Professional Documents
Culture Documents
What is a C.V.?
When should a CV be used?
What information should a CV include?
What makes a good CV?
How long should a CV be?
Tips on presentation
Fonts
Different Types of CV
Targeting your CV
Emailed CVs and Web CVs
Academic CVs
Example CVs and Covering Letters
Probably the first CV was written by Leonardo Da Vinci 500 years ago.
The translation of this letter is quite remarkable:
“Most Illustrious Lord, Having now sufficiently considered the specimens of all those who
proclaim themselves skilled contrivers of instruments of war, and that the invention and
operation of the said instruments are nothing different from those in common use: I shall
endeavor, without prejudice to any one else, to explain myself to your Excellency, showing
your Lordship my secret, and then offering them to your best pleasure and approbation to
work with effect at opportune moments on all those things which, in part, shall be briefly
noted below.
1. I have a sort of extremely light and strong bridges, adapted to be most easily carried, and
with them you may pursue, and at any time flee from the enemy; and others, secure and
indestructible by fire and battle, easy and convenient to lift and place. Also methods of
burning and destroying those of the enemy.
2. I know how, when a place is besieged, to take the water out of the trenches, and make
endless variety of bridges, and covered ways and ladders, and other machines pertaining to
such expeditions.
3. If, by reason of the height of the banks, or the strength of the place and its position, it is
impossible, when besieging a place, to avail oneself of the plan of bombardment, I have
methods for destroying every rock or other fortress, even if it were founded on a rock, etc.
4. Again, I have kinds of mortars; most convenient and easy to carry; and with these I can
fling small stones almost resembling a storm; and with the smoke of these cause great
terror to the enemy, to his great detriment and confusion.
5. And if the fight should be at sea I have kinds of many machines most efficient for offense
and defense; and vessels which will resist the attack of the largest guns and powder and
fumes.
6. I have means by secret and tortuous mines and ways, made without noise, to reach a
designated spot, even if it were needed to pass under a trench or a river.
7. I will make covered chariots, safe and unattackable, which, entering among the enemy
with their artillery, there is no body of men so great but they would break them. And behind
these, infantry could follow quite unhurt and without any hindrance.
8. In case of need I will make big guns, mortars, and light ordnance of fine and useful
forms, out of the common type.
9. Where the operation of bombardment might fail, I would contrive catapults, mangonels,
trabocchi, and other machines of marvellous efficacy and not in common use. And in short,
according to the variety of cases, I can contrive various and endless means of offense and
defense.
10. In times of peace I believe I can give perfect satisfaction and to the equal of any other in
architecture and the composition of buildings public and private; and in guiding water
from one place to another.
11. I can carry out sculpture in marble, bronze, or clay, and also I can do in painting
whatever may be done, as well as any other, be he who he may.
Again, the bronze horse may be taken in hand, which is to be to the immortal glory and
eternal honor of the prince your father of happy memory, and of the illustrious house of
Sforza.
And if any of the above-named things seem to anyone to be impossible or not feasible, I am
most ready to make the experiment in your park, or in whatever place may please your
Excellency – to whom I comment myself with the utmost humility, etc.”
What is a CV?
Personal details
Normally these would be your name, address, date of birth (although
with age discrimination laws now in force this isn't essential), telephone
number and email.
Try to relate the skills to the job. A finance job will involve
numeracy, analytical and problem solving skills so focus on these
whereas for a marketing role you would place a bit more emphasis on
persuading and negotiating skills:
All of my work experiences have involved working within a team-based culture. This
involved planning, organisation, coordination and commitment e.g., in retail, this
ensured daily sales targets were met, a fair distribution of tasks and effective
communication amongst all staff members.
"As captain of the school cricket team, I had to set a positive example, motivate and
coach players and think on my feet when making bowling and field position changes,
often in tense situations"
References
The order and the emphasis will depend on what you are applying for
and what you have to offer.
If you are applying for more than one type of work, you should have a
different CV tailored to each career area, highlighting different
aspects of your skills and experience.
A personal profile at the start of the CV can work for jobs in competitive
industries such as the media or advertising, to help you to stand out from
the crowd. If used, it needs to be original and well written. Don’t just use
the usual hackneyed expressions: “I am an excellent communicator who
works well in a team…… “
It is targeted on the specific job or career area for which you are
applying and brings out the relevant skills you have to offer
It is carefully and clearly laid out: logically ordered, easy to read and
not cramped
It is informative but concise
It is accurate in content, spelling and grammar. If you mention
attention to detail as a skill, make sure your spelling and grammar is
perfect!
If after all these tricks you are still on Bullets make CVs more
three pages you have to be ruthless readable
with your content: read every single Our brains love lists: they create a
word and remove it if it doesn't add reading experience with more easily
value to your CV! acquired information. We process
lists more efficiently, and retain
information with less effort. Bulleted
The one page lean and mean CV! lists appeal to our tendency to
In certain sectors such as investment categorize things since they divide
banking, management consultancy and information into short, distinct items.
