, realize that the HR, recruiters & employers are moving really quickly through dozens and dozens of resumes most of the time, so they need to see that your an obvious match the instant their eyes hit that page.

Tip: Keep this in mind, you should strategize on which sections go where so that reviewer can quickly see this clear evidence of how and why you’re a match. An example of this would be, say I’m an engineer who now wants to be an accountant. I’ve just finished my accounting degree and I’ve been working as a freelance bookkeeper for a local business in town while also holding down a day job as an engineer. I would encourage this person to put the education section right at the top of the resume, as well as the part-time bookkeeping work. And we’re going to talk more about this as we roll forward here, but that’s one example of strategizing on which resume sections go where.

4. Clear stated work experience.

a key ingredient of a human-friendly CV format for Dubai, work experience that’s divided up in a way that allows the reader to quickly see the stuff that you’re most proud of or that you consider your best accomplishments. So, for the clients that we work with through our professional CV writing service in UAE, our professional resume writers are typically creating a sub-section within each job that our client has held that showcases select highlights or key accomplishments.

We do this so it’s very easy for the eyeballs to get right to the information that you feel is going to be most important or most compelling to this audience.

Conclusions

That was a lot of ground for our first day, but guess what? now you’re a professional how knows how to write a professional resume following the guidelines, tips & tricks,  and now you’re ready for a Resume Makeover. But before you jet off, you may want to take a look at our free sample resumes for UAE. Again, click on the link at the bottom of the page so you can get a feel for what a human-friendly resume looks like and an ATS-friendly resume looks like.

Bonus Free CV Samples Templates for UAE

And we’ve also got some free CV sample templates in the bonus materials that you might want to use tomorrow which is when we’re going to get to the business of constructing your actual, ridiculously awesome resume, section by section.

We Also Provide a Professional CV Writing Services in Dubai & UAE and very competitive pricing rates feel free to check it out and hire one of our professional CV writers to make you a best CV format for Dubai today!

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