What is a CV anyway?
A CV or Curriculum Vitae is a document used to show a persons educational achievements , key skills and work experience. There are a number of standard methods of writing a CV, but basically they contain the same information, just in a different order. A CV or Curriculum Vitae is
- Your Life History,
- Your Job History,
- Your Achievements,
- Your Skills.
Make sure you can spell CV correctly too! The correct spelling is Curriculum Vitae.
Whatever reason you have for writing a CV, its important to keep it up to date and also to tailor it for the purpose. Don't forget that a CV will not get you a job. No CV will do that. If you are using your CV to find a new job, a CVs role is to get you to an interview (interview tips).
Why should I have a CV?
A CV is a marketing tool. With your CV you will be able to promote yourself. Imagine the CV as being a brochure that lists the benefits of a particular service. The service being your time and skills! When writing a CV, look at it from your employer's point of view. Would you stand out against the competition (the other candidates) and would the manager want to talk you for a possible job? You have to ask yourself these questions when writing your CV.
Networking and interviewing are essential for your job hunt and your CV is just the first step in the job search. However, a CV will be your first contact with potential employers and will open the door. If you are invited for an interview you would then be in a position to explain and expand on what is in your CV.
Having a full CV is always a good idea as you never know when a good opportunity will come up. Make sure you always add any newly absolved relevant courses or qualifications. This way, when you find yourself applying for a job in three months time, your CV will already be written and having to remember all your courses/experiences/projects will not be an issue. If you then apply for a different position, all you will need to do is edit your CV to suit the particular post.
Focus on your skills
If you have switched jobs very fast (less than one year), keep the focus of your CV on the skills acquired rather than the jobs you have done. This can be done by listing your key skills on the front page immediately after your career summary.
Write about your achievements
Your achievements during your last jobs communicate that this is what you did for your last employers and this is what you can do if they hire you. So, write your achievements immediately after your skill set in your CV - mention any formal recognition received from your former employers for your role.
Mention your qualifications
Your next "weapons" are your qualifications. So, if you have good professional/ educational qualifications, write about them after your skills.
Use words with greater impact
Use words that show your control over things like acquired, approved, managed, analysed, resolved etc.
Last jobs on last page
It is human tendency to pay comparatively less attention to the information on the back pages. The same holds true for the information towards the right hand side of the page. So, write about the jobs you've held on the back page with commencing and leaving dates towards the right.
How to tackle weaknesses in your CV?
Some employers actively look for reasons not to employ you. It is easier to find flaws in a person and decide which candidates have the least, rather than compare their skills and achievements. This is why it is important to show them only weaknesses you want them to see. In CV writing it is important to understand what will be considered to be a weakness in the job you are applying for. One job's weakness is another job's strength. A weakness or a perceived weakness by a recruiter can have a huge impact on your chance to be called for an interview.
- The mechanics of producing a decent CV
- The thought process behind a good CV
Before you ever write any kind of application it would help to pause, take out a clean sheet of paper and write the title: What do I want them to know about me ?
Forget about your personality: do not tell them you are enthusiastic, tenacious, good at teamwork and kind to lost kittens! You can send these messages, but it must be in a professional way.
Once you have isolated a core message you can substantiate it, either in bullet points straight away if this is the main introduction to your CV, or when you come to describe your most important, most recent job. In general, I prefer my bullet points and headlines to form a coherent story rather than appearing as brash claims that don’t connect with evidence.
The first element that a recruiter will take notice of in your CV should not really be the trivia about where you live, how old you are and what schools you went to. Far better to create a brief sketch of yourself that positions you at the right level so that the reader knows at once that you are a relevant candidate for the job. If you do this well you will probably never need alternate versions of your CV for different applications because your main message will be so clear and on target. If you happen to locate a job with a different emphasis all you need change is the tone of the opening summary or the application letter you send with your CV. When you come to describing your jobs you are looking to build a story of your career in which the strongest, most recent experience has priority and the rest of the story goes back in time without repeating the minor roles over and over.
CV Writing - An insider's view
Take the time to be yourself
Your CV only has 20 seconds to impress but if you start early you have days, weeks and months to perfect it. If you look in the word-processing application on your desktop you will find templates for CV writing.
Understand what they are looking for
The person who gets that job will be the one who offers the highest level of solution to the problems the employer is trying to solve. They probably do not know exactly what they need and it may change depending on who applies. Your goal is to imagine and anticipate the kind of employee profile that will impress the type of employers you will target. This does not mean writing a new CV for every single job but it could mean being flexible on your cover letter and being able to adjust the headline content of your CV for a particular job if you do get some detailed facts.
Avoid CV automation
For many years there has been a trend for short, punchy CVs, leading with sections like profile, objectives and achievements, often crammed into one exploding page of bullet points. Try to imagine how daunting that is to the reader and how little chance you have of connecting with them as a human being who starts to understand the stranger behind the words.
We are all different so nobody can tell you what your perfect CV looks like, but there is no rule saying you can't give yourself 2 pages and generally speaking, the right pattern to follow is:
the pitch: summarise who you are and make some professional sounding claims
the validation: use the rest of the CV to prove who you are and justify those claims Your life is a narrative
Basically, you are hoping to tell a short story about your career, interesting enough to engage the reader and have them like you, impressive enough to make them consider you as a candidate and convincing enough for them to believe in what you say.
Try to avoid using the first person 'I" and 'my" because it positions you lower than a more professional form of words. Turn off the grammar checker because CVs use their own conventions and actually contain no proper sentences or paragraphs.
