Stock Controller CV Example

A stock controller CV that's well-written, engaging and showcases the most relevant skills and experience gives you the best chance of progressing to the next stage of the recruitment process. Let’s take a closer look at the key parts of a CV and how to develop them for maximum impact.

Main stock controller CV sections

Your stock controller CV strategy will depend on various factors, including your previous experience, your seniority and the details listed in the job description.

At the end of the day, though, a stock controller CV is just a way to tell the story of how you’ve grown in your career. Regardless of your experience level, you want that progression to feel seamless and easy to follow for recruiters. To help you get there, we’re going to walk through each part of the CV step-by-step, starting with the basics in your header and working our way through to your professional achievements.

CV Header

Kick off your stock controller CV with a header listing the essential contact information such as your name, email address, phone number and location. You don't typically need to include your full address. Incorporate design elements that set the tone and design language of your document. Additionally, add your LinkedIn profile, if this is in use and up-to-date. A well-utilised LinkedIn profile can give further information to the reader about your skills, experience, industry knowledge and career achievements.

For UK applications, it's not usually advisable to include a personal photo or any other personal details, such as your age, gender, nationality or ethnicity. These can risk introducing bias to the decision-making process and are discouraged under the terms of the Equality Act 2010.

CV Objective

Under your header, write a brief CV summary or CV objective, outlining a few of your key skills, qualities and achievements. This short paragraph can help employers to quickly assess your suitability for the role, setting the tone for your stock controller CV. 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.

In your summary or objective, write up to three sentences outlining your key skills, unique personal qualities and career achievements or ambitions, taking care to always reflect the requirements listed in the job description.

An effective summary will include brief reference to one or two of your strongest skills, ensuring they reflect the skills listed in the job description. It's important to make your skills and qualities feel unique to you, and show how you've used them to positive effect in your career to date. Here's an example of an effective stock controller CV summary, with evidence of your impact and neat, well-structured sentences:

Above is an example of a less effective CV summary, with some subtle, yet notable differences. There are several factors that could make your summary less engaging. These include using long, poorly-structured sentences, failing to add evidence of your impact, being too generic with the skills you mention and not adapting your CV summary to specifically respond to the job description.

Work History

The work experience section of a CV is usually the most important part. Employers look for evidence of how you've developed and used your skills to good effect in your career to date, as an indication of your likely future performance. Remember, it's essential to tailor this section to match the job description, including keywords and phrases to help employers see how you'll fit the role, and how you might put the required skills to good use in the future.

List only your most relevant jobs, and go back up to 10 or 15 years, depending on your experience levels. List your job title, the name of the employer, its location and the dates you worked there. Also include bullet points for each entry, highlighting how you used your skills to add value for the employer.

What differentiates one CV work experience section from all the others is the use of action verbs and quantifiable evidence in your bullet points. It should showcase how your actions led to positive outcomes for the employer, and show a progression in your skills throughout your career. Here's an example of best practice in a stock controller CV work experience section:

Above is an example of what not to do with your stock controller CV. The work experience section could fail to make an impression if it's too generic, focuses on older or irrelevant roles or lacks tailoring to the job description. It's also important to avoid focusing too much on responsibilities that don't tell the reader anything of the value you added to the role.

Education

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 a stock controller, 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 Inventory Management, or any training that shows your skills in data analysis skills or demand forecasting techniques.

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.

It may also be useful for you to add any specialist industry qualifications, certifications or licences that you might require for the role. If you choose to add these, remember also to add an expiration date, if the licence requires renewal in the future.

Key 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 a stock controller CV, you'll want to focus on the most relevant skills for the role that match your skill set, including communication and ERP software proficiency, to catch the reader's attention and show you're qualified for the stock controller position.

Hard Skills

Hard and technical skills are the essential skills required for carrying out the everyday duties of the role. They might include specialist operation of certain software or equipment, or knowledge of certain industry standards and regulations. You could gain these skills via training, certifications or industry experience. For stock controller roles, key hard skills you've gained, such as inventory management software, and ERP software proficiency, are typically among the most critical for the job. 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 to include are typically listed as 'essential' or 'required' in the job description. Aim for a mix of the most desirable skills, together with those you have the highest proficiency in. For the best chance of success, you'll want your strongest skills to match closely with those most desired by the employer.

The following section highlights skills that are commonly listed under hard skills in a stock controller CV:

Soft Skills

Soft skills are the personal strengths and qualities that show employers how well you'll fit into the role and complement other members of the team. Soft skills tend to be more transferable and applicable to different roles than hard and technical skills. Transferable skills are among the most in-demand skills for employers, with rapidly changing and evolving ways of working requiring ever-more flexible and adaptable employees. Soft skills are also highly valuable for junior and entry-level positions, where candidates aren't expected to have a wealth of relevant work experience and career achievements.

