CV Making Tips!

What is a CV?

Your CV is your marketing brochure through which the prospective employer decides whether he wants to see you for an interview or not.

What is the purpose of a CV?

The purpose of your CV is to fetch you an interview call.

How to write a good CV?

Include the relevant information. Your CV may require a little bit of modification according to the type of opening you are applying for. You may need to expose different facets of your personality and work experience for different openings.

Prioritize the information

A recruiter is not interested in knowing your father's name on opening up your CV. He would rather prefer to know about your educational background, if you are a fresher and your work experience, if you an experienced job seeker. Prioritize the information in the CV to maintain the attention of the recruiter.

Emphasize at right place

Learn to emphasize at right place in the CV.  If you think, any of your particular achievements gives you a cutting edge over other job seekers for a particular opening, emphasize on it. For e.g. if you are a fresher and you have been a topper of your college or university, it is worth mentioning and emphasizing in the CV. Similarly, if you are an experienced worker and your particular achievement has been acknowledged by your employer, which you think can add more value to your CV while applying for a particular position, emphasize on it.

Use more impactfull words

Use words which demonstrate your control over things. For e.g. managed, achieved, counselled.

Use figures

Use some figures to show the extent of your activities and their impact. For e.g. Planned raw material requirements for 10 manufacturing units of the company, across 5 states.

Don't be verbose

Try to keep your CV precise and to the point. Don't fill it up with extra words. You might land up losing the recruiters attention.

Don't dump the information

A neat CV attracts the recruiter more than the one which has information dumped on it. Provide all the relevant information but in a neat and attractive manner.

Check for spellings and grammar

Try to keep your CV free of any spelling mistakes and bad grammar. They put the recruiter off.

Key areas of a good CV

While writing a CV you must first think, what is it that you want to communicate to the recruiter through your CV.  Now, write your CV keeping your objective in mind. Following are the key areas which if well written catch the immediate attention of the employer.

Executive/Career summary

A well written, short and simple executive summary at the beginning of your CV will catch the immediate attention of the recruiter. Keep it short and to the point while trying to focus on your key strengths and achievements, relevant to the position.

Work experience/ Educational background

If you have a work experience, mention it after the executive summary in a chronologically descending manner with the job profile. If you are a fresher educational back ground should find this place in your CV. Mentioning acievements rather than responsibilities is more impactful.

Mention about your achievements

Mentioning achievements out of work also plays an important role. For e.g. Elected college vice president during graduation. This demostrates your leadership quality.

Avoid using 'I',' my' in your CV

The recruiter knows well that you are talking about yourself in your CV. Avoid the use of words like I , my in your CV. It makes you look egomaniac.

Dos and Don'ts of CV writing

As you think about your job hunt, the first thing that comes to your mind is writing a good CV. Your CV is the first document a prospective employer sees about you. The objective of your CV is to fetch you an interview call. It is your marketing brochure, through which you are trying to sell yourself i.e. the employee to the buyer i.e. the potential employer. Your CV should leave such an impression on the employer that he should not be able to turn you down from the interview. If your CV achieves this, its work is done. Make your CV the best document, you possess. It will need drafting and a lot of redrafting. Don’t lose patience. Here are some suggestions on Dos and Don’ts of CV writing which should make things easier for you.

Note that these are just the suggestions, not the hard rules. You may need to break them at times and you are advised to do so, as per the demand of the situation.

Dos of CV writing

Draft and redraft your CV until you are satisfied
Make your contact details i.e. the phone no. and e-mail address available at the very beginning of your CV
Write an appealing career summary/executive summary at the beginning
If you are an experienced candidate, keep the focus of your CV on your work experience, responsibilities and achievements.
Use words with more impact to demonstrate your control over things
Write about your achievements from academic or personal life. They demonstrate a facet of your personality
Rank the achievements in order of priority
Mention about your interests out of work in the CV
Put un-important things on the second or back page, towards right side of CV
Include some numbers which can impress HR people and they allow you to meet the responsible person for an interview
Use formal font faces
Write short sentences
Keep the same tense through out your CV