They also help to alleviate the
top law firms, a one page CV, highly
"Paradox of choice": the problem
focused, highly objective CV, now that the more options we have, the
seems to be preferred. All of these worse we feel.
areas have in common that they are
highly competitive to enter and it may But don't bullet everything on your
be that selectors, faced with so many CV or it will look boring! Bulleted lists
are great for lists of skills or interests
CVs to work through prefer a shorter but are necessarily limited in content
CV. and nuance, and so contain less
depth than paragraphs.
There is no point putting lots of detailed
information into a CV which doesn't add any value, and in fact, just dilutes
the impact. This is called the presenter's paradox. These CVs normally
have lots of single line bullets and no personal statement at the beginning.
They are full of factual, as opposed to subjective, content. You must make
every word count. They focus on achievements, initiative and
responsibilities more than on tasks and duties. When carefully designed,
these can be the very best CVs, but also the hardest to write!
Tips on presentation
Your CV should be carefully and clearly laid out - not too cramped
but not with large empty spaces either. Use bold and italic typefaces
for headings and important information
Never back a CV - each page should be on a separate sheet of
paper. It's a good idea to put your name in the footer area so that it
appears on each sheet.
Be concise: a CV is an appetiser and should not give the reader
indigestion. Don't feel that you have to list every exam you have ever
taken, or every activity you have ever been involved in - consider
which are the most relevant and/or impressive. The best CVs tend to
be fairly economical with words, selecting the most important
information and leaving a little something for the interview: they are
an appetiser rather than the main course. Good business
communications tend to be short and to the point, focusing on key
facts and your CV should to some extent emulate this. The longer and
more dense your CV is, the harder it is for an employer to comprehend
your achievements. As Mark Twain said:
“If only I had more time, I would write thee a shorter letter”.
Have made speech's at Open Days Reason for leaving last job: maturity leave
I can make models using a verity of different i am a conscious individual with good attention
materials to detail (Kent grad.)
Working Kills. (This may very well be true in Received a plague for salesman of the year.
the long term but Working Skills might just be I was formally in a music group in which I
a better heading.) performed in three conservative years.
Reason for Living: Relocation I have a degree in orgasmic chemistry.
I have a doable award in science
Fonts
TIMES NEW ROMAN is the
standard windows "serif"
font. A safe bet - law firms
seem to like it but it isn't
easy to read on the screen,
especially in the small font
size you may need to use to
get your CV on one or two
pages. If you do prefer to use a serif font, try CAMBRIA which
has been designed for screen readability. See the example
fonts to the right to see how much clearer Cambria looks than
Times New Roman.
I personally prefer sans fonts - sans fonts don't have the curly bits
(called serifs) on letters. ARIAL is a standard Windows "sans" font and
is now used by the BBC web site which used to use Verdana. As you
can see sans fonts are cleaner and more modern than Times or
Cambria and also look larger in the same "point" size (the point size is
simply how big the letters are on the page). However Arial and Times
New Roman are so common that they're a little boring to the eye.
In the present competitive job market, untargeted CVs tend to lose out to
those that have been written with a particular role in mind. For example a
marketing CV will be very different from a teaching CV. The marketing
CV will focus on persuading, negotiating and similar skills where as the
teaching CV will focus more on presenting and listening skills and
evidence for these.
Even if you are using the same CV for a number of employers, you should
personalise the covering letter - e.g. by putting in a paragraph on why
you want to work for that organisation.
It sounds simple: You learn about a job opening and prepare electronic
copies of your resume and cover letter to make your case for an interview.
Not so fast, though: Clicking the "Send" button is may send your
document straight to a spam folder for unwanted e-mail. Here's how to
increase the odds your resume will be read by a recruiter or hiring
manager.
Tammy Kabell, a career and resume consultant who runs Career Resume
Consulting, said employers are "just as wary of viruses as everyone else,
and are hesitant to open unsolicited attachments." That's why she
recommends "never" sending a resume as an attachment.
Others cite these attachment pros:
=======Resume=======
It's a good idea to have your profile and CV (without personal details such
as your address of course: see right) on LinkedIn. In 2011 89% of
businesses planned to use social networks for recruitment and LinkedIn
was by far the most popular one for this purpose with 86% of companies
wishing to use it, 60% were considering Facebook and 50% Twitter. Make
sure that your Facebook page doesn't carry evidence of any of your
indiscretions that employers might view - making your page private and
viewable only by friends and family is wise!
Date of birth
Place of birth
Marital status
Copies of birth certificate/passport documents or details of your bank
You only need to give your first and last names, not your middle
name.