ICE CV Example

Founded in 2000 and headquartered in London, UK, ICE is a global operator of exchange and clearing services, revolutionising the trading of energy commodities and financial derivatives. It operates in the financial services and technology industries.

After reading this article, you'll be empowered to write a CV that makes an impact with ICE recruitment teams, and sets you apart from other candidates. Acting on the advice in this guide will boost your chances of your CV ranking highly in the ATS screening stage, and improve your chance of gaining an interview at ICE. We’ll now review the essential sections of a CV and outline how to write each for the strongest results.

Key sections of an ICE CV

Your approach to creating your winning ICE CV will differ depending on your experience, your seniority and the details listed in the job description.

However, regardless of your seniority, an ICE CV needs to tell a cohesive story of your professional growth. In the following sections, we’ll dive into each part of the CV step-by-step, starting with your header and moving through to your professional achievements.

CV Header

Start your ICE CV with a professional-looking header that includes all the relevant contact information. This usually includes your name, your email address, your phone number and your location, but not your full address. Additionally, listing your LinkedIn profile in your CV header can be valuable. It serves to provide more detailed information about your career journey, your qualifications and your industry standing, in an easily accessible way.

For UK jobs, it's generally not a good idea to add a photo or any other personal details beyond your basic contact information. This means leaving off details such as your age, gender, ethnicity and nationality, as these can introduce bias to the selection process and complications related to the Equality Act 2010.

CV Objective

Below your CV header, the next section tends to be a CV summary or CV objective. This paragraph briefly explains a few of your key skills and qualities, so employers can easily understand whether you're likely to be a suitable candidate for the ICE officer job. While a CV summary showcases your key skills and achievements in the context of your career to date, a CV objective provides an alternative approach. It focuses instead on your ambitions for the future, making it ideal for junior candidates without much work experience.

Both a CV summary and objective should be concise, with an ideal length of two or three sentences. List your key skills, personal strengths and career achievements or ambitions, taking care to ensure the content reflects the requirements listed in the job description.

An effective CV summary will focus on a few of the key skills required for the role and show how you've put them to good use in your career to date. You'll want to give the reader a good impression of your unique qualities and briefly provide evidence of their impact in previous roles. Find an example below of a positive ICE CV summary, characterised by evidence to support your claims and well-structured, easy-to-read sentences.

Above is an example of CV summary that doesn't follow best practice, with some subtle shortcomings and failings. Your summary could miss the mark if it's too generic and doesn't describe unique personal qualities and strengths. It might also be vague, use long, unstructured sentences, lack quantifiable evidence of your impact, or not be tailored to the job description.

Work Experience

In your work experience section, you'll want to prove you're capable of performing to a high level in the financial services industry by adding previous jobs that highlight relevant experience. Add bullet points listing skills and achievements that match the job description, and that will show ICE hiring managers how you can make a positive impact. List previous jobs relevant to the financial services sector in reverse-chronological order, starting with your current or most recent role. Include your job title, the name of the employer, its location and the dates you worked there. Under each entry, add several bullet points outlining your key skills and achievements in the role.

An impactful CV will focus closely on the most relevant previous roles, offering supporting evidence that shows how you've put your relevant financial services industry skills to good use for previous employers.

Your work experience section is unlikely to make a positive impression on the reader if it includes jobs that aren't relevant to the financial services industry, or if it lacks compelling evidence of the key skills and qualities needed to work in the sector.

Education and Qualifications

In your education section you'll want to list your highest and most recent qualifications, particularly if they're a requirement for the role.

To embark on a career as an ICE officer, you don't tend to need a specific degree. However, you should still add your highest and most relevant certifications, training and formal qualifications to your CV's education section, even if not specified in the job description. These might include Certificate in Customs Enforcement Procedures, or any training that shows your skills in forensic accounting skills or border security operations.