Don’ts of CV writing

1.     Lies about your candidature

2.     Resume or CV on top

3.      Flashy fonts

4.     Colorful or glossy paper

5.     Photographs until asked or compulsorily required for the position

6.     Usage of ‘I’, ‘my’

7.     References until asked

8.     Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors

9.     Your age, number of kids, age of kids

10.                        Mentioning health problems in the CV. If you have some obvious health problem, inform the interviewer

11.                        Abbreviations or jargons as HR people may not understand them.

12.                        Doesn’t apply to IT candidates

13.                        Current or expected salary until asked

14.                        Mention of reasons for leaving the last jobs

15.                        Right alignment of the CV content

Sample CV-1

Name
Address
E-Mail Id
Contact No.

Objective: Your objective should fit into the purpose of the opening notified or the general requirements a company looks for. It should not be too broad and vague.

Executive Summary           

§                                 If you are a fresher, focus on your qualification, grades and achievements during your student life.

§                                 If you are an experienced candidate, focus on your work experience and the skills you have acquired during your employment.

§                                 If you have any expertise on any software packages which can be useful for the company, its a good place in your CV to mention about it.

§                                 If you have any other skills which you think would impress your prospective employer, its a good place to mention them. They will catch the employers attention fast.

§                                 In this section of CV you can also mention about your travel with in or outside the country which added value to your last company.

Work Experience
Working as 'designation' for 'company's name' since 'month and year'

Job responsibilities

§                                 Mention about your key responsibilities in this section of CV in bullets.

§                                 Do not make it an endless paragraph.

§                                 Use professional words.

§         Write about the skills you have acquired during this assignment.

Worked as 'designation' for 'company's name' from 'starting month and year' to 'ending month and year'.

Job responsibilities

§                                 Proceed like last description

Achievements

§                                 Your achievements during the professional or the student life can be mentioned here.

§                                 If you have received any recognition at work, it can be mentioned in this part of your CV.

Extra Curricular Activities

§                                 The activities in this section show a facet of your personality.

§                                 Activities you used to participate in during your student life and still continuing can find a place here.

Hobbies

§                                 Activities that you do during your free time. 

Personal Information

Date of Birth
Nationality
Languages known

References

§                                 You can provide them when asked.

§                                 Provide one reference from your professional life and one from your personal life.

Sample CV-2

Name:
Address:
Contact No.:
E-mail:

Career Summary

• Develop it as a short paragraph of approximately 50-60 words.
• Write about your career aspirations and what you have to offer to the market.
• Your career summary should cover your skills, attitude, knowledge and work experience.
• Write your career summary in third person singular. Draft and re-draft it.
• Your career summary should be supported with the CV content.
• Write your career summary in such a way that the interviewer should be able to get a gist of your career in 30 seconds and shortlists you for the interview.  

Key Skills

• Develop this section in the bulleted format, to make your CV user friendly.
• Write about the key skills you have gained during your last employments. Focus on the skills relevant to the position you are apply to.
• Mention some figures which can impress the selectors and they shortlist your CV for an interview.
• Any special out of work activity can also find a place in this section of CV. This activity demonstrates a facet of your personality.

Achievements

• Write this section also in a bulleted format. It makes your CV user friendly.
• The achievements should be listed in the rank of priority.
• Try to relate your achievements with some figures
• The achievements section of your CV aims at telling the prospective employer, “This is what I did for my last employer, I can do it for you alsoâ€�

Interests

• This is a good place in CV to write about your interests out of work.
• Write them in bullets.
• They throw a light on the different facets of your personality

Work Experience

• Write this section of your CV also in bullets 
• Designation, company name followed by duration for example: 

Marketing Manager                            April 2000 to Oct 2001 
XYZ company

• Job responsibilities below the position details. They can be mentioned as bullets or as interesting prose.

Educational Qualification

• Write this section of your CV also in bullets
• If your qualification required for this role is lesser than what is actually expected but you have a good work experience and knowledge about your area of work, do not focus your CV on the qualifications. 

Personal Details

Date of Birth
Languages Known
Marital status