CV Tips

Making Your CV Work For You Simplicity Sells
The CV is your opportunity to sell yourself. Employers will review the CV and make a decision on whether or not to interview from the information you put into it.

It is a selling tool so take care to complete it. A CV is your first and possibly only chance of securing an interview. It is therefore vitally important that it works for you and not against you. Use it to draw attention to your strengths, achievements and technical know-how.

Begin With Achievements
Be positive throughout you CV and use active verbs, such as, achieved, set up, managed, responsible for, led.

Work History
Always start with your current employment and work back, remembering to include the name of your employer, start and end dates, your job title and a brief description, plus your achievements.

Honesty is the Best Policy
But don't sell yourself short. Lying on your CV will be the quickest way to lose the job. Employers will use your CV as the basis for interview and if they detect that you have been untruthful with the information, they will form a negative opinion of you as a potential employee.

Relevant Skills
List all of your skills that are relevant to the position and any relevant software packages. Don't list packages that you haven't used for years, because if you are asked about them at interview you will look foolish.

Education
If your work history is very limited give equal attention to achievements while at University - but not if you have been in the job market for more than two years.

Don't Cram Information Together
Don't feel you need to keep your CV to one page. If it's three pages then fine, as long as the content and layout is appropriate. If your potential employer has to work hard to read your CV, they will quickly lose interest.

Spelling
ALWAYS check for typos and grammatical errors otherwise you risk your CV going straight in the bin. Don't rely on the spell check to pick up any mistakes, read it over thoroughly and ask someone else to proof read it for you.

References
Check with referees before you use their names. The best people to use for references are your current employer or a professor or teacher at your college/university.

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