The purpose of a CV is to provide an up to date summary of your work experience. It --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- should enable a prospective employer or recruitment consultant to see quickly whether --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- you have the skills or characteristics that he is looking for so that he can invite you to --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- attend an interview. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- Everybody has different ideas about what constitutes the perfect CV format but here --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- are the main pointers that most recruiters agree with. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- 1. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- Keep it short. The main body of the CV should be no more than 3 pages. More --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- than this will probably not be read. But make sure it contains sufficient detail for the --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- reader to understand clearly what it is you have been doing. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- 2. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- Start with your personal details including contact details (address and telephone --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- number) age or date of birth, and marital status (e.g. married, 2 children aged 5 and 7). --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- Details about your education should be limited to the most advanced qualifications --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- obtained. e.g. your degree or number of A levels/ GCSEs etc. You will not need to list --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- the schools you attended or each individual GCSE with its grade. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- 3. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- Details about your family, pets, pastimes should appear at the end of the CV. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- These are generally used as discussion points in an interview. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- 4. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- You may like to summarise the sort of work animal you are at the top of the CV as --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- in "A Multi-media design artist with particular expertise in Photoshop and Web --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- Authoring" but do not make this more than 3 lines and avoid telling everyone how --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- wonderful you are: it is the recruiter's job to assess your ability, not yours. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- 5. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- Detail your work experience in "reverse chronological order". This means putting --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- your most recent experience first. We are interested mainly in what you can do for an --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- employer now, not what you were doing 10 years ago. You should reduce the amount --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- of detail you provide about previous jobs as you work back through your employment --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- history time. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- 6. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- For each position provide (in bold ) a job title, the name of the employer, and the --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- dates you were (are) employed there. You should then provide details of the daily tasks --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- you performed, and any major successes or achievements which you want to draw to --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- the reader's attention. This is often best done using a succession of bullet points. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- 7. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- Avoid making your CV too complicated in layout and design. Many agencies and --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- employers feed CV information into a database using scanners and Optical Character --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- Recognition programs which may fail to interpret complicated formatting and small --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- fonts. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- 8. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- Do not put everything in capitals. It is difficult to read and can be very annoying. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- Always use mixed case headings and text. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- 9. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- When sending a CV, include a covering note which explains the geographical --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- areas you are prepared to work in , the distance you can commute, details of your --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- present salary and the sort of work you are looking for. If you are looking for a --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- particular type of work then you should also explain what this is. You should also --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- include a day-time 'phone number where you can be contacted if possible. Recruitment --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- consultants are trained to contact candidates with a maximum of discretion. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- 10. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- It is a good idea to attach a "skills summary" to the end of your CV or else --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- include a section on the first page (as long as this is not too long). This should detail --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- any technical accreditations you have obtained, key technology strengths, and the --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- various packages and hardware you are familiar with. Do not waste your time (and --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- ours) by including the names of packages you know nothing about. Show the degree of --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- proficiency you have acquired or the amount of experience you have of each item. --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- You may like to download an example of a CV (Word file - 4k). --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- The CV is an example of our preferred layout. It contains "dummy" data which --- RECORDSEPARATOR --- you should over-type.