In this section
Writing a CV
Writing a CV
Your CV should be a summary of your relevant skills, achievements and experiences. What can you offer to an employer or course recruiter. It should provide information on what your potential is. Clearly, your response should tally with what they are looking for in the personal specification and job description. The presentation of a CV should be thoughtful, structured and critical rather than a mass of everything you’ve ever done.
In essence, you note down:
- the duties you actually performed
- the skills you developed from them
- and the evidence you can provide to back up the claims
You need to demonsrate:
- What you have to offer (you can do the job, will fit in)
- Evidence to back up claims (academic, work experience, interests)
- Level of content and focus (needs to stand out and pass the scan test so tailor it to the position)
What to include?
Personal details
These tend to go at the top of the page and should not take up to much space (name, address, contact number and email is sufficient)
Date of birth is optional and not a requirement.
Do not include your nationality
You might want to include gender if it is not clear from the name alone>
It is also not necessary to put marital status.
Education
Your most recent education comes first: the employer is less interested in your GCSEs than in recent trainings and qualifications.
A structure would be to include
- name of University, years of study, degree awarded/expected
- brief one line summary of degree if unclear
- bullet points of modules which may be relevant
- any specific thesis or final project could also be given a separate mention
- skills gained can be listed/bulleted as in what you did (compiled, analysed, data collected, presentations made)
This can be adapted and clearly with school and even undergraduate degrees you would not need all of the above information.
Careers or employment history
Jobs should be also put in reverse chronological order. Again, it is important to match your abilities with what they are looking for in their person spec. It is good structure this section as in your actual duties and skills learned form doing them.
You may wish to change the order from chronological to relevance if you feel some of the more important experiences are lower down the list.
A structure would be to include
- position/post, name of employer and date
- main duties
- skills gained
It is optional whether to list referees on your CV. You could simply state that references are available.
Personal profiles are optional but are a statement(s) that offer a brief overview of your skills and ambitions and sort of fit between personal details and education section. Think about what you include as it can come across as a bit generic and bland. But you could give a useful unpretentious statement or two about yourself.
It is best not to include information for hobbies and interests if it is going to simply detract from your strengths. Only include something that you feel is going to add to their impression of you.
What you should leave out:
- inappropriate email addresses/names
- negativity in language
- emotive language
- false information
- mistakes
- long lists
For more senior and experienced applicants, you amy want to include a section or addendum on conferences, attended, publications, electives. If you have publications, this is helpful to include.
In the CV consider the
TASKS (e..g report writing, interviewing) and how they tie in with SKILLS (e.g. relationship building) and how these tie in with EVIDENCE (e.g. masters courses, research project)
How to write a CV careers groups publications available in careers library
www.prospects.ac.uk
www.ucl.ac.uk/careers
www.thecareersgroup.co.uk
www.doctorjob.co.uk
www.grad.ac.uk
