Advice on Creating your CV

CVs go through trends. There are no hard and fast rules about the presentation of CVs but there are 'generally accepted' formats. The key factor is to remember that the purpose of a CV is to gain an interview and should, therefore, state very clearly what you can offer a prospective employer.

General guidelines:

Information should be concise - that is, brief but relevant. Keep it to 2 pages if at all possible. Faced with reading twenty CVs (or more), a Manager will very quickly discard any that are too long or too wordy. If a Manager can see what interests him/her in the first 10 - 15 seconds he/she will read on.
You do not need to use fancy artwork and especially avoid any animation - in fact this often makes them more difficult to read. Add some colour if preferred but not too contrasting and be careful not to over-do it. The only exception to this is, perhaps, if you are in marketing, graphic art or similar.
Avoid tables, text boxes and columns. This is especially important when working with agencies. Formatting can be horribly displaced when an agency adds their logo or interview notes at the head.
Believe it or not, some do not like 'Curriculum Vitae' or (worse) 'Resumé' at the head as they could be seen as 'an insult to the intelligence of the recipient' who presumably knows what it is.
Use a clear font like Arial or Verdana and avoid italics. Keep your font to a reasonable and even size (you could put your name in a larger font if you wish) and use bold face to mark important points or different areas of your CV.

Content:

Name , address, telephone numbers and email address. Indicate which is the best method of contacting you and do not put your work number in if you do not want to be contacted at work.
Personal information is optional and depends on what is important for your kind of job. Maybe here you can put your nationality and driving status. This could go at the end if preferred.
Profile: a paragraph describing the type of work sought (and where) and outlining the particular expertise/attributes you can bring to such a role.
Educational background/qualifications which only needs to go back to your secondary school - just dates, names of school/college/university and the towns.
Working history: last job first and going backwards. Give dates (including months), name of employer and a brief description of their business, your job title and bullet-point your main duties, highlighting any particular achievements.
Some words are'powerful' and can be used at the start of each point to add impact. Think of words like: developed, implemented, organised, influenced, managed, increased, reduced...
Leisure interests. Enlarge (just a little) on your interests. If you like football, state whether you are actively involved in the game. If you like music, state what kind. If you like to read, state what you like to read etc, etc.
References: You do not need to list your Referees details at this stage but can state that 'References are available on request'.
Read through your CV and, if possible, get someone else to read it to ensure it makes sense.
Run a spell-check - but don't rely entirely on the computer. Some words will be over-looked by the spell-check because they are spelled correctly but are grammatically wrong; for instance: companies and company's.

CV ADVICE