As with your stock controller CV hard skills list, review the job description to learn the key soft skills for the role. Include the best soft skills that you can provide evidence for throughout your CV. Aim to add up to five soft and transferable skills, including a mix of the most essential skills from the job description, together with some skills that make you stand out as a unique and compelling candidate.

Here are typical soft skills candidates include in a stock controller CV.

Languages

Including a section on language skills can be beneficial, if you speak at least one language to a reasonable level of competency, in addition to your mother tongue. This is true even if language skills aren't a requirement for the role, as foreign language abilities often correlate to other valuable soft skills. In the languages section, list the languages you speak to at least a reasonable level, with an indicator of your competency level.

There are a few acceptable ways of citing your foreign language proficiency levels. The simplest way is to assign a basic descriptive word to indicate your skills, such as:

• English: Fluent
• Spanish: Intermediate

You might wish to use an internationally recognised standard for your language skills, such as the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). This divides your language skills into the following categories:

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

Certifications, Training and Licences

To showcase additional qualifications and training beyond the basic requirements for the role, consider adding a certifications section to your CV. It can enhance your chances of success to show specific training and certifications. Not only do these prove you're qualified for the role, but they also indicate proactivity and a dedication to professional development. Furthermore, the CV certifications and training section is a great showcase for official licences and certifications when applying for roles where these are a key requirement listed in the job description. These could include positions where the use of specialist software and equipment is a routine part of your everyday responsibilities.

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

Additional Information

Including optional sections in addition to the core sections of your stock controller CV can help you to show employers you're a strong candidate for the job. If you're unable to show you have all the necessary skills for the job through your work experience, optional sections can be a valid way of providing further evidence of your suitability, to give you the chance of gaining an interview. If you're an entry-level candidate or a career changer, optional sections can be particularly valuable.

Explore our career resources for practical strategies to make your CV stand out and move you closer to landing an interview.

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. In addition, you can use hobbies and interests to show elements of your personality that might not shine through otherwise, giving you a chance to offer something different to most candidates. However, a hobbies and interests section is only valuable if it helps you to show relevant skills you've been unable to evidence in other parts of your CV. If your hobbies and interests are unrelated to the job, it's best to leave them off your CV.

Achievements and Awards

Compiling your key career achievements into a single list is an effective way of making your CV more readable at a glance. In your list, add any awards you've won, industry recognition or key career milestones that tell a story about your suitability for the role and place you ahead of other candidates.

Volunteering

Listing any previous voluntary work is another useful way of showing you have the necessary skills and experience for the job. If you don't have much relevant work experience, either because you're a junior candidate or you're changing jobs from an unrelated field, volunteering can provide valuable examples of your skills in action. In your volunteering section, use a similar structure to your work experience section.

Add your job title or a description of the volunteer role, the organisation name, its location and the dates you volunteered (start and end date). Under this, add bullet points to show the skills you used, and evidence of how they contributed to positive achievements for the organisation.

Best action words for a stock controller CV

Using strong action verbs in your work experience bullet points is a great way to focus this section and show the impact you've made in your career to date. Starting each bullet point with an action verb that reflects the skills required for the role will help the reader to easily cross-reference your skills to the job description. Remember, it's essential to evidence any action verbs you add to your work experience. This will help show your achievements and the impact you made in previous roles. Use past tense for action verbs that describe previous roles, and present tense for your current position.

Example of a stock controller CV

Now that we've covered the main sections to include in your stock controller CV, we can see how it would all come together in its final form in the example below:

If you're not sure what your one-page, finalised CV design might look like, check out our examples.

Tips for optimising your CV for ATS

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.

The growing prevalence of ATS apps requires a shift in approach by jobseekers, to prepare a CV with the best chance of passing the ATS screening stage. That's why we've put together a list of key ATS CV tips, to maximise your chances of success:

• Include keywords and phrases that mirror the job description to maximise your chances of ranking highly in the ATS screening stage.
• Use clear, conventional CV headings to make your CV easier to navigate, including '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 winning stock controller 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. Select a suitable CV format that reflects your experience level, and focus on highlighting your key skills, and demonstrating how you've put them to good use to achieve positive outcomes in your career to date.

Finally, enhancing the look and feel of your CV using one of Jobseeker's HR-approved CV templates can help leave a lasting impression on the reader, and boost your chances of success with your job applications.

Sources:

1. Barnet Council (UK local government), Recruitment tips: How to write a supporting statement
2. Jobseeker, Recruitment Statistics