Guide to writing a CV
What is a CV?
CV stands for curriculum vitae and it is your chance to show an employer the best of what you have. It is about selling your skills and experience, and showing them you are the right person for the job. Initially, your CV is likely to only to receive a 15 to 30 second glance by the recruiter, so first impressions are important!
How you write your CV is up to you and there is no right way; but there are some basic rules to follow if you want to create the best impression.
Golden rules of a CV
- Easy to read.
- Concise layout.
- No more than two sides of A4.
- Original but interesting.
- Honesty but positive!
- Friendly font and font size between 10-12.
- Use bold to highlight.
- Use bullet points.
- Account for all gaps in employment; for example if you have been at home with your children put ‘homemaker’ as your title and bullet point your responsibilities.
What to include
- Personal details - section consists of full name, address, email and telephone number.
- Personal profile - is a short piece of writing about yourself, including career ambitions and your personal qualities.
- Key skills - highlight your skills which are relevant to the job that is advertised.
- Employment history - most recent job should go down first and work backward. Give the dates, company name and job title. This should then be followed by a short job description and list of achievements in the role.
- Voluntary work - employers are always impressed with unpaid work so add them to your CV.
- Education history - most recent qualification goes down first; add all secondary school, colleges and university. Include dates attended, name and town of school and any qualifications gained.
- Hobbies and interests - two to three sentences about your hobbies. This highlights to employers about your social skills.
- Reference available upon request - at least one referee should be work-related. If you haven’t worked for a while, you could use another responsible person who has known you for some time. You can list your referees on your CV or put ‘references available on request’. If you decide to include their details you should state the relationship of each referee to you. For example, ‘John Turner, line manager’.
What not to include
- Do not make it too long.
- Do not put marital status, age, gender, visa status and ethnic origin.
- Avoid unnecessary use of coloured paper, images, photographs (unless specifically requested) and an over elaborated format.
- Keep negative information such as salary, age, health, time unemployed out of your CV.
- Do not make common mistakes such as use of jargon, abbreviations, complicated sentences and irrelevant words.
Key skills
Your CV should highlight all the relevant skills you will bring to the role. Some examples you might include:
- Positive and responsive attitude
- Comfortable working hard to meet challenging targets and deadlines
- Able to quickly form productive working relationships with colleagues, clients and customers
- Strong or good communication skills, both verbally and in writing
- Flexible attitude to acquiring new skills at work
- Comfortable working as part of a team and independently, managing my own time
- Trustworthy with the ability to work well unsupervised
- Proven ability to work independently on own initiative and as part of a team
- Good team working skills
- Experience liaising with various departments, customers and/or suppliers
- Able to work under pressure whilst being fast and efficient
- Strong awareness of hygiene, health and safety
- Manual handling skills.
- Forklift truck driving skills and/or experience and/or CSCS card.
- Strong IT skills with good knowledge of Microsoft Office packages
- Proficient in the use of IT including computer and administrative skills, appointment bookings and data management
- Experienced in entering information on to a computer database.
It is better to give examples which demonstrate these skills than to just state you have them.