How to write a professional CV [Examples and tips]
In order to pursue your career opportunities in the job market you may need to create a professional CV for your job search. Therefore, having an interesting and simple CV can be the first step in finding for a job. This blog article clear your doubts on how to write a professional CV and provides better examples to help you learn better.
What is a CV?
A CV (curriculum vitae) is a formal document that entails a person’s education, experience, and achievements. Overall, it includes the personal profile of yourself with your hobbies and interests in life other than the career life.
The must have aspects to include in a professional CV
Most important aspects
- Personal background : Full name with initials, Address, contact number, email address and social media profiles such as the LinkedIn profile
- Profile or career objective: This section specially shows who you are and what can you offer different from the other candidates. Further, state the reason for you to be the best fit for the job position among the others in the crowd and provide with the career objectives.
- Academic qualifications: Make sure to name all the school and universities you attended from high school to your current position. This section can also include the professional qualifications you have. Remember to mention the latest qualification at the first place of the list and then go on backwards. You can simply provide the academic qualifications as in the below format.
| Name of the School or Institute | Time period [From – To] |
| Qualification/Subjects | Grades/Marks received |
- Work experience: Enter the places you have worked for, and the title of the job positions you have worked for. This should be listed in the reverse date order. Also remember to list the duties and key responsibilities of the job positions that you worked before. You need to remember that this section can help you to showcase your professional achievements in the past employment. You can use the below format to mention the work experience.
Start Date – End Date Company name, location and role title
KEY RESPONSIBILITES
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
KEY ACHEIVEMENTS
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Other aspects
- Other skills and accomplishments: Mention the hard and soft skills you have got.
Hard skills example:
Technical skills related to job positions such as ability to work on computer software
Soft skills example:
Leadership qualities, critical thinking, team working, communication skills…etc.
- Interests and hobbies: You can include the fields you are passionate about in this section. For example, being a member is social and nonprofit clubs, writing blogs in the social websites,
- References: Make sure to mention at least two non-related referees into your CV therefore the companies can do better background checks regarding yourself.
Other tips to consider in writing a professional CV
- Select the best CV template: Find an effective format to write your cv. Then you can consider to do it as listed in the order below.
- Personal profile
- Contact details
- Academic qualifications
- Professional experience
- Other skills and abilities
- Interest and hobbies
- Referees
- Use Applicant tracking systems (ATS) friendly keywords: Since most of the HR departments of companies now use software to shortlist the candidates to increase efficiency and save time you need to use keywords that can be detected in the system. For example, you can use the certain terms that require as qualifications for a specific job position.
- It is always better to go with Docx format in the CV since it can be accessed with any device
- List everything in the reverse chronological order under each section
- Save the document in your name the job position you are applying for.
What should you not do?
- Prevent from going into complex formats: You can use better tables, headers, and columns to arrange all the information you are going to include in the CV.
- Do not exceed more than 2 pages for your CV
- Avoid writing all the small details in the stating the previous work experience, rather you can include only the key duties
- Ensure that all your contact details are up to date
- Avoid doing any grammar or spelling errors which will make you CV look less professional
What can a good CV do?
- Attract the best recruiters
- Give the best impression about yourself to the employers
After considering the above-mentioned tips in how to write a professional CV blog article and steps, you can also refer to the CV templates available in the internet which can be convenient and effective most of the times. It is best for you to start writing you CV now and be updated with the job opportunities in the market.