Find below few tips which you can use while preparing a professional CV.
Page 1: This is the most important page so it almost 60% of vital information about the candidate that helps him/her ‘sell’ themselves to the employer should be on this page with these sections.
- Check Objective Statement on CV. Should be ideally 3 lines long with a detail on education, no of years’ experience and skills / areas of interest.
- It’s a good idea to put the email, contact number on the header of the document, so that it shows on all pages.
- Key Skills Section – should come after the objective statement. Include core work related skills first, then people skills (leadership, team player)
- Work experience section – should always be in chronological order, with the current/last position mentioned first. Month and Year should be mentioned clearly with the position and company name.
- Work experience section – if the candidate has been promoted within the company, include a designation chronology.
- Employers are interested in ‘career highlights’ – what is your proudest achievement in your company. Mention these ‘highlights’ in points, quantified like “improved production by 20%”, “tripled the output” etc.
- Mention job responsibilities in no more than 4-5 points.
PAGE 2 – For more experienced professionals this page will have additional experience. For those with not much experience this page should include the following:
- If the candidate has experience over 10+ years, this should not be elaborated. Just mention the ‘past career highlights’ in points.
- Education section – don’t mention high-school (unless you don’t have a degree).
- Education section – mention institute name, year of graduation, degree. Mention GPA if 3 or above.
- Education section – if you have attended trainings mention those.
- Personal Details – the only information that needs to be added is nationality, language skills, and visa status.
- Check length of CV- should be no longer than 3 pages.
- References – Mention name, designation, and company. Their contact details can be mentioned or ‘provided upon request.
Points to Remember
- More pages means you have failed to make it short.
- Frequent change hoppers have less chance of getting better job. So don’t mention in CV if you worked for few months in a company.
- Put clear contact details with single email id and multiple contact numbers if possible.
- Keep your social website presence neat, professional as most employers will do a research on you to make sure you can fit their requirement.
You can also refer to the article on Top 10 common interview Questions which will give you basic idea on facing interview.
TM Haneef Puttur