👨🏽‍💻 CV Writing Tips 👩🏽‍💻

My recommendations are based on two main ideas:

With the above in mind, it is clear that a CV is an attention-grabbing tool. You want to communicate the most important things about yourself in less than 20 seconds.

 

Some persons write “Curriculum Vitae” or “Resume”. This is wrong and a waste of space. The heading of the CV should provide the two most important pieces of information about yourself: Your name and your relevant qualifications (relevant to the role you are applying for). The qualification could be your highest degree, or professional certification, or both, for example, “Julius Caesar (BSc)” or “Julius Caesar (PMP)” or “Julius Caesar (BSc, PMP)”.

 

This is important because it immediately tells the CV reader your name and conveys to him or her that you have at least one qualification that is directly relevant to the job.

 

 

Follow your CV heading with your contact details, all on one line. “Email: [email protected]; Phone: +1234567890; Location: City of Rome”.

 

You do not need your full residential or commercial address because it is an irrelevant detail at this point. The company will ask for such details when they are about to make you an offer or at the interview. However, your current city is important because it immediately conveys to the CV reader whether you will be needing relocation or not. Some companies also use this information to decide how much they will pay you as compensation for your travel for an interview.

 

Some persons call this section a “Career Objective” or just “Objective”. I prefer “Professional Summary” because it is more reflective of the true picture of what you would like to say. But before I go further, let me say now that if you do not have anything truly unique to say about yourself, if all you have is the usual “I am a hard worker” “Passionate about my job” “Team player” “Passionate about not starving to death” etc, you should completely avoid having this section on your CV because it is a waste of time.

 

That said, if you must write a professional summary, make it a summary of your CV and ambitions in a maximum of 4 lines. You do not have to write everything about yourself here; just focus on the 2 or 3 most important things about you.

 

In writing your Professional Summary, be sure to include up to 5 keywords that are relevant to the role you are applying for. Look at the advertised job description and requirements, identify the keywords and weave them into your Professional Summary (and the rest of your CV for that matter).

 

Recall that constructing your CV is a game of space optimisation. Knowing that the CV reader has very little time to see what you have to offer, your aim is to put the most important information as early as possible. This makes what comes after your Professional Statement, very important.

 

What comes after your Professional Statement depends a lot on what you perceive to be the most important requirement of the job you’re applying for. If having the right degree and the right grade of degree will be a major factor, then be sure to include your education and your grade, if it is good.

 

If you have no relevant work experience, then your education is your main asset, it should come immediately after the Professional Statement. Note that if your grade is not an upper second-class or a first-class, do not state it. Not stating your grade if it is less than a 2¹ does not mean you are lying, it simply means you are not giving the CV reader a reason to screen you out even before looking at the rest of your CV and possibly inviting you to an interview.

 

Your education section should contain only your post-secondary education because nobody really cares about where you did your secondary school. The only situation I can think of where stating your secondary school might be beneficial is if you know for sure that the CV reader went to the same school; in this case, he or she is very likely to be biased in your favour!

 

Still on the theme of having no impactful work experience relevant to the job, if your experience is not relevant but you have other skills, professional trainings or professional certifications that may be directly relevant to the job, state them before your experience; your experience should come last because it is the least factor that can contribute to your being invited for an interview.

 

In my case, I have 3 highly relevant professional certifications which I write after my professional statement. One line for each certification. I follow that up with my education, one line for each degree, for instance, “79 BC – BSc Political Engineering – First Class – University of Roma, Roma.” Then my experience comes in. My experience doesn’t come before my professional certifications and my education because I am confident that my Professional Summary/Statement has done sufficient justice to my experience. So I can afford to not have it within the first half-page of my CV.

 

 

Some roles require some highly specific software skills. If a role requires such skills and you have them, it is a good idea to place the “skills” section before the education section. Things like “Leadership”, “Teamwork” “Ability to work under pressure” etc do not count as “Skills.” They may be skills in real life but they are a waste of space on your CV because merely stating them on your CV does not mean you have them. Unique software skills like “Primavera P6 for Project Scheduling and Tracking” or “Power BI for Data Analysis” etc are worth mentioning as skills that you have. If the only software skills you have are MS Word and PowerPoint, they may not be good enough to come before your education section. If you know MS Excel at an advanced level, you can state it before your education because it is indeed a powerful software and if it is stated as a requirement for the job, then being an advanced user is a major advantage for you.

