A CV usually consists of two pages, with employers sometimes seeing more than four hundred of them per position. A decision on your successful progression to the next stage of the application process, is often made instantly. Your CV needs to give the employer an excuse to not hit DELETE. So what is it on a CV that gives you that edge?

The answer is pretty resounding. Work experience, and more work experience. An increasingly competitive job market has demanded other ways to join the path, and a recent article from the BBC highlights that the experience you have in the workplace – is what sets you apart.

“The work experience placement has become almost a guaranteed rite of passage in an increasingly competitive job market. To many employers this is a welcome development, allowing them to screen potential new recruits and ensure that new workers have a basic grasp of workplace dynamics before they clock on for the first time.”

“Some 21.7% of summer 2009 graduates who were in employment six months later had been taken on by an employer with whom they had previously had some kind of work experience, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). For the first time they represented the largest group of university leavers.”

Whether or not you agree with the importance of work experience, it is obvious that it “has an increasingly large impact on what will be the job prospects for many young people.”

To read the full article, as well as a very interesting case study, click here.

What is your experience? Have you found that it’s your introduction to the working world that has landed you a career prospect?