A
well written CV is vital to your career success
Distribute
your CV to up to 3,200+ recruiters in the UK, targeted by job
function, salary level, employment level, industry and location.
The
fact that you are reading this page suggests that you would agree that a well
written Curriculum Vitae (CV) is paramount to landing the right job in the right
career. TIP:
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It's one thing to know the value of a carefully
crafted Curriculum Vitae (CV). It's another thing entirely to create one. If the
very thought of writing your CV fills you with dread, you might consider these
options. So here are some tips on how to write a better CV: Objectives
Your Curriculum Vitae has two objectives: - To secure an interview
by quickly showing that you fulfil the job requirements as described in the job
advertisement or by the recruitment agency.
- To act as a prompt
for the interviewer by providing the details that back your claim to be a preferred
candidate.
Remember: Your CV does not get you the
job - just the interview. Attributes - Your
Curriculum Vitae should enable the person screening a pile of them to quickly
ascertain the salient points that will decide whether you are a potential candidate.
- At the same time, it should also contain the detail that will interest
an interviewer. To fulfil these attributes, it must be easy to read.
Layout
The standard way to layout a Curriculum Vitae is as follows: - Start
with your personal details: name, address, phone numbers and email address.
- Continue with your educational qualifications, professional qualifications
and skills including software and methods.
- Follow this with
your experience in reverse chronological order. List employers, dates and your
title. Describe the skills and methods you used and your achievements.
- It is vital that you are conscious of the skills and experience required
by the position for which you are applying and weave your own experience of them
into your narrative.
- End with interests and hobbies but be careful:
candidates with a consuming hobby that could interfere with the business day,
might be avoided.
- Many recruiters advocate that your Curriculum
Vitae fit onto two pages but don't feel constrained by this if you genuinely need
more space to relate your key skills and experience where they coincide with the
requirements of the position for which you are applying.
Bespoke
It is essential that your Curriculum Vitae clearly demonstrate your suitability
for the position. So, consider producing a separate CV for each application that
directly addresses a match between the skills and experience required and offered.
The overall content may be the same but you could put your most relevant skills
and experience first. Typography Your CV may only have
a few seconds to impress the scanner before being relegated to the failed pile
- also called the bin. So it is of paramount importance that your Curriculum Vitae
can be easily and quickly read. Achieve this by following some simple guidelines: - When
word processing your Curriculum Vitae, save it in Rich Text Format (RTF) to ensure
that someone without your word-processing software can easily open and read it.
PDF documents can also be read by anyone who has the ubiquitous and free Adobe
Acrobat Reader but remember that readers will not be able to edit your Curriculum
Vitae, which may or may not be desirable.
- Use black ink printed
on a quality bond paper.
- Your Curriculum Vitae must be easy
to read fast. You can achieve this by the use of wide margins so that each line
of text has no more than about 70 characters. Think about newspapers that print
in quite narrow columns that can be read by scanning the eye down rather than
from side to side. Conversely, narrow margins with wide lines mean that the eye
struggles to move to the next correct line when the distance from the right side
back to the left is too far. Try top and bottom margins of about ¾ inch or 20
mm with left and right margins of 1¼ inches or 33 mm.
- Although
san serif type faces such as Arial have a clean modern look, it is actually easier
to read serif faces such as Times New Roman, Palatino or Perpetua because the
little feet or serifs on each character form an invisible line for the eye to
follow. Because Times is so overused, you may prefer to stand out by using Palatino
or Perpetua. Whichever you choose, stick with one font throughout. The only other
layout that looks pleasing and that you will see used in many newspapers and magazines
is to use a sans serif face for all heads and subheads and a serif face for everything
else.
- Don't mix lots of font sizes. Either use one size throughout
- 11 point is a good choice - or use a font one point larger for heads and subheads.
- A word-processor is not a typewriter, so don't use the space bar
to align text. Set proper stops instead. This will also make it easy if a recruiter
needs to amend your Curriculum Vitae to a standard house style because stops can
easily be adjusted whereas unnecessary spaces take ages to remove.
- Don't
use underlining or ALL CAPITALS. They are old-fashioned, look like shouting
and belong to the typewriter age when they were the only way to highlight text.
Instead, use bold, italic or bold italic but do so
sparingly.
- Above all, leave plenty of white space. Firstly,
it makes your Curriculum Vitae easier to read. Secondly, it gives the interviewer
room to write notes.
For further help explore these options:
Distribute
your CV to up to 3,200+ recruiters in the UK, targeted by job
function, salary level, employment level, industry and location.
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