Читать книгу Interview - Heather Salter - Страница 16

Having discussed how important the CV is to make that right impression, let’s take a look at what are the essential elements that go into most CVs. You could ask a number of people and you may get a different response from each of them, depending on their personal preferences, but there are four common points that feature in them all.

1 Contact details. Make sure that you put your up-to-date contact details in where the recruiter can find them easily – centred on the top of page one is usually the best place. Only give the telephone and email addresses that you are happy for them to contact you on. For example, avoid work email if it is not private to you.

 Name

 Address

 Contact telephone number

 Personal email address

2 Personal profile. This profile is designed to give the recruiter a snapshot of your skills and abilities so that they will want to read further. Section 2.3 goes into this further as it’s often the key to capturing the reader’s interest.

3 Employment history. Start with your current position and work backwards. List the company name with the relevant dates you worked for that business and then add your job title and responsibilities. If you have some achievements you are proud of, put them in. For example: ABC Services Limited, Sept 2003-present; Administration Manager, responsible for company purchases with a budget of £650k pa; Reduced stationery expenditure by 15% by centralizing purchasing. If you have worked for a long time consider just covering the last 10 years or so and then do a précis paragraph about previous history. We want to fit the CV on two pages if at all possible.

4 Qualifications and professional education & training. List your qualifications with the title of the qualification, the institute that awarded it and the date that you qualified. If you have good grades then by all means mention them. Start with the most important qualifications first, and finish with any relevant training courses that you have completed. The key word here is ‘relevant’ as the recruiter is only looking for those things that make you a good match for their job.

A well-targeted CV of two pages is far better than one of five pages irrelevant to the job you’re applying for.