Whether a potential employer requests your curriculum vitae, CV, or resume, they’re all searching for the same thing: proof that you’re the best candidate for them to spend their time and money on. It’s essentially a sales brochure that highlights the fascinating USPs (unique selling characteristics) that set you apart from the competition.
Although there is no universally acknowledged structure, your CV should include the following elements:
Table of Contents
Details:
Include your name, address, phone number, and email address so that potential employers can quickly reach you. Nationality, age, and whether or not you have a driver’s license are all optional.
Personal statement :
A single paragraph grabs the reader’s attention and entices them to learn more about you. Take care not to jam too much information into your head. Instead, demonstrate to them why you fulfill their demands by relating your major expertise to the job you’re applying for.
Work experience:
Begin with your most recent position and work your way backward in reverse chronological order, listing each company’s name, location, website, and dates of employment. Whenever feasible, utilize bullet points to highlight your responsibilities and accomplishments in each capacity so that the individual reviewing your CV made by an expert CV maker can immediately link your experience to their job description.
Academic Information:
Give brief descriptions of your academic and professional qualifications, as well as the grades you received, in reverse chronological order. If you’re looking for your first job after graduating from high school, this information is ahead of any work experience.
Skills:
Whether you realize it or not, you’ve acquired a variety of skills over the years, some tangible and others intangible. Include any computer programs or applications you’ve used, as well as any foreign language skills you’ve learned, and indicate if you’re a novice, intermediate, or experienced user. Communication and project management abilities are more difficult to demonstrate and must be supported by examples.
Hobbies and interests:
These are optional and are frequently used to fill in blank space at the end of a page. The goal is to provide the interviewer a more complete picture of you, as well as something more personal to talk about during the interview.
References:
You don’t have to list referees on your CV, but you should indicate that you can provide information upon request. It’s a good idea to nominate tutors or mentors if this is your first employment. Naturally, you’ll want to choose references you’re confident will provide positive feedback, but you should also make sure they’ll be accessible when the time comes.
Simple Layout:
Always limit your CV to two A4 pages. Anyone reading your CV should be able to tell where to find the content they’re looking for, with enough ‘white space’ to avoid being overwhelmed at first glance.
The goal of this document is to get you an interview, not to get you a job. Always remember that you are writing a CV for your reader, not for yourself. Put yourself in their shoes when you compose your CV. Keep it brief, to the point, and, above all, engaging.
A recruiter will spend little more than 20 seconds initially evaluating each CV due to the enormous volume of applications they receive, therefore it’s critical to get it right. You’re on the right route to presenting the information in a clear, succinct, and persuasive manner if you follow the pattern given above.
Things to be aware of
Invested time It’s always time well spent to make sure your CV is concise and relevant. There are numerous basic errors that are frequently ignored and will turn off your readers before they get much further than your name and address.
- Don’t feel compelled to add photos or color to your CV.
- Long paragraphs should be avoided.
- Using bold type sparingly can be effective, but don’t go overboard.
- Only use underlining to highlight webpage links.
- Use easier-to-read typefaces like ‘Times New Roman’ or ‘Arial.’
- Employers will not strain their eyes to read font sizes smaller than 11pt.
- Employ abbreviations only if they are universally known and don’t use txt talk.
Make sure there are no spelling or grammatical problems. Any mistakes you make are your own, and they are one of the first things companies look for when weeding out the less qualified individuals. Even if the job you’re applying for doesn’t need a high level of reading, spelling mistakes scream carelessness, which is a quality that no recruiter wants. Don’t put your entire trust in a spell checker because many of them are set to American settings by default. Lookup a term in a dictionary if you’re not sure what it means.
Get someone to go at your finished paper before you share it or submit it to the Internet. Professional CV checkers look at hundreds of CVs every day and can notice anything that can turn a potential employer off right away.
