Are you being interviewed? - [website] Published: 3rd of Feb 2011 by: (c) Staff Training Staff Reporter
One of the reasons many job applicants don’t make it as far as the interview room is because of poor CVs,
but what do employers actually look for on our CVs and where are we falling short?
The first thing that’s important to realise when applying for a job is that your CV is the only thing that a potential employer has enabling them to form any sort of impression about you.
And form an impression they will! So if your CV is shabby, incomplete or illogically laid out - "delete". For this reason it is imperative that your CV is relevant, uncluttered and easy to read giving you a better chance of being considered for the job.
A decent quality paper is important for your CV and you should always use black or blue ink.
While image is an important factor when it comes to your CV, you shouldn’t go over the top by using fancy, cursive fonts or bright colours like green and red, and decorations should be kept to a minimum unless you’re going for a job that entails design of some kind, what you can include is a photo of yourself.
But even the smartest looking CV in the world won’t get you very far if the content is poor, so you need to know what kind of information is required of you and in what way it needs to be presented.
There are certain things that are essential for your CV to be worth considering, including information such as educational qualifications, work history and references, but there are also additional things you can do to give you an edge when it comes to an employer perusing your CV. We will touch on these shortly.
7 essential categories for CV layout:
Your personal information – this will include your full name, date of birth, ID number, address, contact numbers (and email address), nationality, marital status and number of dependants. This section gives the employer the basic facts about you.
Your key qualifications – this section will contain information about your skills in the workplace; you should try to keep it as relevant as you can to the job you are applying for. For example, if you’re applying for a job as a PA it would definitely work in your favour to mention that you’re capable of typing 90 words per minute.
Your educational history – including schools and universities you attended and what subjects you took; also include your highest qualification.
Your professional history – beginning with your last job and working chronologically backwards, including the period that you worked there, your duties and the reason that you left (this is not done by a large number of job seekers and irritates many employers). You should begin each entry with a short description of the position you held and what the job was like.
Your interests – this section should be brief unless it directly relates to the job you are applying for. It can include hobbies, ambitions and goals.
References – you should list references for each of the different companies you’ve worked for, in the same order as above, including the company’s name, the contact person’s name, their position in the company and their contact number.
Languages – being bilingual is a trait many South Africans posses and in many instances is a prerequisite when applying for a job. List the languages you speak, read and/or write and next to each note your level of competence.
Above and beyond this there are many things you can do to make sure your CV stands out from the rest and makes the right impression with your potential employer.
You can begin your CV with an overview of yourself, your future plans and your exceptional qualities, but when doing this you need to remember that the language you use will be one of the criteria used when forming an impression about you. You shouldn’t use words that you aren’t familiar with and you should check all your spelling and punctuation manually once you’re finished; automatic spellcheckers, for all their worth, can have disastrous (or hilarious) effects if every correction is not carefully double-checked.
Additional information like what kind of salary you are expecting to receive (even if just a ball park figure), your strengths and weaknesses (adding your weaknesses shows that you’ve acknowledged areas that require improvement), and additional training you may have received all help give the employer a better understanding of who you are, what you expect and what he/she can expect from you.
When creating your CV always bear in mind how it’s going to appear to an employer, and by extension, how it reflects who you are, so simplicity, logical ordering and relevant content that is well presented and has been proofread is certainly the first step to getting your foot in the door. Good Luck!
