What is a curriculum vitae?

A curriculum vitae (usually shortened to 'CV') is a record of your educational qualifications, work experience, interests, skills, and personal details. It is sent to a prospective employer together with a covering letter or an application form when you apply for a job. Your CV creates the vital first impression of you with your prospective employer, so you should take great care when you prepare it. Keep a copy of your CV so that it can be easily updated and adapted for your next application.

What should you put in your cv?

There are various ways of setting out a CV. The standard way is to give information in blocks under the following headings:

Personal details: Give your full name, address and contact numbers, including postcodes and dialing codes. If you have a home address and a term time address, give both and label them clearly so that the employer knows how to get hold of you at any time. You may also give your date of birth, sex, nationality and marital status, although there is no need to give this information, especially if you think it may lead to discrimination against you.

Statement of objectives: This is a short paragraph, normally of no more than one or two sentences, in which you state your aim in making the application.

Education: Give the names and locutions of schools and colleges you have attended, with dates of attendance. List the qualifications you gained, including grades for the latest qualifications. Give an indication of qualifications you expect to gain at the end of your course. If your academic record is not as good as it might be, shuffle the order of your CV so that the stronger sections come before this one.

Vocational training and qualifications: List any other training courses you have attended and qualifications gained. Give the name of the course together with the dates you attended and the name of the training body.

Work experience: List any jobs you have had (including casual, part-time, and voluntary work) either in chronological order or starting with the most recent and working back. Give the employer's name and location, dates of employment, the employer's business (if this not obvious), your position, and also a short description of your responsibilities.

Skills: Include such skills as driving, typing and shorthand speeds, foreign languages of which you have a working knowledge or in which you are fluent, knowledge of computer software, and so on.

Personal interests: List three or four activities you do in your spare time, such as a certain kind of sport or a certain form of cooking.

Referees: Give the names and addresses of two people who have agreed to act as referees. One referee should be your course tutor or someone who has taught you at college. It is a good idea to give a recent employer, or someone who has direct

experience of you at work as your second referee. Before you put their names forward, you should check that your referees feel able to give you a good reference. However, there are other ways of laying out a CV. You should arrange the information in whichever way presents you the most favorably.

N ote!

1. Your CV is the information on which your potential employer bases his or her decision of whether to bother interviewing you or not.

2. Your CV should be suitable for each job application — the information should be relevant to the job that you are applying for.

3. Don't be afraid to oversell yourself. Obviously don't blatantly lie in your CV, but you can exaggerate your existing skills (especially if you know that you can do the work you have mentioned about ).

4. Your CV must stand out from the rest — it's an advert for the skills and services you have to offer.