Every student dreams of a rewarding career in life but the path to success is almost always strewn with hurdles. Interviews are scary enough, but there is one major hurdle that you need to overcome before you are selected for an interview and that is your CV. A CV is the first impression you give to your prospective employer, and a well-written CV highly increases your chances of getting called for that interview.

Your first objective is to showcase your skills and accomplishments to the employer. For this you can make use of Curriculum Vitae (CV) or Resume. The way both differ is in the length and format. Curriculum Vitae will be holding more information, some of which includes educational background, achievements, publications etc, than a typical resume. It is an outline showing the educational and professional history written in a clear and concise manner.

Contents Of a CV

Your latest cv should be complete in every aspect and updated to the latest statistics available. Build it in such a way that it gives all required information to the employer contemplating hiring you for a particular position in his company. The sections to include depends on what type of position you are applying for. So be careful as only relevant information needs to be added. Some of the important headings that can be added are:

1. Personal Details
2. Professional Summary
3. Area of Expertise
4. Work Experience
5. Educational Details
6. Personal Skills
7. Additional Information       

Personal Details:

Normally cvs begins with the personal details like name ( full name in capital letters), date of birth in dd-mm-yyyy format, detailed address of where you stay, contact numbers – both mobile and landline (with an alternate number too, incase they couldn’t reach you on first number) and a genuine email address of the candidate to reach him online.

Professional Summary:

This is one of the most important section in the cv where the reader should be attracted seeing the contents similar to his need and get motivated to read the rest. It gives a summary of the work experiences and skillsets – both personal and professional. Make sure that they are not lengthy and keep it to a minimum of 4 lines and maximum of 6.

Area of Expertise:

Skills gained from a previous job or management can be put in this section. “Good communication skill I acquired after working for 3 years as a customer service executive” or “My leadership quality has increased after taking charge of a team of 12 members ” are some of the examples that can be included here.

Work Experience:

Work experience shows the career history in reverse order, from the most recent job to the first. Comprises of job title, company name, location, date of employment etc. Use point wise representation in bullet form  if there are many details to be included. This helps the employer to grasp the ideas in an easy manner. Each position should comprise of duties and responsibilities handled during that period.

Educational Details:

Include the name of the institution where you studied, year of passing and the university in descending order i.e from higher to lower degree. If you are currently doing the course, mention “Currently Pursuing”. Participation in any extracurricular activities like olympiads, quizzes or sports can be a plus point at the time of interview. Interviewers may scan for the events engaged in and compare with that of upper level of education.

Personal Skills:

General skills found in a candidate such as number of languages he speaks, reads and writes are mentioned in this portion. This section is pretty simple.

Additional Information:

Presentations, publications, projects, seminars, honors and references come under the information included in this part.

Curriculum Vitae Preparation Tips

1. Don’t just use one CV for all the posts you are applying for. If there are more than one area of specialisation, create that many number of vitaes too.
2. Use concise and clear language throughout the document. Don’t clutter your CV, which reduces readability.
3. Only mention the truth inside your CV. Companies may cross check with your previous job employers and if they find something fishy, don’t dream about getting that job ever.
4. Check for the format of the CV before submitting it to any companies. Use appropriate font style, margins, bullets in the correct places.
5. Double check your own CV one more time to find any trivial mistake. It is recommended to refer a professional for tips and tricks to be followed.
6. Make use of a CV instead of resume because the former furnishes more elaborate information than the latter does. Companies also  prefer the same.
7. Cover letters should be used when meeting an interviewer for the first time. It displays a general introduction about you and your interest to work for the company.
8. Limit the size of the CV to a maximum of 2 pages and not more. Lengthy pages may discourage the the reader from going through it.
9. Note that religious or political related information should not be included between the contents. This will lead to a bad impression about you.
10. Ensure that you don’t copy the exact lines as in the internet or from your friends’ CV. Give your CV your unique touch and style.  

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