COMPONENTS AND DETAILS OF A PROSPECTIVE CV THAT IS MEANT TO GUARANTEE YOU A VACANCY

1.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. 2. Education and qualifications Some employers may spend as little as 45 seconds skimming a résumé before branding it “not of interest”, “maybe” or “of interest. BI Business School Your degree subject and university, plus A levels and GCSEs or equivalents. Mention grades unless poor! 3. Work experience *. Use action words such as developed, planned and organised. *. Even work in a shop, bar or restaurant will involve working in a team , providing a quality service to customers, and dealing tactfully with complaints. Don't mention the routine, non-people tasks (cleaning thetables) unless you are applying for a casual summer job in a restaurant or similar. *. Try to relate the skills to the job. A financejob will involve numeracy , analytical and problem solving skills so focus on these whereas for a marketing role you would place a bit more more emphasis on persuading and negotiating skills. *. " All of my work experiences have involved working within a team-based culture. This involved planning, organisation, co-ordination 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. " 4. Interests and achievements Writing about your interests Reading, cinema, stamp-collecting, playing computer games Suggests a solitary individual who doesn't get on with other people. This may not be true, but selectors will interpret the evidence they see before them. Cinema: member of the University Film-Making Society Travel: travelled through Europe by train this summer in a group of four people, visiting historic sites and practising my French and Italian Reading: helped younger pupils with readingdifficulties at school. This could be the same individual as in the first example, but the impression is completely the opposite: an outgoing proactive individual who helps others. *. Keep this section short and to the point. Asyou grow older, your employment record will take precedence and interests will typically diminish greatly in length and importance. *. Bullets can be used to separate interests into different types: sporting, creative etc. *. Don't use the old boring cliches here:"socialising with friends". *. Don't put many passive, solitary hobbies (reading, watching TV, stamp collecting) oryou may be perceived as lacking people skills. If you do put these, then say what you read or watch: "I particularly enjoy Dickens, for the vivid insights you get into life in Victorian times" . *. Show a range of interests to avoid coming across as narrow : if everything centres around sport they may wonder if you could hold a conversation with a client who wasn't interested in sport. *. Hobbies that are a little out of the ordinary can help you to stand out from thecrowd: skydiving or mountaineering can show a sense of wanting to stretch yourself and an ability to rely on yourself in demanding situations *. Any interests relevant to the job are worth mentioning: current affairs if you wish to be a journalist; a fantasy share portfolio such as Bullbearings if you want to work in finance. *. Any evidence of leadership is important to mention: captain or coach of a sports team,course representative, chair of a student society, scout leader: "As captain of the school cricket team, I had to set a positiveexample, motivate and coach players and think on my feet when making bowling and field position changes, often in tense situations" *. Anything showing evidence of employabilityskills such as teamworking, organising, planning, persuading, negotiating etc. 5. Skills *. The usual ones to mention are languages (good conversational French, basic Spanish), computing (e.g. "good working knowledge of MS Access and Excel, plus basic web page design skills" and driving ("full current clean driving licence"). *. If you are a mature candidate or have lots of relevant skills to offer, a skills-based CV may work for you 6. References *. Many employers don’t check references at the application stage so unless the vacancy specifically requests referees it's fine to omit this section completely if you are running short of space or to say"References are available on request." *. Normally two referees are sufficient: one academic (perhaps your tutor or a project supervisor) and one from an employer (perhaps your last part-time or summer job). Post on our page on Choosing and Using Referees for more help with this. The order and the emphasis will depend on what you are applying for and what you have to offer. For example, the example media CV lists the candidate's relevant work experience first. . . . Frequent flops in a CV: When asked what would make them automatically reject a candidate, employers said: *. CVs with spelling mistakes or typos 61% *. CVs that copied large amounts of wording from the job posting 41% *. CVs with an inappropriate email address 35% *. CVs that don’t include a list of skills 30% *. CVs that are more than two pages long 22% *. CVs printed on decorative paper 20% *. CVs that detail more tasks than results for previous positions 16% *. CVs that include a photo 13% *. CVs that have large blocks of text with little white space 13%

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