The process of getting the job you want, and continuing to progress in that job, is one of self-promotion. You must sell yourself, the skills you possess and your future potential. Nearly always the first opportunity you get to sell yourself is your CV. Therefore, it makes sense to do the best possible job you can with the CV. A CV will get you the interview or cause you to be rejected at the first hurdle. And it isn't always your lack of skills as laid down in your CV that will determine your success, but rather the overall presentation, the layout, the length or even the paper it is printed on might be the determining factor.
At IT Connections we do not rewrite your CV. We compliment it with a summary covering sheet which details your skills in bullet points, and a summary of the registration interview that you will have with one of our Consultants. This is then sent to prospective employers in response to their requests for a candidate with particular skills. As you can imagine, there are a lot of candidates vying for every career opportunity, so busy hiring Managers or Directors will have lots of pressing commitments outside of the recruitment process. Therefore, we have to help them notice you. There are three fundamental criteria you must stick with when writing your CV:
Keeping the CV simple is crucial, you must try to lay it out so that it breaks down into easily identifiable chunks, this will allow the reader to assimilate the information more easily. There is nothing more off putting than trying to identify a candidates core skills when these are hidden away in different parts of the CV.
Making the CV clear is, again, clearly identifying different areas of your life so that someone can establish, for example, your educational background, or your preferred social pastimes.
Keeping the CV short is crucial, this cannot be overstated, a CV that is two to three pages long will be read, anything longer will not. How many of you groan at the sight of a large multi-paged application form, but at the same time think nothing of filling out a single side video shop application form. We may like to read weighty novels in our spare time but a prospective employer reads a CV because they have to not because they want to know every minutiae of your life. Allow yourself three well laid out clear pages of text.
Your CV should be laid in to six main areas:
Your name, address, phone number, email address, nationality, etc.
Dates, schools, colleges and universities you have attended, with details of grades and qualifications gained. Please note it is vital that you state the grade you gained at University - no grade stated will be taken as a poor grade gained!
State in reverse chronological order your employment history, state activities, responsibilities, achievements and skills gained. You should write "I did this ..." "I did that ..." and include lots of technical buzz words as it is these that a new employer will pick up on. Note that you should concentrate most space to your recent work, as time passes give over less space to older experience. You may be proud of your prowess at BBC Basic gained as a child, but it isn't going to get you the career you are applying for. Do not waste your time writing a skills list and ranking each skill. Your new employer will not be able to tell when or where you gained the experience and ignore it.
What you do in your spare time, don't dress it up, don't put sky-diving if the nearest you come to a dive is a belly flop into the shallow end at your local pool.
Details of other skills not necessarily related to work, for example language skills or the ability to tap your head while at the same time rubbing your stomach.
Names and addresses of people who will provide character references, one professional and one a personal acquaintance.
Finally, a CV is a personal document so stay within the criteria laid out above but apply your own personal interpretation. Write the CV in your own words, be truthful (you can be dismissed at a later date if you have lied), convey your enthusiasm, and present yourself in the best possible light, blowing your own trumpet is fine, remember everyone else will be.
One last very important thing - when you have written your CV send it to IT Connections and start your job search