Building your curriculum Vitae
- 2. What is a Curriculum Vitae (CV)? • A curriculum vitae is a document which is used to outline and provide information on the person(s) educational and professional status. A CV is an easy way of proving that you are ready to take on the job applied for. • Essentially the CV will market who you are and what you can bring to the table, you need to sell your skills and experiences in such a way that the employer wishes to employ you. • A CV is meant to reflect your own achievements and explain various elements about yourself, there isn't a best way to structure these but using different techniques can make your CV easier to read and more appealing.
- 3. What should I put in my CV? • A CV has no exact structure that needs to be followed, however it's good to priorities what you write. A good way of tackling this is by drawing up a draft CV templating what you want certain elements to look like.
- 4. What should I put in my CV? PERSONAL SUMMARY • This should be a short summary about who you are and what you like/do. This is the area of selling your personality and how you can be visualised without the employer meeting you. Place your name, address, date of birth and contact details here.
- 5. What should I put in my CV? CAREER HISTORY / ACHIEVEMENTS • This is where you list your previous employment, most CVs add timestamps and a brief description of the job role. You can also name Achievements which you think apply to the working environment such as being a team member or leader and doing charity work etc.
- 6. What should I put in my CV? SKILLS THAT CAN BE BROUGHT TO THE EMPLOYER • In this area you must sell yourself to the employer, provide information they would like to hear about you. What you have done to improve and how that can benefit the employer, as well as the company.
- 7. What should I put in my CV? ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS • List down all your school or worked related training qualifications here, some employers like to know why you got these qualifications, this can be backed up in the personal summary by describing your interests and how this correlates with the academic qualifications
- 8. What should I put in my CV? How long should my CV be? • There isn’t an allowance of pages or words for a CV but most employers only look at 1-2 side CVs. As Employers get lots of CVs it’s no doubt they want less to read. Having shorter documents which explain everything and sell yourself well is the hardest part of a CV but often the most rewarding. • Many CVs can be section into one page by doing the above sections into quarters of the page. If you are using a word processor (Microsoft Word, Open Office) it might be worth changing the document margins to make your pages fit more onto them before moving onto another page. • Changing your font sizes can also help, it’s ideal to not go below 12 pts size however if you’re using a bigger font style, such as a Sans font you can go to size 10.
- 9. What should I put in my CV? CV Tips • Your contact details should be professional, your email address should express your employable side. “Firstname_Lastname@hotmail.com” not "I_love_Music193@hotmail.com" • Keep your CV tidy and neat, don’t over separate content but give a good distance between paragraphs. • Use headers to break content up. • Be honest, if you don’t have the grades you want then don’t post them