Do.......
- Adapt your CV for different jobs and career moves
- Update your CV regularly
- Limit your CV for job applications to two pages
- Design your CV for ease of reading with good use of white space and headings
- Combine bold/plain/italic type faces in a consistent way
- Study job adverts and edit your CV to anticipate target jobs
- Create a professional profile, key skills or qualifications summary
- Emphasise growth points in your professional life
- Convey interest and enthusiasm for future challenges
- Present your career history in reverse chronological order (most recent first)
- Edit official job descriptions
- Highlight the skills, projects and achievements which fit your career aims
- Only briefly mention jobs of more than fifteen years ago
- Summarise your job responsibilities in 'scope' or responsibility statements
- Layer your job descriptions in a reader-friendly and quickly accessible way
- Bullet your achievements and duties
- Ensure that the basic target job requirements are clear
- Imagine that you are writing for an audience outside your current place of work
- Define some accomplishments in a results-oriented way
- Use a variety of action verbs
- Give your highest and/or most relevant educational qualifications
- Select training courses which are relevant to the career move or job
- Include ongoing professional education with expected finish dates
- Make freelance work clear by indicating the type of work first and employers second
- Explain gaps of more than six months
- Word section headings imaginatively to suit your career profile
- Give trade and professional affiliations
- Make the most of voluntary or unpaid work
- Proofread (and get someone else to proofread for you)
- Use your covering letter to echo and develop points from the CV
- Experiment with different CV styles
Don't....
- Rely on the same CV for every job
- Use a CV template without adapting it
- Write lengthy descriptions of job duties
- Attempt to say everything
- Copy your official job description word for word
- Use technical language unless you are sure the reader will understand it
- Use long lists and bullet points
- Clutter up page one with unnecessary personal details
- Allow secondary details to dominate the reader's attention
- Put 'Curriculum Vitae' at the top and label 'Name', 'Address' etc
- Include redundant information
- Give multiple email addresses
- Obscure your main achievements with routine duties
- Repeat yourself too much
- Give vague and non-specific job details
- Use the same verbs over and over again
- Dwell on jobs from more than fifteen years ago
- Include secondary/primary education if you have a higher degree
- Abbreviate, unless you are sure the reader will know what you mean
- Omit dates and places of work
- Use a small point size in order to get more information on the page
- Fill all available space with text
- Use lengthy paragraphs and sentences
- List all your training courses
- Use jargon which may not be well known outside your workplace
- Write your CV as if it were a PHP
- Use capital letters to emphasise words
- Rely on a computer spellcheck to do all your proofreading
- Send your CV without proofreading
If you want to know more about why these are considered 'Do's' and 'Don'ts' - please see the rest of this web site.
What is the difference? For the purpose of this course, CV and Résumé are treated as the same. However, there are cultural differences in how the two words are used.
CV means Curriculum Vitae. This is a Latin phrase meaning 'course of life'. 'CV' is widely used in British English for all individual job application documents.
Résumé is a word borrowed from French and means 'summary'. Résumé is widely used in North American English for most job application purposes. (CV is also used in American English but usually denotes a longer version of a résumé.)
