Rice Rocket..

HAvent made one up in 9yrs so was hoping that someone mite know a good web site that have templates you can download, any help would be great

Thanks

Ricey

j_p_h

Cant think of the top of my head m8. But if you do a search on here about them you will find plenty of links to various sites.

Chris L

Ricey

Difficult one this. CVs are very individual things. Having been in the position of having to employ people in the past, I can confirm that there is nothing worse then trawling through 10 page CVs for each candidate! So I would offer the following advice:

Keep it short, sharp and relevant. My CV is 2 sides of A4 - no more (it has been 14 years since I left school). Remember it is a sales document - selling you. Its purpose is to get you noticed and get an interview. CVs do not get jobs - people do. If you get the interview, the CV has done its job.

Once you are at the interview stage, the company is pretty happy that you have the skill set they require. How you conduct yourself at the interview will dictate whether you get the job.

My current layout is as follows:

First sheet: top - contact details, email, telephone etc (don't add 'CV' or 'Curriculum Vitae' at the top - everyone knows its a bleeding CV, just put your name ).

The rest of the page I use to describe me i.e what I am, what I do (IT professional, x years of experience blah blah) - nothing too big, just a paragraph.

Then bullet point 5 or 6 highlights - i.e. successful projects completed, managing a team of people etc. Make sure everything is positive (managing, completing, successful rollout, etc) - it is a sales document, don't be afraid to point out things that you have done well. Don't lie and be prepared to answer further questions at the interview on the topics you've highlighted.

On the second page, list your employment history, if you have been at a lot of firms, cover at least the last 5. Give dates when you were employed and what you did - again no more than a line or 2 for each.

Then list qualifications, training and education.

After that a few personal details - maritial status, driving licence held, interests, hobbies and that's it.

Once you've done this, re-read it and then take out the spelling mistakes - there is nothing worse than a CV with bad punctuation and spelling.

When you send your CV, do so on good quality paper. If you are sending it electronically, send it in recognised formats, I normally send a basic text file version and MS word. You could also consider PDF (there are a number of free programs that can create PDFs like PDF995 - this means things can't altered easily and the format is retained.

If you are using an agency, ask them not to edit or change your CV without your permission.

In my personal experience, this has worked for me very well.

Good luck
Chris

ozzy

Paul,

If you go through a recruitment agency most of them change your CV into their own format, so the look is pretty irrelevant for those situations.

Things to stick down are:

Personal details (usual stuff here),
Your key skills (short description of why you're so great),
Job History (summary and timeline of each job and mention any achievements),
Education and any professional skills/training for your industry.

Keep it to 1-2 pages at the most.

Stefan

Rice Rocket..

Thanks guys, will take it all into consideration.

Ricey