Employers can receive many C.V.s for one position it is more important now than ever to make sure that your C.V. beats the competition. Usually the employer does not get to meet with you or talk with you before they make the decision on whether to call you for an interview or not all they have to go on are the two sheets in front of them, it is up to you to put forward and image of yourself as a professional person who is capable of not only filling this role but of exceeding in it. Your C.V. is your advertisement of yourself; make sure that you are marketing your product well.
Take a look at these tips on how to write a professional and winning C.V to keep a step ahead of the competition.
Good layout.
The employer’s first impression of you will come from how your C.V. looks, if there are any grammar, spelling or formatting mistakes then this will give the employer an impression of someone sloppy who is not able to pay attention to detail. On the other hand if your C.V. is well written it will give the employer a favorable impression.
The C.V. should be;
- Concise and Easy to read; avoid having long paragraphs, try to bullet point your information, it should not look like a letter; if it looks like it will take effort to read then it might not be read. It is not up to the employer to find the information on your C.V., it is up to you to you to present it clearly. Make yourself easy to employ. Make sure your font is easy to read and that you don’t go any smaller than size 11 font. Size 9 or 10 is cheating. Keep the C.V. to two pages.
- Structured; Have all your headings clear. Avoid using tables as these are harder to read and a lot of computer management systems are unable to read them. Make sure that the C.V. is well spaced with lots of white space so that the reader can take in all the information quickly. Do not break the duties and put them onto the next page try to keep all the information together as otherwise it will look messy.
- Accurate; Many employers claim that if they see a spelling mistake in the first half of the C.V. they will not continue reading. You have a lot of time to complete this document, therefore it should be perfect. How your C.V. looks is directly linked to how the employer will view your professionalism. Always get someone else to read over your C.V. to make sure that there are no spelling mistakes. Always use tab instead of space as it can look okay on the computer screen but when you print it off there can be little differences in the placing of the words.
- Format and font – The main fonts to use when making a C. are Calibri. Tahoma, Arial and Times New Romans and Garamond. When making your C.V. everything should look the same. Keep the same font all the way through. If you bold one title then they must all be bold. If your work history duties are tabbed across, then so must your subjects for your course. You should be able to take a ruler to your C.V. and draw 3 straight lines; the line of all your dates should be the same, the line of places you worked and studied and the line of your duties and subjects. There should be no zigzagging of information. Don’t get too fancy with logos and colours, the C.V. should be easy to read and they will be mostly printed off in black and white.
The key is to make sure that your C.V. presents you as the professional person that you are.
Breda Hegarty is the Pre-employment Trainer in Business in the Community, supporting people with barriers gain employment and author of the blog www.thejobmotivator.com . For more information and to book an appointment for a place on our next free training course in relation to C.V.s . cover letters and Interview skills call (01) 874380 / (01) 8743814 or e-mail employmentprogramme@bitc.ie
Breda Hegarty - Career Counsellor 