It's important to give potential employers the information they need in easily digestible chunks - remember, CVs are typically looked at for less than a minute. The best way to achieve this is to choose appropriate categories. You should always ensure you present the most important information first (there's no point in telling the reader how much you enjoy playing squash if they never turn to page two to discover you also have the skills they are looking for).
. Personal details - Start with the obvious, your personal details. Remember not to give too much information. Your name, address, telephone number (including mobile), email address and date of birth are sufficient. If you have a 'wacky' email address it might be a good idea to open a new one.
. Employment - If you opt for a chronological CV the next most important section is your employment experience. See below for more guidance on this.
. Education - Next include your education. If you've just graduated, include this first after your personal details. In addition to the basic information (e.g. university name, degree, graduation date) you may wish to mention any special projects or coursework you produced, awards you achieved and teams or societies you were involved with. Place the most relevant first and leave off any that might not show you in the best light (e.g. vice-president of the university lager drinking society).
. Additional skills and experience - Increasingly employers are looking for useful skills that can be applied in the workplace above and beyond previous work experience and formal education. Highlights yours by listing any IT or language skills, voluntary work, relevant work placements and other accomplishments in this section.
. Other Interests - This is your opportunity to tell your potential employer something more about yourself. It's important to think carefully about how you will be perceived here, and to not include anything that might be detrimental to your chances of getting a job. Don't try to be funny, exaggerate hugely or lie - you'll soon be caught out and will look foolish if you say you are a keen skier if you've only been once when you were eleven. Avoid irrelevant interests such as 'drinking and clubbing', and try and be original in the way you express yourself by being specific. If you reached the national finals two years ago in badminton and coach ten younger players twice a week say so, don't just put you 'enjoy racket sports.' Looking Your Best Just as your performance in a job interview would be undermined if you were wearing rags, it is important your CV looks the part or it might be placed on the reject pile before the recruiter has even started to read it.
. Font - Choose a standard professional looking font. It's always better to play safe rather than trying to impress with a font that might look the part but be difficult to read. Arial or Verdana are your best bet. The text size should be between 9 and 12, with the smaller size useful to keep your CV from running to more than two pages.
. Formatting - The best advice is to keep it simple! Avoid graphics and images, stick to one font, save italics or bold type for headings and sub-headings, and use bullet points to highlight your achievements and don't cram everything together so it's easy to read. Filling In The Gaps After deciding how to organise your CV and what it should look like you are ready to add the most important part - the content. You can significantly increase your chances of success by following these straight-forward rules when adding the content to your CV.
. Be relevant - Unless you've never worked before and have no other job-related skills or experience it will be a struggle to fit everything you've done onto two pages (which is the maximum length a good CV should be). The solution is to pick and choose only relevant information. Always include your job experience and education, but highlight only the achievements and tasks you've undertaken that could be useful or of interest to a potential employer.
. Choose your words carefully - Don't just state what you've done; succinctly tell the reader how you did it by using 'action words' as this will help bring your achievements to life. For example: "Sales Manager. Assisted clients buying properties in Greater London and South East. Recruited and trained team of 10 new sales advisors. Used French language skills with international clients. Exceeded sales targets by 25 per cent."
. Support your claims - Always include numbers, percentages and statistics that help back-up your claims. How many people did you supervise or train? How much new business did you bring in? How much did your sales increase? How many clients did you work with? How many projects did you work on?
. Check it - Don't fall down at the last hurdle by including a spelling mistake or silly typo. Print your CV and read through it carefully to check there are no mistakes.
Send it off! Now that you have a killer CV on your hands it's time to send it off. You can use CV Highway to instantly distribute your CV and gain maximum exposure to carefully selected job sites and recruitment agencies across the UK that offer or specialise in jobs that match your skills, experience or aspirations.
If you aren't successful straight away don't be scared to go back and make changes to improve your CV and remember to always update it with new accomplishments. When you get an interview always re-read your CV so it is fresh in your mind and try and anticipate questions you might be asked. Good luck!
