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The purpose of this information is two-fold: either you are just starting out needing a CV, or you want to update yours and need to get back to the basics.
Making sure you have a CV that stands far and above the crowd has never been more important to your success. It is no longer enough to give a cursory glance over the paperwork,
no; you must dig deep and analyse every section for everything from grammar and punctuation right through to presentation.
High quality content might not be enough, if it isn’t presented correctly, chances of it being read are slim to none.
In order to help you with this competitive marketplace, we’ve put together years of experience in looking at and analysing several thousand CVs to provide you with the following tips:
Layout and Presentation
There must be a great deal of white space on the pages of a perfectly laid out CV, to make it easy on the eyes when someone is reading its content. Unless you hear otherwise within your industry, don’t allow your CV to go over two pages in length. If your industry dictates that any published works or projects that you have been involved with be contained in a page of detail, then by all means follow those guidelines.
Keep the formatting to one that is universally accepted in size and type, such as the Arial font in point sizes ranging from no less than ten and no more than twelve. Don’t go overboard the special formatting of characters, such as underlining and italics. Bullet points are highly recommended, as they will assist you in delivering key points that you want to get across quickly, while keeping the layout clean. Every bullet point should be led by an action verb, so use words like ‘increased’ and ‘created’ in your wording. Stay clear of starting any sentence with the word ‘I’.
It can’t be overstated, but punctuation and spelling has to come across with absolute perfection. You might have checked everything yourself, used the spell-checker and gone over the document with a fine-tooth comb, but you should also lend it to a trusted friend to do the same, because a second pair of eyes could pick up things that you missed, due to your being too close to the creation of it. Because hiring managers are flooded daily with requests to look at someone’s CV, if yours holds even a single flaw, it could be enough to remove you from the competition.
Standard Structure of a CV
Your contact information
It is important for you to use the email and phone number that you access most. You don’t want to find out that someone has been trying to reach you at an email address you check once every three months, or a phone number to a cell phone that you don’t use anymore.
Your working details
You only need to worry about this section if you are in the country on a work visa. You will use this section to let your potential employers know how long you are going to be in the country.
Personalized Summary
This isn’t always going to be used in CVs, but you might consider using this area to place a spotlight on anything that you are wanting to accomplish by becoming an employee with the target company, and anything you would like to mention that you think would be worthwhile that can be offered to your employer. To borrow a phrase from marketing terminology, this is known as a unique sales proposition, or USP.
Summary of your Skills
Anyone reading your CV might only get a few moments to scan it, so it would be a good idea for you to have a section where you can summarize all of your related skills, arranged in a way that can be quickly glanced through to allow the reader to pick up the finer points about the skills you can offer. Use bullet points in this section to highlight those experiences and skills that will catch your potential employer’s attention. Try to tie the adjectives used in the employer’s job posting into what you are relating here.
Just don’t make it verbatim, but discuss related terms in your own words.
Experience Relevant To The Position
Otherwise known as the work history section, you’ll put not only your related job history, but any work where you had volunteered in order to gain experience in a related position or field, as it will help solidify your expertise for the current position you are competing for. You’ll start from your most recent job and describe going backwards any and all related skills and job settings. You don’t want to leave anything out, as your employer-to-be could be thinking the gaps in employment history are for all the wrong reasons. If you do have any gaps of unemployment, explain these properly, especially if time spent unemployed was at least spent in educating yourself in relevant areas.
If you have just recently graduated and are entering the workforce for the first time, perhaps you have spent some time already in the job field to gain experience, or were working during your studies. Tell your employer of these details, using the same format as above, with most recent experience listed first and working backwards to the oldest job-related experience, and what skills you picked up along the way.
Training And Education
The key with this section is to focus in on any job related training and education. Don’t include a degree you’ve obtained if it is completely unrelated to this position, because chances are no one will really care.
Interests
This section is another optional section, but it is a good thing to include any interests or hobbies that you have if the company has an interest in the same, as in the case of the company either having or sponsoring a sports team locally, and you’ve got an interest in that sport. Don’t talk about anything that is controversial, such as religion or politics. If you can’t relate any interests or hobbies, then it is best to leave this area out of your CV.
References
It is not common to include references directly within the CV. You can let your potential employer know that you have references available should they desire to review them or contact any of them.
