CV Advice

Toker

Toker

Toker

Soldato
Joined
30 Sep 2004
Posts
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Location
Scotland
I've been approached by another company and they are after my CV, I opened mine up having not updated it for 2 and a half years and realised it's a graduate CV so will need totally re-written. Then it dawned on me I don't even know how to write a normal CV, so can any professionals offer me advice on what to include and how to lay it out? All the jobs I do are in the ICT/Well Engineering sector of the oil and gas industry, if that is relevant.

Cheers!
 
I write in the passive voice and use a layout like this, and find it works well:

Name/Contact details

Profile

First short paragraph describes you overall i.e. "highly dynamic X industry professional with Y years of Z experience specialising in A, B, C"

Two or three further short (1 or 2 sentences) paragraphs again summarising your education, skills, experience, achievements etc. "Increased revenue by 50% from FY06 to FY08". I don't back anything in this section up - that will happen in following sections. Don't be afraid of making yourself sound great!

Education

List institutions and years attended

Detail qualifications with those from the most recent institution first. Summarise less important qualifications in a sentence i.e. "A Levels in English, Science and Mathematics"

Skills

Use this section to detail what you are capable of doing and that your experience or education can substantiate i.e. "Extremely proficient Java programmer with notable skill in high speed data manipulation"

Three or four short paragraphs will do.

Everything above should be able to fit on the first page. It should set a very positive and impressive tone about who you are and what you can do.

Career and Work Experience

I lay this section out like:

Job Title 2007-Present
Company Name

Role and Responsibilities

-Developing X
-Liaising with Y
-Managing Z

Key Achievements

-Increased A
-Developed B
-Managed C
-Led D programme

This is the section where you can substantiate everything you've said about yourself on the first page. Show what responsibilities you were given, and how you met and exceeded expectations and targets by "increasing", "improving", "developing", "managing", "delivering" etc.

Finally I finish with a short "personal interests" section. If you are going to say you read, say what you like reading, what you are reading at the moment and briefly what it's about. If you are going to say you ride a bike, say where you like riding, notable places you have ridden in the past. This is a good section to mention volunteer groups or community activities you take part in.

Hopefully that gives you a bit of an idea :)
 
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hmm actually i write CV's in my spare time i'd agree with PM Keates apart from a couple of points:

1) Use 'Summary' rather than Profile much better, this needs to be written in the 3rd person (as per PMKeates example) should ideally be between 5-8 lines nothing more, you'll just be waffling.

2) Skills - think about whether you want to list skills or achievements, avoid writing paragraphs, they will most likely go straight to the rejected pile, a CV will have 30seconds to get your message across before they decide to carry on reading.

3) the Jobs layout is a lot more widely accepted to be:
Jul 07-Present [Company Name]
Job Title: Noughty Newt
Duties
Bullet point between 5-8 duties for the first 2 jobs if you have them and slowly wean them down from 3-5 to 2 if you have a lot of jobs (to list facts and figures).

Finish with Hobbies and Interests to be no more than 2 lines.

Pointer, your name should be font size 16, written in either: Arial, Tahoma or Comic Sans (i find Tahoma best when writing for clients) and you can lay out in a variety of styles i.e.

General:
Your Name
Address 1
Address 2
Address 3
County
Postcode
Mobile
Optional Email Address
^ this should all be centred on the page.

Unorthodox and most preferred (aligned left)

Address 1 [tab] Mobile: 0777777777
Address 2 [tab] Email: [email protected]
Address 3
County
Postcode
[Your Name] <-- Font 16 ofc
_________________________________________________________________________

Summary
---------------- <-- Underline and bold each section.

2pages maximum and 2 pages minimum

Hope this has helped
 
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From experience, most HR/Employers hate it when people talk in the third person, I have never done it but I have seen it and heard people complain about it!
 
i personally wouldn't write the summary/profile in the third person at all. i look at around 100 CVs a day, and i reckon i see a third person styled summary maybe once or twice a week.
 
Simon likes to work with computers, he find's them very interesting and over the last few years has increased his knowledge almost 10 fold thanks to working in a rich, technology based market.

^^just sounds like I'm crazy.
 
Sp00n said:
Simon likes to work with computers, he find's them very interesting and over the last few years has increased his knowledge almost 10 fold thanks to working in a rich, technology based market.

^^just sounds like I'm crazy.
Click to expand...

The "third person" profile is more like:

An IT graduate proficient in java and html coding with 10 years work experience in the technology based market and seeking to develop further skills in xyz

etc etc
 
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