Have you ever wondered
why you don’t have the job that you really want despite polishing your CV and
branding it to fit the requirements of the job? Are you looking for job without
success despite having a university degree and a contingent of professional
papers? Have you dropped your CV in most companies that you have
identified and two three months there isn’t any response? Have you sent your CV
to an employer and you feel you have the job only to wait besides your phone
forever? Then my question to you this beautiful Tuesday will be, what do you
have on your CV? How many pages is it? Probably you may think you know how to
write one and think you got it all right only for your CV to let you down at a
time you need it most. My next question is what a CV is and what should be
there and what should not be there?
What is a CV?
In a few word a CV is
you. As a human capital expert, while we are short listing for our clients, the
first thing we interact with is your CV and trust me the CV should represent
you and if not, that is what kicks you off the short list of candidates for an
interview. I know the next question in your mind will be, how do I portray
myself through paper and ink? How do I write a winning CV? How do I nail that
job that I have always desired? How do I make my CV the best in a congregation
of job applicants?
A CV should portray your character, it should show your
capabilities, enable the reader to see your leadership and problem solving
skills, make people look at you as a potential employee who can drive the
company’s agenda forward and a CV should demonstrate foremost the most
important skill – technical competence. In a CV of an English teacher, you do
not expect typos, in a CV of an engineer you expect to see dynamism, in a CV of
an accountant you expect to see organization and in a CV of a social scientist
your expect to see engagement. All these should be demonstrated technically to
show the competence of the subject.
Important characteristics of a winning CV
A good CV should be:
1. Simple and straight to the point without unnecessary details.
2. 3 pages maximum unless you are a very senior professional
gunning for a very senior position.
3. Maintain similar font throughout the body, only play with the
font at the heading.
4. Interactive with the reader, it should have a conversational
tone.
5. Avoid flashy descriptions and complicated terms to show how
learned you are. Use the most basic English as if you were talking to me.
As much as CVs of different professions may have different
components, there are always basic similarities that should never miss across
board of all job applications. Of course there is a niche you need to cut when
presenting yourself as different from the rest and appear as the best who can
do the job at hand but there are basic thing that you should never miss in your
resume. I will take this part one of my two day presentation to discuss and
explain the components of a winning CV. Tomorrow, I will cover the details of
each part and what else you add to your CV to give it a little bit of
flesh. Basically,
a CV should be chronological by explaining where you have come from to where
you want to be but it is at this point prudent to note that it goes against the
tide of chronological accountancy of your life time achievements. In this, I
mean you go against time – from the present to the past.
All said and done, the following should be how a basic CV should
have:
1. Heading: A good
CV heading should have the word ‘CV’ at the top right followed by a simple
line. At the bottom of the line and with a different font in shape and size
should be you details, name, address, and email and day phone contact numbers.
There is a way you should distinguish the different sections of your CV thus
when coming up with the next information, someone should easily pick
information with ease of reference. The easier it is to visualize some basic
information from your CV, the more interesting the selection process becomes
and the more chances you have.
2. Biodata: This
is a very controversial area and most people find it wrong. Believe me; many
CVs that we get contain information under this section that is basically
unnecessary. Look at the job description very well and requirements. If a job
advert does not require single or married people then why put the information
down. At least 90% of all the jobs in the human resource market can be
performed by both male and female, single or married. Take care of the details
that you provide under this section. Be brief and straight to the point, just
ask yourself if you were in the selection team, what will you want to see.
3. Career objective: This
may or may not be there. This section is like the interview question, ‘where do
you see yourself in 10 years.’ Make sure that if you have a career objective
section on your CV it should be one paragraph and remain relevant with the CV
education. Simplicity wins you attention here because if you choose to have
this section then it is the first a selection team reads.
4. Education: This
can be brought in as two sections. The relevant education and the irrelevant
one (not that it is irrelevant passé but looking at your current level of
education, I can tell your past). Bring in the postgraduate education, graduate
studies and then later the professional education. You can decide to separate
these sections but be careful not to go to secondary education and primary
education because this is not necessary at this stage. You will want to portray
how qualified you are for the job. Bring these education sections after work
experience and all other conferences and symposia you have attended.
5. Work experience: Start
with the most current job and when describing your responsibilities, please try
to relate them with the responsibilities of the prospective job. For those who
have not worked anywhere, don’t worry state your internship experience and even
the leadership roles you have held somewhere before.
6. Hobbies, strengths, conferences attended, memberships and other
educational details: All
these details help to make your CV presentable but please I repeat that you
should maintain relevance. If your hobbies don’t match the expectations of a
job at hand, please forget this section; don’t state conferences that are
irrelevant, your strengths should be real and achievable. At this point, I will
ask you to think what people think of the person they want to employ and state
them in relation to your gains. These are the sections that carry the
achievements and should demonstrate your other side apart from your educational
attainments. Be careful though not to overstate any facts.
7. References: Three
is the recommended number of referees. In this area, people also get it very
wrong by stating referees from the same area. Of the three referees one should
be educational, another should be job related (internship included) and the
last should be from your social life but maintain corporate social, don’t give
your relative, give a corporate friend from any other company.
8. Date or period: This
probably is a new area but be careful to include it in your resume. At the very
bottom of the last page, please write the month and year in italics. This is
necessary so that when an employer digs out your CV maybe after sometime, he
will know your details by the date cited and may call you for an updated CV.
Tomorrow we will continue in this two day series of drafting a
winning CV and how to differentiate yourself from the competition. The ideas
fronted here are for you to build on and make them better for yourself. You can
refer your friends directly from facebook and twitter. Just go to the left bar
and look at the tab written, share
this on facebook, click on it and 2 seconds you are through. While you help
others an idea and opportunity pops out to you.
