10 Things You Should Have In Mind When Building Your CV

by Stephanie Blye

1. Simplicity.

Your CV is the first and probably the last chance to get yourself an interview. So it is for your own best that your resume work for you and not against you. Use your CV to attract attention upon your abilities, your achievements and your technical competencies.

2. Achievements.

Yes, the achievements must have a great importance in your CV. When listing everything you have achieved in your past experience, you should use the so-called "active verbs" as: "I achieved", "I managed to", "I obtained, "I planned", I was responsible for...", "I coordinated" etc.

It is not advised to use a lot of punctuation marks when you organize your ideas. A CV is more easy to read when everything is written in a coursive way.

3. Reversed chronology.

Whenever you are listing your education or your previous jobs, you should start with the most recent one and finish with the most remote one. With your job experience, don't forget to mention the name of the company you have worked in, the date when you have begun working there and the date when you have ended that contract, the name (title) of the job and some short but suggestive description of it, plus your achievements. If this is the first time you're applying for a job, then mention any relevant experience, paid or not.

4. Honesty.

If you lie in your CV, not only do you harm yourself, but you also make the employer waste precious time. It may sound good to add 6 months to your job experience, but if the info you declare is being checked upon, you can say that job good-bye! But don't sell yourself at a cheap price either. If you consider the three months you have spent in France as a volunteer have helped you gain precious experience, don't hesitate to mention them!

5. Computer skills.

Never forget about the computer skills in your CV! You need to list everything you know in the IT field: hardware knowledge, software, programming languages, data bases etc. But don't mention things you are not sure about or you have not done for some time now because if during the interview you will need to prove them and you don't know how... well... you will appear ridiculous!

6. Education.

It's yours, take advantage of it! Pay special attention to achievements you have had during college. But be aware that these things lose their relevance if you have worked somewhere for more than two years!

7. CV organization.

The rule says not too long! But not too short either! Don't keep your CV of just 1 page if you have something else to say and your job experience is vast. Also, don't use small letters either because if the employer must make a big effort to read it, he will lose his interest and pass to the next one in no time.

8. Grammatical and spelling mistakes.

That's a NO! No employer will hire a person who didn't even bother to have a CV spell check and proofreading. Never underestimate the employer and consider he might be in a hurry when reading your resume. Read your CV three times from the beginning to the end and pay very much attention!

9. Two is always better than one!

Two pairs of eyers that is. After you have proofread your CV, ask someone else to have a look at it because someone who sees it for the first time might actually observe something which you haven't, especially spelling mistakes. Also, don't fill in your CV just in one session. Get back to it after one or two days and have another check-up.

10. References.

Always check your references before making use of their names. There's nothing worse than using the name of a person which either has moved away or has something against you. The best people you can use as referees are your former employers or your college and high school teachers.