HOW TO CREATE A SUCCESSFUL CV - RESUME TEMPLATE
Your CV is a brochure, not an autobiography. Its purpose is to help you in the process of finding a new job by selling your skills and experience to the right person.A lot of places around the world call it A Curriculum Vitae (CV), in United States, it's a Résumé. This is definitely one of the most important tools that any jobseeker has at their disposal. You may be THE best candidate for a particular job by a long way, however, if you don't make it to the interview stages the company will never know.
We live in a time in which we are all increasingly responsible for the development of our own careers. In the changing world of work, our CV is our passport to new opportunities, and consequently it is the most important career document we ever produce. There is no "right way" to create a perfect CV – we are all individuals and our CVs will all be different. Creating a Successful CV helps us to identify our uniqueness and guides us through planning, creating, and using our CV. It will cause you to think about your attributes as a person, your skills as a professional, and your hopes for the future.
What is a CV?
Curriculum vitae (literally, "the course of one's life"), or "CV". Its purpose is to provide sufficient information for prospective employers (or their agents) to register interest in you. There is more than one type of CV, and you need to decide which is the most appropriate for you. Your aim is to produce a CV that gets you to the next stage of the recruitment process: this may be an informal meeting or a telephone interview, or you may be sent an application form or called to a formal interview.3 TYPES OF CV
The principal role of your CV is to highlight your value to a potential employer, and to do that you have to promote yourself. A document that is just a career summary will not sell the attributes and skills you have to offer. So your CV needs to be a selling document – think of it as your career brochure. If you consider brochures you find appealing, they will be the ones that are well laid out, succinct, and easy to understand. Your CV should beexactly the same. If it is clearly presented and 100 per cent error free, this will say a lot about your motivation and focus.
| Type | Use |
| One-page summary - Summarizes your career and displays your track record. | Most effective for senior managers or those looking for freelance or temporary work. May be specifically requested by headhunters or employers. |
| Chronological - Lists your employment history in reverse chronological order. | Most effective when you are applying for jobs in the same line of work and your CV demonstrates a clear record of career progression. |
| Functional - Highlights your principal skills and strengths rather than career history. | Most useful for first-time job hunters and those seeking a change of career direction, as the emphasis is not on career history but on transferable skills. |