CV Tips

A CV is a summary of experiences and skills that are related to your employment objective. It should support your employment interests and have a strong skills section. It should highlight your particular strengths.

Contact Information

What’s needed:

• Full name
• Permanent address
• Permanent telephone numbers
• Email address

What’s not needed:

• Date of birth or age ( in the UK a lot of weight is placed on this number )
• Marital status and number of dependents
• Height, weight and other physical characteristics
• Health status
• Photographs

Objective

What’s needed:

• Short, specific statement that defines the kind of work you want to do including
  occupation, industry and level of responsibility
• Exclude pronouns

What’s not needed:

Generalstatements that reflect personal interests or the desire to use your skills.

Example: “A position where I can grow with a company and use my skills”.

Statements that tell the reader what you want from the company or position as opposed to reflecting your employment interests.

Example: A position where I can gain experience in marketing.

Summary of Qualifications (Optional but suggested for experienced personnel)

This section is suggested for individuals with 3 or more years of experience in an area where they are pursuing employment – not if a career switch is desired.

What’s needed:

• Highlights of relevant experience (no more than 3 or 4 lines)
• One or two outstanding skills or abilities

Education
What’s needed:

• Name of institution, and city followed by degree and year; always put the most
  recent degree first; if pursuing a dual degree, indicate first the degree that is
  most integral to your employment search
• Major academic scholarships and awards
• Additional relevant training
• Examination grades or year marks.
• Certificates
• For doctoral candidates, dissertation title or topic and name of advisor
• Courses that support your employment interests or focus; omit course numbers
  and courses commonly taken by all students in your major

What’s not needed:

• Infant & Primary school information
• An extensive listing of courses

Skills
What’s Needed:

• A listing of the marketable skills that are valued in your area of interest (such as
  accounting, database management, web page design, teaching, technical
  writing, and sales
• Computer related skills
• Foreign languages (including degree of fluency)

What’s Not Needed:

• References to personal traits such as dependability, organized, and fast learner
• Outdated computer software skills, typing speed and knowledge of common
  office equipment

Experience
What’s Needed

• Relevant, current or last positions with more recent experience listed first, moving
  back in time
• Senior design projects or other classroom related experiences relevant to your
  employment objective
• Describe experience with emphasis on accomplishments and contributions; also
  focus on including experiences and tasks that support your objective and
  employment interests
• Highlight those tasks that would be of interest to an employer and related to your
  employment objective

What’s Not Needed

• Extensive detail about positions not related to your employment objective
  Complete employer addresses or telephone numbers
• Use phrases or clauses, not complete sentences; use the proper tense when
  describing the position; avoid over use of same verbs; omit pronouns; spell out
  acronyms and abbreviations. Avoid misrepresenting or exaggerating tasks or
  accomplishments!

Activities
What’s needed:

• Memberships in professional organizations, including offices held
• Listing of campus and community activities; include offices held and any
  accomplishments
• Extensive detail is not needed – this section should not exceed the space taken
  to detail skills and experience!

Personal Information (optional)

This section can include personal information (as explained earlier), certification, security clearances, patents, special awards, foreign languages or any other information that may be of interest to an employer.

Additional Notes

• Use 10 or 12pt font
• Avoid underlining
• Bold for emphasis but minimize the bolding
• Keep CV length to a minimum – 4 pages maximum
• CV wizard programs are not recommended since many are not compatible with
  optical screening programs
• Graduate students should include publications and presentations
• If your related work experience is limited, emphasize your education experiences
• Never circulate your CV before having it reviewed by someone else