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Write the Winning CV

A well written resume or CV is vital when in an increasingly competitive job market. Curriculum Vitae is commonly abbreviated to CV and literally means “course of one’s life”. Employers regularly receive many CVs for each available job so use our CV Tips in order to create a professional quality CV is vital if you don’t want to be filtered out of hiring process.

A professional CV is also vital during an interview as many interviews use your experience stated in your CV as a template, therefore use our cv tips to help you create a CV which focuses on your strengths and achievements is important.

There are many professional CV writing services that you could use but the CV Tips within this section help you to write a CV yourself with little effort and should help you to start on the correct path.

General Advice

CV Tips – A CV should:
• Be word-processed, well laid out and printed on a good quality printer.
• Not use different font types and sizes.
• Use plenty of white space and have a good border around the page.
• Be spell checked.
• Use bullet points to start sub-sections or lists.

CV Tips – You should:
• Imagine yourself as a busy manager who has to read through 100’s of CVs a day.
• Make sure that your CV is easy to read, short, simple and attractive.
• If you don’t tell them, then they don’t know about it.
• Get somebody else to read your CV.
• Making it shorter, more readable and more understandable.

Before you Start

CV Tips – You should:
• Consider how your skills, education and experiences compare with the skills that the job requires.
• How much information do you have about the job description, sometimes employers do not give enough information so ask if you need more details.
• Spend time researching details about the job and the employer, look at their publicity, reports, publications, business reports, trade papers, newspaper reports and the internet.

What to include

CV Tips – Personal Details:
• Include your personal details (name, home address, phone number, email address).
• Include your own website if you have one.
• Include your gender if your name does not obviously show whether your male or female.

CV Tips – Education:
• Include the names of the places of education where you have studied (most recent first).
• Include subject options taken in each year of your course.
• Consider using a two column table to list your educational qualifications and courses taken.
• Pre-college courses (high school etc) should then be included along with the grades gained.
• Subjects taken and passed just before college will be of most interest (earlier courses taken when you were younger may not need much detail).

CV Tips – Work Experience:
• List your most recent experience first.
• Give the name of your employer, job title and what you actually did and achieved in that job.
• Part-time work should also be included.

CV Tips – Interests:
• Activities where you have been in a position of leadership or responsibility.
• A one-person interest if it connects with the work you wish to do.
• Articles that you have published jointly or by yourself.
• Any time of volunteer work.

CV Tips – Skills:
• Any abilities in other languages.
• Any computing experience.
• Possession of a driving licence should also be included.

CV Tips – References:
• Usually give two names, one from your place of your study and one from any work situation (if this does not apply to you then you could ask an older family friend who has known you for some time).
• Make sure your references are willing to give you a reference and include their day and evening phone numbers if possible.

CV Tips – Length:
• Include page numbers at the bottom of the pages.
• Everything you need to say should fit onto one sheet of A4 but do not crowd the page, it is usually best to use two sheets as a guide.

CV Tips – Chronological:
• Include information under general headings such as, education, work experience etc.
• Include the most recent events first.

CV Tips – Skill Based:
• Think through the necessary skills needed for the job that you are applying for.
• Target your CV (list all of your personal details under these skill headings.

CV Tips – Optional Extras:
• It can be good to start with a personal profile or objective statement (two or three sentences of an overview of your skills, qualities, hopes and ambitions.

CV Tips – Presentation:
• Link the style of your CV to the kind of job that you are looking for.

CV Tips – Covering Letter:
• You must include a Covering Letter when sending a CV or job application form.
• The purpose of a Covering Letter is:
• To make sure that the CV arrives on the correct person’s desk.
• To persuade the appropriate person to read your CV.
• To clearly say what job you are interested in.
• To say why you want that job with that particular employer.
• To draw attention to one or two key points in which the CV will make you suited to that particular job.
• Start your Covering Letter with an underlined heading stating the job title that you are interested in.
• Always use the style of pattern of a business letter suited to your culture and country.
• Your Covering Letter should be no more than one side of A4 paper.
• It must be polite and easy to read.
• Mention when you are available.

CV Tips – Application Forms:
• We advise that you use a Covering Letter along with your application form.
• Also send your CV unless told otherwise.
• Take as much care with an application form as you would with your CV.
• When completing an application form you should:
• Write everything that you want to say on a separate piece of paper first.
• Fill it in neatly, clearly and in black pen so it can be easily photocopied.
• Photocopy the completed version and take it with you when you go to the interview so that you can remember exactly what you said.