'I recently lost my job'

You may have been laid off through no fault of your own - whatever the reason, your new employer doesn't need to know.

Career coach and author Corinne Mills said it is acceptable to list the date of your previous job as "to present" if you find yourself unexpectedly out of work. "Don't put a 'reason for leaving' on your employment history, and list dates by month so that prospective employers can't see exactly when you left a job," she said.

The exception is if you lost your job more than three months ago, in which case a reason for leaving should be briefly stated.

Even if you left your employer on bad terms, make sure that the job description sounds positive. "You can often read between the lines as to what an employee's experience was like," Ms Mills said.

"The good jobs are described with positive energy while the bad jobs tend to sound very functional," she said, saying that you should "always seem enthusiastic" about past jobs on your CV.

'I'm a graduate, and I just missed out on a 2:1'

Gillian Kane, an IT recruitment specialist from Digital Gurus, said that while a 2:1 degree is an asset, it may not be the deciding factor depending on which sector you go into.

"In many cases a lower score will not matter too much as a lot is based on talent, ambition and potential," she said.

The technology specialist said: "In the case of advertising sales, creative and user-experience jobs, a degree doesn't matter too much and talent will be spotted based on your abilities and tenacity to sell and the skills needed around that."

Ms Kane advised candidates to highlight any projects that they have worked on as part of their course or outside of university. "Superstars will be spotted, 2:2 or not!" she said.