 

I mentioned professional courses earlier but I want to add here that not every course you take deserves a place on your CV. Some of these courses are just personal development and you can simply list them as skills (if they are relevant to the job you are applying for). If you are applying for a job as an Engineer, listing an online course in Digital Marketing is most likely a waste of space on your CV. Once again, you are trying to make the best use of limited space to sell yourself, don't include irrelevant information.

 

The recruiter is not interested in what you like to do for fun or how you like to while away time. Replace the “Hobbies” section with “Other Interests”. This way, you can highlight other things about yourself that communicate your suitability for the job. For instance, if you are interested in sports, be sure to mention that you like “team sports because they give you the opportunity to develop teamwork and leadership ability”. This is much better and more impactful than writing “teamwork” or “leadership” as a skill that you possess or stating it as part of your Professional Summary/Statement.

 

By the way, don’t just copy what I have written here, remember that other persons reading this write-up are likely to copy it as well. Be creative and come up with interests that will speak positively for you. If you like reading books, mention specific books and the things you learnt from those books that are relevant to the job you are applying for.

 

 

This is usually a difficult one to explain because people have the misconception that size (volume) = impact. That is not the case for a CV. And many people find it really hard to leave things out of their CV to make it brief.

 

But look at it from the perspective of the person reading the CV. Considering that the CV reader has very little time to go through your CV (possibly because he/she has hundreds of CV to go through), it makes sense to have a CV that is not bulky at all.

My general rule of thumb is that every 5 years should represent 1 page on your CV, however, there are times when a couple of years on a job give you several years worth of experience, in such cases, you may set aside the general rule of thumb.

 

Constructing a CV for a particular job is an art of excluding and including information. Generally, any information that does not directly or indirectly help you secure an interview should be left out; and the most vital information that helps you secure an interview should be included, and, be ready to defend or explain whatever you include on your CV without pausing to think about it. It should flow easily because it is true.... which brings me to the next point...

 

 

Do not include a single line on your CV that you cannot explain or defend truthfully. Sometimes recruiters do background checks and it will look bad if you make false claims. A common one is people claiming to be proficient users of Microsoft Excel. If you are not a proficient user of Excel, do not say you are. If you happen to be tested on the spot at an interview, you will embarrass yourself.

 

For online applications, if a document format is specified for CV submission, be sure to submit as per specification. Where a format is not specified, I recommend submitting in PDF, and not MS Word. The reason is you do not know the MS Word version that is being used by the receiver and you want to avoid compatibility issues if the receiver is using a version of MS Word that is not the same as yours. Using a different CV version to open a file that is created in another format can cause distortions in the arrangement/structure of the CV and it will look not nice.

 

Your CV filename should contain your name and the role you are applying for. For example, “CV _Julius Caesar_Emperor”. Alternatively, you can use your name and your highest qualification, for instance, “Julius Caesar_PhD.”

 

For recruiters collating CVs for multiple roles, this simplifies their sorting process and it works in your favour because you don’t want your CV dumped in a folder meant for a role you did not apply for.

 

Where font size and type are specified, always go with the specification. However, in the absence of any specification, any size between 11 and 13 should be fine.

 

As for font type, my personal favourites are Calibri and Cambria. Calibri has replaced Times News Roman as the default font in MS Word these days and I like how it appears clear in both large and small font sizes.

 

To conclude, your CV is a tool for putting your best foot forward early. If the key things about your suitability for the job you are applying to can all be captured in your CV Heading, and Professional Statement, by all means, make sure they are stated there and then structure the rest of your CV to follow that pattern.

 

You do not have to include every bit of information on your CV. Some pieces of information are not relevant (unless they are specifically asked for), so you can leave them out or at the very least, put them at the bottom of the CV.

 

Every sentence or line on your CV should be a high-impact sentence or line.

 

Finally, treat your CV as a live (an evolving and changing) document. Look at it constantly to find opportunities for optimisation. Your primary CV should just be a template that you adjust every time you want to apply for a different job. Do not have one CV for all jobs and all companies! Taking a few minutes to adjust your CV (focus on the Professional Statement and the sequence of the CV's sections) might mean the difference between being called for an interview or not.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Cheers!