A Curriculum Vitae (CV) is a brief presentation of details about oneself. This includes information on your education, educational qualifications, experience and varying skills. The is the first document your potential employer would have to get in contact with and its contents will significantly affects the success of your Job Applications. A properly written CV should always get you to the interview stage of a recruitment process.
In this article, we will take a look at how to write a CV. Many job seekers make a common mistake of using a single CV for each job applications,.. Your CV must display a correlation with the job you are applying for. Hence you must always prepare and edit your CV to suit the requirements and responsibilities of the position which you are applying for, and to achieve this, you must know the required contents that should appear in a good CV (Curriculum Vitae) and how to write it on your own..
There are numerous overwhelming (Curriculum Vitae) samples on the internet and choosing the “right option” can become a huge task.
Just choose a CV structure that you can design using Microsoft Word or a design that someone can help you build easily.
In this article, we will explore three (3) different structures that your CV can be composed. The Professional CV structures and the Academic CV Structure.
HOWS A GOOD CV WRITTEN ?,
The CV(Curriculum Vitae) used for this explanation was designed using google docs.. You can use Microsoft word or office too …Follow the steps one after the other
See Also; How your linkedin profile can help you create an online CV in seconds
See an example of a linkedin generated CV
1. The Heading of the CV (Curriculum Vitae)
Do not start your CV with “Curriculum Vitae” please, it is a common mistake. After your name comes your address Your CV should start with your Full Name (First Name, Middle Name & Surname) boldly written preferably with larger font size to make it look very much obvious..
After your address, the next is your contact details, phone number(s) and Email address.. Also please use a professional Email address, at least one that contains the combination of your name , eg, Im Gbenga Ezekiel.. My email should be like gbenagezekiel@gmail.com …Not Emails like gbengiyuppy, gbengisexy or ezeypumpy@gmail.com…. This presents you as an unprofessional applicants and most importantly make you appear unserious…. If your email looks unwell, please create a new one, its free and easy to create and use..
Please note : Please use an address that is in the location of the company you are sending your application to. If you are applying for a job in Lagos and you live in lets say Uyo, find a friend or brother or cousin or anyone that lives in Lagos and apply using his/her address. This will make interviewers consider your application faster than living hundreds of miles away from the job.
Your heading should look like this;
2. The Body of the CV (Curriculum Vitae)
“Personal Data” is not necessary if your heading is properly written… Information like Date of Birth, State of Origin and Nationality are not compulsory and in most cases, unnecessary except you are writing an Academic CV or specifically stated in the Application instructions.
If your age is more than the required age for the job, do not write your date of birth in your CV. I do recommend that you hide all those details and rather use the available space to promote your skills and capabilities. So, with “Personal Data” out, the first section of the body of your CV should be a “Professional Summary” section.. This section is a section which you summarize your experience/skills, achievements and foresight.. Have a look at an example below..
After that your “Skills” is the next step… In this section, you should write your skills in word using a list structure. If you have a long list of skills, you can create a two column structure to make the structure organized and neat. See the image below; See how to do it if you’re confused..
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Make sure you write skills you have and can defend. Displaying your skills is part of the essence of your CV.
Your “Work History” is the next step and its a very important section of your CV, it is the section where you are expected to write all your work history starting with the MOST RECENT. This section requires you to express “The Job Title/Position Held”, “The Work Duration (Month & Year)”, “The Company” and “Your Duties”.
The most tasking aspect of this section is your ability to enumerate “Your Duties/Responsibilities”. Whatever you write as your duties in the company will give the interviewer an insight of the kind of tasks you have carried out and will also allow him/her to compare them with your “Skills”. And most importantly, it allows him/her to be able to correlate it with the skills required for the Job you are applying for.
So, before you write, retrieve the “Job Description” of all the Jobs in your work history and write down the activities you carried out while working for the firm. If a job is in your job description, you have every right to include it in the duties that you carried out even if you were not totally involved, the fact is that you have in one time or the other been partially involved and you have a quality idea of what it entails.
So merge the activities in the Job description and the activities that are not in the Job description but you did as part of the Job. Put them together in quality paragraphs, this section should not be scanty. It should contain quality paragraphs showing the details of all the activities you carried out working in that role.
Do not write anything that you cannot defend, many job applicants usually flood their CVs with “lies”, they write duties that are not correlated to their skill set, once an interviewer spots a disorder, it can crumble the entire CV . If you truly worked in the position that you are filling in, you should have more than enough “duties” that you can write. If you currently work in an organization, use present tense to write your duties, if you no longer work there, use past tense.
Experiences gathered as Intern or during your 3 Months, 6 Months or 1 Year Internship as a student should be written with the word Trainee or Intern.
If you have a long list of work history, write only the ones related to the job you are applying for to make your CV brief.
Do not leave more than One Year unaccounted for in your work history. Fill it in, even if it is with Community Service Job or Volunteering or better still, account for that in the “Education or Certification Section”.
Check the image below to the structure of it should be written;
After the Work History section, write your “Education”. This section requires you to display all your educational qualifications, however do note the following;
- If you have a Degree, you do not need to write your Primary and Secondary School Education. Just input your Degree and the Year of Graduation.
- If you do not have a Degree, write your highest qualification and Year of Graduation.
Aside just writing your Educational Qualification and Year of Graduation, you can enumerate your giant strides as a student during the course of your study. See the image below;
“Certifications /Awards” follows next.. Try doing some little as some online courses if you have not attended any training before. It adds positively to your CV..Online Courses, Training, etc especially those related to the job you are applying for should fill this section. If you have any awards, of any sort as an Undergraduate, this is the section where you get to write it all. This section have a huge effect on the value of your CV, it presents you as a resourceful person.
Then, input your Extracurricular Experiences such as your entrepreneurial endeavors, your undergraduate research, your National Youth Service, your Community Development Service (CDS). Create another heading “Experiences” and list all of your experiences.
Finally the last on the CV Body is the “Referees”. The Referees should consist of people that can vouch for your capabilities, preferably people that are not directly related to you like family. However you can use reputable members of your family whom you believe their name commands respect in the country or is an expert in your field.
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You can also use your previous employers as Referee and/or your Academic mentor in the University. This is a social proof that you have a good relationship with all those you have worked with. If you have a Governmental Connection, or someone that is either influential in the country or in the company that you are applying to, this is where you get to use his/her name. DO NOT HESITATE but ensure you inform him/her. Let them know how they can help you.
Inform anyone you want to use as referee before using their names and ensure you are on “the same terms (I mean, be sure that you are friends)”, it is very important.
The Name, the address and the Contact of the Referees are the details required.
Conclusion
Your CV should be clear and explicit not complex, you don’t want to annoy the interviewer when he/she is reading your CV.
Ensure your CV is written in Black and White, black font color and White Background just like the sample.
Use Official Font Styles like Calibri or Times New Roman or others that are not jam-packed. Times New Roman was used in the Sample.
Your CV should be brief and straight to the point, do not beat around the bush just to make it bulky.
Save your CV in Ms Word Format or PDF Format. PDF Format are non editable, to save as PDF from Ms Word, Click on File > Save As > PDF.
Here’s the full CV sample, you can edit mine and use it,,,
