What is a CV?
Curriculum Vitae: an outline of a person's educational and professional history, usually prepared for job applications (L, lit.: the course of one's life). Another name for a CV is a résumé.
A CV is the most flexible and convenient way to make applications. It conveys your personal details in the way that presents you in the best possible light. A CV is a marketing document in which you are marketing something: yourself! You need to "sell" your skills, abilities, qualifications and experience to employers. It can be used to make multiple applications to employers in a specific career area. For this reason, many large graduate recruiters will not accept CVs and instead use their own application form.
An application form is designed to bring out the essential information and personal qualities that the employer requires and does not allow you to gloss over your weaker points as a CV does. In addition, the time needed to fill out these forms is seen as a reflection of your commitment to the career.
There is no "one best way" to construct a CV; it is your document and can be structured as you wish within the basic framework below. It can be on paper or on-line or even on a T-shirt (a gimmicky approach that might work for "creative" jobs but not generally advised!).
When should a CV be used?
When an employer asks for applications to be received in this format
When an employer simply states "apply to ..." without specifying the format
When making speculative applications (when writing to an employer who has not advertised a vacancy but who you hope my have one)
What information should a CV include?
Personal details
Normally these would be your name, address, date of birth (although with age discrimination laws now in force this isn't essential), telephone number and email.
Education and qualifications
Your degree subject and university, plus A levels and GCSEs or equivalents. Mention grades unless poor!
Work experience
Use action words such as developed, planned and organised.
Even work in a shop, bar or restaurant will involve working in a team, providing a quality service to customers, and dealing tactfully with complaints. Don't mention the routine, non-people tasks (cleaning the tables) unless you are applying for a casual summer job in a restaurant or similar.
Try to relate the skills to the job. A finance job will involve numeracy, analytical and problem solving skills so focus on these whereas for a marketing role you would place a bit more more emphasis on persuading and negotiating skills.
"All of my work experiences have involved working within a team-based culture. This involved planning, organisation, co-ordination and commitment e.g., in retail, this ensured daily sales targets were met, a fair distribution of tasks and effective communication amongst all staff members."
Interests and achievements
Keep this section short and to the point. As you grow older, your employment record will take precedence and interests will typically diminish greatly in length and importance.
Bullets can be used to separate interests into different types: sporting, creative etc.
Don't use the old boring cliches here: "socialising with friends".
Don't put many passive, solitary hobbies (reading, watching TV, stamp collecting) or you may be perceived as lacking people skills. If you do put these, than say what you read or watch: "I particularly enjoy Dickens, for the vivid insights you get into life in Victorian times".
Show a range of interests to avoid coming across as narrow : if everything centres around sport they may wonder if you could hold a conversation with a client who wasn't interested in sport.
Hobbies that are a little out of the ordinary can help you to stand out from the crowd: skydiving or mountaineering can show a sense of wanting to stretch yourself and an ability to rely on yourself in demanding situations
Any interests relevant to the job are worth mentioning: current affairs if you wish to be a journalist; a fantasy share portfolio such as Bullbearings if you want to work in finance.
Any evidence of leadership is important to mention: captain or coach of a sports team, course representative, chair of a student society, scout leader: "As captain of the school cricket team, I had to set a positive example, motivate and coach players and think on my feet when making bowling and field position changes, often in tense situations"
Anything showing evidence of employability skills such as teamworking, organising, planning, persuading, negotiating etc.
Skills
The usual ones to mention are languages (good conversational French, basic Spanish), computing (e.g. "good working knowledge of MS Access and Excel, plus basic web page design skills" and driving ("full current clean driving licence").
If you are a mature candidate or have lots of relevant skills to offer, a skills-based CV may work for you
References
Normally two referees are sufficient: one academic (perhaps your tutor or a project supervisor) and one from an employer (perhaps your last part-time or summer job). See our page on Choosing and Using Referees for more help with this.
What makes a good CV?
There is no single "correct" way to write and present a CV but the following general rules apply:
It is targeted on the specific job or career area for which you are applying and brings out the relevant skills you have to offer
It is carefully and clearly laid out: logically ordered, easy to read and not cramped
It is informative but concise
It is accurate in content, spelling and grammar. If you mention attention to detail as a skill, make sure your spelling and grammar is perfect!
How long should a CV be?
There are no absolute rules but, in general, a new graduate's CV should cover no more than two sides of A4 paper.
If you can summarise your career history comfortably on a single side, this is fine and has advantages when you are making speculative applications and need to put yourself across concisely. However, you should not leave out important items, or crowd your text too closely together in order to fit it onto that single side. Academic and technical CVs may be much longer: up to 4 or 5 sides.
Tips on presentation
Your CV should be carefully and clearly laid out - not too cramped but not with large empty spaces either. Use bold and italic typefaces for headings and important information
Never back a CV - each page should be on a separate sheet of paper. It's a good idea to put your name in the footer area so that it appears on each sheet.
Be concise: a CV is an appetiser and should not give the reader indigestion. Don't feel that you have to list every exam you have ever taken, or every activity you have ever been involved in - consider which are the most relevant and/or impressive. The best CVs tend to be fairly economical with words, selecting the most important information and leaving a little something for the interview: they are an appetiser rather than the main course. Good business communications tend to be short and to the point, focusing on key facts and your CV should to some extent emulate this.
Be positive - put yourself over confidently and highlight your strong points. For example, when listing your A-levels, put your highest grade first.
Be honest: although a CV does allow you to omit details (such as exam resits) which you would prefer the employer not to know about, you should never give inaccurate or misleading information. CVs are not legal documents and you can't be held liable for anything within, but if a recruiter picks up a suggestion of falsehoods you will be rapidly rejected. An application form which you have signed to confirm that the contents are true is however a legal document and forms part of your contract of employment if you are recruited.
The sweet spot of a CV is the area selectors tend to pay most attention to: this is typically around the upper middle of the first page, so make sure that this area contains essential information.
If you are posting your CV, don't fold it - put it in a full-size A4 envelope so that it doesn't arrive creased.
Fonts
TIMES NEW ROMAN is the standard windows "serif" font. A safe bet - law firms seem to like it!
A more interesting serif font might be GEORGIA.
ARIAL is the standard windows "sans" font.
Sans fonts don't have the curly bits on letters. As you can see they're cleaner and more modern than Times or Georgia and also looks larger in the same "point" size (the point size is simply how big the letters are on the page.) However Arial and Times Roman are so common that they're a little boring to the eye.
A more classy choice might be VERDANA which has wider letters than most fonts.
or GENEVA - these are both common sans fonts. Don't use Comic Sans!
FONT SIZE is normally 12 points for the normal font with larger sizes for subheadings and headings.
or 10 points. My favourite CV body text font is 10 point Verdana or Lucida Sans with 12 or 14 points for sub headings.
14 points is too big for the normal body font - wastes space and looks crude.
and 8 or 9 points too small to be easily readable by everyone, especially in Times New Roman which should not be used in sizes less than 11 points
Although many people use 12 points, some research on this suggested that smaller point size CVs (within reason) were perceived as more intellectual!
Most CVs are now read on screen rather than on paper. It's no coincidence that Serif fonts are rarely used on the web - they are much less readable on screen (Times Roman was first used on Trajan's column, 2,000 years ago!), and some fonts, such as Verdana, were designed with screen readability in mind. This web site is set in Verdana which, as you can see, is clear and easy to read.
If you find fonts interesting see this BBC article and this "Periodic Table" of Typefaces
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