| Your CV is your opportunity
to describe both your current and previous achievements, along
with the type of person you are and the skills you can bring
to a future employer.
Your details on your CV should be the basic information you
are able to provide in response to the “tell me a bit
about yourself / talk through your career history to date”
Question. At interview you should be able to expand on the
details contained in your CV and you should always know your
CV ‘off by heart’.
Here are the basics: -
- Your CV should always be no more than two pages long
- Include a ‘personal profile’ at the top of
your CV
- Assume that the person reading he CV knows nothing about
the roles/companies
- Avoid Jargon
- Be proud of your achievements and be factual and specific
- When describing achievements, use words like ‘resulting
in’ or ‘which meant that’
- Describe the ‘core business’ of each company
if this is unclear.
- Start with your most recent role first and work backwards.
- Assume only the first half page of your CV will be read.
- Sell yourself!
- If you currently work in or are looking to get into the
IT sector, CV’s are commonly much longer than two
pages, often more than 2 pages can be devoted to listing
technical experience and familiarity with different software
programs and systems.
For each of your previous positions, make sure that you describe
the company and then what your role within the company was.
List underneath in Bullet format what your key achievements
at the company were and most importantly of all what the result
of your achievements were, did you improve a process, save
money, improve customer service. Try to provide tangible evidence.
List your educational qualifications on the second page,
unless you have no real experience and your studies are pertinent
to the role you are applying for. In this case your qualifications
are your strongest selling point, so put them first.
The layout of a CV is somewhat a matter of personal choice,
providing your CV is clear, succinct, interesting and well
presented, you can vary the format.
KEEP IT UPDATED - As part
of your ongoing Personal Development, you should update your
CV a minimum of once every 3 months, it is often difficult
to remember things that you did 3 years ago!
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