Creating the education section of your CV means selecting the most relevant and highest qualifications, and listing them in reverse-chronological order, starting with your most recent achievements and working back from there. For each entry into your education section, add the qualification name and level, the institution or awarding body, its location and your dates of study or graduation. For extra emphasis on your education section, include bullet points showcasing projects you worked on, modules you studied, awards you won or societies you participated in, if they help you to prove you're a suitable candidate.

You might also wish to add specialist qualifications, certifications or licences that are required for the role. If you add any of these, include the expiry date, if the qualification requires renewal in the future.

Skills

In your CV skills section, include a combination of the key hard and soft skills you possess, that make you a suitable candidate for the position. Make sure your skills list reflects the requirements specified in the job description, and include a few skills that are unique to you, and help set you apart from the pack. For an ICE CV, you'll want to focus on the most relevant skills for the role that match your skill set, including problem solving and surveillance techniques proficiency, to catch the reader's attention and show you're qualified for the ICE officer position.

Hard Skills

Hard skills are the specialist technical skills that are essential for carrying out the duties of the role. They might be developed through study, on-the-job training or experience in the industry, and some hard skills may require a licence or certification. For ICE officer positions, hard skills that match your abilities, such as border security operations, and surveillance techniques proficiency tend to be valued by recruiters and hiring managers. Review the job description, and include four or five key hard skills in your CV that show employers you're capable of completing the key duties of the role.

The best hard skills section will contain a mix of your strongest technical skills and those listed in the job description as 'essential' or 'desirable'. The closer your skills list is to matching the essential job description skills, the better your chances of success.

Below, you can find the types of skills typically featured in the hard skills section of an ICE CV:

Soft Skills

Soft skills differ from hard skills because they tend to be more transferable and applicable to different roles. Soft skills are the personal strengths and qualities that define your style of working and determine how well you're likely to fit in with the team and wider organisation. Owing to the rapidly evolving nature of the work landscape, soft skills are growing in importance for a number of roles and industry sectors where technology is replacing hard skills. Additionally, soft skills are particularly valuable for junior and entry-level candidates, who might not have much work experience but have the right building blocks for a successful career.

Just like the hard skills section, begin by reviewing the job description to learn the most desirable soft skills to include in your ICE CV. Only add soft skills that you can provide evidence for throughout your CV. Create a list of four or five transferable skills, combining the most essential skills from the job description with the skills that help you to stand out as a unique and compelling candidate for the position.

The section below provides an overview of soft skills often highlighted in an ICE CV.

Languages

If you speak any languages in addition to your mother tongue, you might want to include them in your ICE CV as a languages section. These can be valuable for your application, whether languages are specified as a requirement in the job description or not. List any foreign languages you speak, together with an indication of your proficiency level.

The methods for indicating your foreign language skills on your CV include assigning a basic descriptive word, such as:

• English: Fluent
• Spanish: Intermediate

You could otherwise use an internationally recognised language standard, such as the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). This assigns your language skills a standardised level of competence, as follows:

• A1: Beginner
• A2: Elementary
• B1: Intermediate
• B2: Upper intermediate
• C1: Advanced
• C2: Proficiency

Certifications

Depending on the role you're applying for, and the type of qualifications you have, you might want to include a separate section for certifications, in addition to the education section. Having a separate section can draw more attention to your training, and show employers your proactive, motivated mindset towards professional development, which could be a key asset. Furthermore, if there are any necessary certifications or licences for the job, this CV section takes on even more importance. If you're applying for a technical role or a position that involves the use of specialist software or equipment, these might make it more necessary to include a section showcasing your training.

Here is a list of some key certifications and licences that can be particularly useful for ICE officer applications:

Optional Sections

Optional sections can be useful to add to your CV, to provide additional evidence that you have the skills for the ICE officer job. Consider adding optional sections if you're unable to show all the necessary skills for the job through work experience, but could show them through extracurricular activities and other areas of life. This could be especially relevant if you're a junior candidate, or if you're changing careers.

If you're curious about other ways to make your CV more effective, our career resources will help you strengthen your application.

