Candidates: Producing a CV
A CV is, quite simply, an advert to sell yourself to an employer. Companies often receive many applications for any one role so a good CV is essential to gain an interview.
- A CV should be well, but simply, laid out; use bold print for headings, but do not use lots of different font types and sizes.
- Use the spell-check on your computer – but don’t rely on it! Manger, pubic, stationary and commuter are all valid words – but not quite so good or relevant as manager, public, stationery or computer…
- Considerusing bullets to start sub-sections or lists.
Because you are using a computer you can easily 'customise' your CV, and change the layout and the way you write your CV for different employers.
Picture a busy manager, who may have to read through a pile of CVs in a short space of time; he or she is very likely to have two piles: 'interested' and 'throw away'. It is important that your CV makes a good, quick, first impression - messy or hard-to-understand CVs will invariably end up in the wrong pile.
Your CV must be easy to read, attractive and short (no more than three pages – and, ideally, two).
The staff at Dragon Human Resources will be happy to offer you guidance on how to produce an interesting and professional CV. If starting from scratch we have placed a standard CV template for you to follow below.
CV Layout
In our experience, successful CVs normally follow this format:
Curriculum Vitae
Personal Details
Name:
Date of birth:
Nationality:
Address:
Telephone:
Email:
Education
Date…. Institution…. Qualifications (most recent first)
Explain higher education (University Degree/Masters) more fully, GCSE/A Level grades (or comparable) are enough by themselves.
Skills Summary
List all of your technical skills. But be truthful - only list those skills in which you are competent, as you very likely to be asked about them at interview.
Employment History – Always list this in reverse chronological order
Company:
Date:
Position:
Duties: Within this include any core achievements
Interests and Hobbies
Employers will be particularly interested in activities where you have leadership or responsibility.
They are also interested to see hobbies or interests that you have stuck at for a long period of time – and, if relevant, those where you have ‘improved’ – for example increasing levels of qualification, increased level of participation, etc
A one-person interest may be of less interest to them, unless it connects with the work you wish to do. Give only enough detail to explain. (If you were captain of a sports team, they do not want to know how many games you played, nor how many wins you had; they will ask at the interview, if they are interested.)
References:
References should be indicated as ‘available on request’ unless specifically requested.
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