The CV should generally be divided into the following sections: personal details, personality profile, experience and career history, interests, and references.
Personal Details
This section should always contain the following information, generally in the order as given: full name, current address, telephone numbers, e-mail address. Other information that should be included in this section: date of birth (although now not mandatory since recent age discrimination legislation), nationality and marital status.
Personality Profile
If you use a profile in your CV, take care to keep it brief, three to four lines is ample. Use the profile to communicate your career focus and current aims as well as maybe a few of your key strengths. This part of your CV is likely to change with every application, as you will want to tailor the profile to reflect a company’s ethos and values. Make the personality profile relevant to the vacancy and the employer.
Career History (Experience)
List all of your jobs or experience with precise dates and clear job titles, in reverse chronological order. Focus on your responsibilities and achievements in each role, and illustrations of where skills were used or deployed. Financial information and numerical information also helps to inspire confidence in your CV (turnovers, number of staff, square footages, like-on-like sales increases, etc). Attempt to use terminology relevant to the post that you are applying for or that demonstrates commercial awareness. Bullet points can be employed in this section to order your responsibilities and achievements of each individual role. This section should also demonstrate your key skills and how they relate in a positive way to the role that you are applying for.
Additional Information
This is a relevant section to include as it can be used to demonstrate that you are motivated to pursue other activities and take the initiative to develop your involvements and skills. Other skills, such as languages and computer skills should be included in this section.
Interests
This section communicates information to the employer to give them greater insight to your general personality. Try and make it interesting and again applicable to the role and company you are targeting. Avoid clichs, such as: reading, going out with friends, socialising and travelling. Attempt to be more specific. For example, do not use sports. Instead, list the sports and any achievements within them.
References
You should give two referees, which is the norm, one academic and one work related. Ensure to give the referees’ phone numbers and email addresses, and make sure to ask their permission prior to adding them to your CV. If you are running out of space by the time you reach the References section, remember that referees’ details are not explicitly requested, and it is acceptable to state, references available on request.
