What’s a Resume/CV?

If you want to find a job, you are going to need a resume or curriculum vitae (CV). Both documents outline your professional skills and experience in a few pages.

The basic resume and CV is pretty much the same thing. The main difference is that a resume is shorter, being 2 pages or less and a CV is longer, being 2 pages or more. A CV basically includes a bit more detail in each of the main sections.

What should be in your resume?

Here’s a list of the main sections you should include in your Resume or CV (in this order):

1. Personal Profile
2. Skills
3. Professional Experience
4. Education
5. Interests
6. References

This article explains each of the main sections you should cover in your resume or CV and gives some ideas on how to do it. At the end of the document I’ve also provided a few tips on general formatting.

Personal Profile

• Brief summary of the professional ‘you’.
• This must grab the reader’s attention, capture what makes you unique and make the reader want to read more.
• This section should only be a short paragraph. 3-4 sentences are good.

Skills

• Bullet point list of your most important and essenial skills.
• Format this into two columns with one column being interpersonal skills and the other being tools and software you can use.

Professional Experience

• List each of the jobs you’ve had. Your most recent job should be first.
• For each job, include the job title, the organization you worked for and the date range that you worked in that job. Date ranges can be approximate. It’s just to give your potential future employer an idea of your staying power.
• Each job should be formatted so that it’s clear where a job starts and where the next job starts. See example below.
• For each job you also need a sentence briefly explaining the role. One sentence is sufficient.
• Then list your key responsibilities and important achievements as a bullet point list

Education

• List out any relevant degrees, certifications, you have as well as any courses or conferences you’ve attended.
• Sort by date with the most recent at the top.

Interests

• Write a few sentences about your personal interests and hobbies.
• This section is there to give you a personal touch and show that there is more to you than just your work.

References

• References are the last section of you resume/CV.
• You can list them out including a name and contact info (phone number, Skype name or email address). Make sure you’ve asked for permission from your referees first.
• Alternatively, you can write, ‘Available upon request’. I suggest this approach unless detailed references were specifically asked for at the pre interview stage.

General Formatting

• Make sure the document is formatted with lots of space so that it is easy on the eye and is easy to read. This will make potential future employers more likely to read it!
• Make sure your pages are numbered.
• Include your name and contact details (email and/or mobile number) on every page. This can be quite small and displayed in the header of the document.
• You don’t need to put your photo, gender, birthday, age, location or anything else on your resume/CV unless the job you are applying for has specifically asked for this information (it may be relevant in some occupations – fashion model for example). A lot of detailed personal information is just too much too quick. Besides, you want your future boss to be interviewing you because your skills and experience fit the role. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Putting it All Together

Once you’ve got all of this compiled into one document, you will be amazed at how professional it looks. It will be easy to read and make you come across as a clear an organized written communicator. If your skills and experience are anything near what the employer is looking for, you will most likely get asked for an interview.

I have used this template countless times and it works wonders!