Hobbies and Interests

Your hobbies and interests can be a useful way of showcasing additional skills that are relevant to the job description, but that you haven't been able to prove via your work experience. Additionally, this section gives you the chance to show employers different facets of your personality and interests beyond work, which can help them to differentiate you from other applicants. However, a hobbies and interests section will only make an impact with the reader if the skills you showcase are relevant to the role. As such, only include this section if it helps you fulfil requirements of the role that you've been unable to show elsewhere.

Career Achievements

Creating a section for your achievements and awards can help you draw attention to the things you're most proud of in your career to date. If you've won any awards or achieved any key milestones in your career to date, you might want to mention them here.

Voluntary Work

Another way of showing employers your skills and experience is through volunteer roles. If you're struggling to show you have the necessary credentials through your work experience, volunteering can provide valuable examples of how you've put your skills into action. Approach your volunteering section in much the same way as your work experience section.

For each entry, include a job title or description of your role, the organisation, its location and the dates you volunteered. Adding bullet points can also help you to show how you developed relevant skills, and used them to good effect.

References

For UK job applications, it's rare to include references on a CV. However, it's a good idea to check the job advert and have some references ready to go in case the employer wants you to include them on your CV. If the employer requests references on your CV, choose two or three, and always approach them for permission before including them.

Add their name, their job title, the organisation and their contact details. As an alternative, you could add a brief line confirming you're able to supply references when necessary, such as 'references are available upon request'.

Best action verbs for an engaging ICE CV

Starting each of your work experience bullet points with strong action verbs is a great way to showcase your key skills and qualities, and demonstrate the impact they've had in your career to date. Start each bullet point with a verb linked to the skills required in the job description, to add focus to your work experience section and make it easy for the reader to identify your strengths. Remember to always back up the action verbs you use with quantifiable evidence that shows the impact you made. You can use past tense for any action verbs describing previous jobs, with present tense for action verbs to describe your current role and responsibilities.

ICE CV example

Now that you're aware of the key steps to creating a winning ICE CV, you can review a complete example to see how a final CV looks:

If you want to get a feel for how your CV will look once you finalise its design and layout, check out our CV examples for inspiration.

Guide to CV ATS optimisation

Many employers now use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to assist with managing the recruitment process. One of the key elements of most ATS apps is the ability to scan CVs and rank them according to their likely match to the job description. By taking on this task, the systems can save hiring managers the time and effort of reviewing every CV in detail. With vacancies regularly receiving hundreds of applications, this can increase the efficiency of the recruitment process.

Because ATS software is becoming more common in the recruitment process, it's important to make some concessions in your CV to give yourself the best chance of progressing beyond the initial screening. With that in mind, here are some tips on preparing your CV for ATS screening:

• Include keywords and phrases from the job description that are easy for ATS apps to identify, and help make you appear a strong fit for the role.
• Use standard CV headings that make your CV easier to navigate, such as 'work experience', 'education' and 'skills'.
• Choose a standard CV layout that avoids the use of any special design elements that might make your CV less compatible with ATS scanning software.
• Select a widely-used font in either serif or sans serif style, with a font size between 10 and 12 for body text and 14 and 16 for heading text.
• Use bullet points throughout your CV in place of full sentences. This serves a few purposes, reducing the overall length, helping keywords stand out and making it overall more scannable by ATS apps.

It might seem like there's a lot to remember when it comes to making an ATS-compatible CV, but taking care with this stage can really improve your chances of success. To make the process as easy as possible, use one of our expert-designed, ATS-optimised CV templates and boost your chances of success.

Key takeaways for a successful ICE CV

To give you the best chance of success with your CV, tailor it for every specific application, including keywords that reflect the job description. Pick a CV format that matches your experience level, and focus on showing the reader how you've developed relevant skills and put them to good use to add value for previous employers.

Finally, building your CV using Jobseeker's HR-approved CV templates can help to catch the eye of recruiters and hiring managers, making your application stand out and giving you the best chance of gaining your dream job.

Sources:

1. Transport for London (TfL), Writing a CV and cover letter
2. Jobseeker, Recruitment Statistics