We were all once in the position of writing our first CV or resume, and here are some basics to get you started. If you’re applying for a job, most professional positions will require you to write out a personal CV. ‘CV’ stands for ‘Curriculum Vitae’ (Latin meaning ‘story of your life’) and is a brief description of your education and career so far. Using a CV will provide your prospective employer with all the basic information that an employer needs to know about you on a single, easy-to-read sheet. Your CV should be ideally just one page, but certainly not longer than 2 pages, and all of the ‘impressive’ information should be easily visible on the front page.
It is best to type your CV out on a computer as this will be easiest to scan-read for the employer. Once you have written and typed it, you can make as many copies of your CV as you like. This is particularly useful if you want to apply to several different companies at the same time. You should send your CV with a cover letter which can be tailored to highlight your personal skills and achievements and how these match what the employer is looking for.
You can send a copy of your CV when you’re applying for an advertised job vacancy or when you’re just writing on the ‘off-chance’ there is a vacancy.
So, what should be included on a CV?
Personal details – name, address, post code, telephone number, e-mail address (if you’ve got one)Education
- Qualifications
- Skills and personal qualities
- Employment history and experience
- Any special skills e.g. driving licence
- Interests, hobbies and achievements
- Referees
Are there different ‘styles’ of CV?
The ‘traditional’ CV is a comprehensive list of everything in reverse date order (with the most recent at the top) starting with education and qualifications, followed by your employment history, then finishing with interests and references etc.The more modern alternative is to create a ‘personal profile’ CV which starts with a description to offer the reader an idea of yourself which highlights your skills and experience relevant to the job.The latter ‘personal profile’ CV is considered more modern, but ‘traditional’ CVs may be easier for school leavers to write, and are the format still widely used. See more tips below about writing a CV for freshers from our members!
You can also consider these tips on creating a resume that will surely help you land on any job;
- Focus on Your Positive Achievements
- Highlight your best points
- Build up your image
- Be specific with your job objective
- Keep it short
- Use the first page for your Job Objective, Skills, Accomplishments and Most Recent Job Experiences
- Last but not the least, proofread your resume before submitting it to the company
Nice, explanation on CV and its beginning. writing tips etc. good source of knowledge for Freshers. thank you.
As we know for beginners its quite difficult to create resume….but your tips are going to help them…thanks
Really you make a lot of good points here..this post made me cheer! opinions to see so accurate!
Here are some very important points that a resume should carry. It should be built with lots of logic and rationalization. Be sure to include, your career objective, your experience of work, academics, any additional information and personal details to end up with.
Career Objective is that which tells everyone about your goals when you follow a profession and how you portray yourself in your work arena in years to come. Career Objective may also illustrate what method would be adapted by you to hone your capabilities. The career objective should be, however, logical and realistic. There should be realistic basis about anything that you want to actually do in your life.
The career objective presented can help the employer decide about your attitude to life and your determination. The career objective, when written with lots of intuition and creativity turns out to be an honest account of what you would actually present yourself with in the near future.
Work Experience is an important point to be emphasized in a resume, but in case of beginners, this point can be safely overlooked.
Sometimes in my line of work I am required to write a professional-looking CV, and here is what I do…
I get a template. Cheating? No. Helping yourself to make life easy?Absolutely!
Put in your personal info, and include a picture if you like. I like the ‘summary paragraph’ at the beginning of a CV so you can see what a person thinks of themselves, what they do, and who they are without reading the rest. It can either draw them in, or push the reader way so it is important that you come across as confident but not arrogant.
Put in your qualifications, most recent first, and sort multiple (i.e. A levels,GCSEs) by the highest grade first.
When talking about hobbies and interests, mention all of them, but if you enjoy spending time with your children, refer to them as ‘family’ to rule out bias.
If you wish to name references, do so, but if not, say ‘available on request’. In the case you have no references, put a teacher, family friend, or someone who knows you in a professional capacity down.
If in doubt, enrol the help of a professional like myself. They will be able to best guide you through the process.
Try and keep it on one a4 page if possible. Good luck Job Hunters!