CV

[bandit]

Hi All,

Since my work seems to be getting on the scarce side I have started looking at online employment recruitment agencies, trouble is they want CV's What the hell is that! I have been self employed for about 25 years now, never had or done a CV in my life, can anyone point me in the direction of an idiots guide.

Thanks Gareth

 

[trev]

Prepare Your Curriculum Vitae - CV

 

[bandit]

Thanks Trev

Does it matter that it's American? or are they all the same format

 

[trev]

Pretty much the same mate, if you have a version of word or wordpad on your PC there'll be some templates on there. Just have a bit of a play around with it till you find one you like but it's fairly irrelevant really as the agency will just scan it into their system and format it their way.

 

[Geordie Spark]

You'll find that no two people will ever agree on what format a CV should be in. e.g. some say the dates should be on the right hand side, while others argue that they should be on the left.

One thing the do agree on is that it should be only one page long and this is a bit of a Holy Grail.

My view is that as long as all the relevant information is there in a clear, logical easy to read format that should be all that's needed.

Trev mentioned Word and Wordpad, but I use Open Office which is free to download & use & has a number of downloadable templates for just about everything - including CV's. You can read about it here before you decide to use it OpenOffice - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[bandit]

Thanks Guy's

This is going to harder than I thought, early onset of alzheimer's and I've got to try and remember what the hell i've been doing for the last 25yrs.

 

[Knobhead]

One A4 sheet about ⅓ full for a covering letter that includes your address.

The CV it’s self:
DO NOT PRINT Curriculum Vitae at the top, the person reading it knows what it is! He's seen 20 today.

Key skills
Career history. Miss out Fred’s butchers boy aged 10.
Work based & vocational training. They couldn’t give a stuff if you’re qualified in origami, skip that.
Interests
Personal information.
DOB
Full clean driving licence (HaHa)
References available on request.

The end​

I add a separate sheet which covers some of the major projects I’ve done.

 

[Adam W]

There's a bit of information on DirectGov.org which is obviously a British site.
Whatever you put on it remember it needs to be easy to read - concise bullet points rather than rambling paragraphs. Stay away from colours and graphics.
2 pages and only 2 pages is standard.