What should be included in your CV?

Career expert and MD of Personal Career Management, Corinne Mills has outlined below what should be included in your CV taken from her best-selling book ‘You’re Hired! How to write a brilliant CV’.

Contact Details

Your CV should be headed with your name and contact details.  Do not write “curriculum vitae” at the top as some recruitment databases will read this as being your name.

Profile

This is always read by recruiters and is the earliest opportunity for you to show you have exactly what they are looking for.  Include the key skills and experience you have which are relevant to the job. Avoid talking about your personal qualities unless you back them up with evidence e.g. instead of “strong interpersonal skills” write “highly developed people skills which include successfully mediating between the organization and dissatisfied customers”

Relevant Skills and Experience

This heading can help ensure that all of the information relevant to the job in question is captured early on in the CV.  Use bullet-points to draw attention to any work experience, skills, training or unpaid work experience and achievements that will be of particular interest to the recruiter.

Employment History

Include details of your employment history in reverse chronological order.  The information included under each job heading should not simply be a summary of your job description.  Under each job, highlight the relevant activities you were involved in, as well as your achievements including any metrics or Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) as evidence of how you added value to the organisation.  You must show for each job that as a result of your efforts there were positive outcomes for the company.

Additional Information

Other information relevant to the job may include languages, IT skills, voluntary work etc. Only include hobbies if they are directly relevant to the job or highly impressive e.g. running a marathon.

Format of your CV

To ensure that your CV is uploaded easily into recruitment databases it should be as plainly formatted as possible.  Do not include columns, tables or graphics.  Word software using Arial or Times New Roman is easily read by all databases and most computers.

How do I find out more?

Corinne’s new edition of her CV book has recently been updated to include an extended chapter on social media and how to use it to your advantage to market yourself, manage your web-presence and your online reputation. You can purchase Corinne’s book via Amazon.

If you would like to find out more about our career coaching services, including CV advice, we offer a free, no-obligation career consultation where you will have an opportunity to discuss your career situation and find out more about how we can help.

To book or to find out more, call us on 01753 888995 or fill in our contact form and one of our team will be happy to contact you to discuss your requirements

Resources on this site:

• Professional CV template (free)
• Chronological CV template – CV layout UK
• Graduate CV template – first CV template
• Functional CV template
• What is a functional CV template?
• How to write a chronological CV
• Why include achievements in your CV?

Article by:

Corinne Mills

Article by:

Corinne Mills

Corinne Mills is the Joint Managing Director of Personal Career Management, she is a career coach with 15 years career management experience.

View Articles by Corinne Mills