What Is Your CV Saying About You? 2

Ok, so, I’m continuing from our last discussion on CV crafting. Believing you understand how to put a decent CV together, I’ll proceed to tackle a very critical component of the CV writing process-CV formatting. This is the part where a lot of jobseekers fail, in epic proportions. By formatting I mean dotting your I’s and crossing your T’s, making sure your CV is typo and grammatical error free.

To break it down, here’s a list of things to look out for when formatting:

Font colour-I got a CV once; all the letters in each section had a different colour. I had a headache just looking at it. Please, be sure to stick with one colour when crafting your CV.Black is the colour of choice.

Font Size-The heading usually comes in a bigger font compared to the rest of the CV, but be sure to use a consistent size for the body of the CV, usually a size 12.

Text Alignment: If you decide to align the text differently from section to section, ensure consistency.

Word spacing: Like I said be consistent. If you aren’t some parts of your CV will look cluttered while another will look scanty.

Use of bold and italics: Ask yourself why you need to. If you can’t conjure a rationale, skip it.

ALL CAPS, Capitalized Words: sentence case: Decide how you want your CV to look. Whichever you decide to use, again, be consistent. Personally, I do find all caps a bit too serious and hard to read.

Remember to check your spellings and sentences; be sure there are no typos and your grammar is on point.

If you pay attention to these things, you’ll almost certainly end up with a decent CV.

Whatever you do, please:

Create your own CV, it’s easier to talk about stuff you create yourself, don’t you think?

Don’t put emails or phone numbers not yours or not in use on your CV. if you don’t have one, then make sure you check your email box as often as you can. Imagine putting your aunts number on your CV, and she getting a call and yelling ‘Onye ne kwu’ into the receiver, not knowing she just cost you your job

Never exaggerate or misrepresent any information on your CV. You automatically lose credibility if it’s found to be false.

If you’re a recent graduate, keep your CV within two pages.

Never send a handwritten CV.

Use a LaserJet printer when printing, so if for any reason you get water on it, the ink doesn’t smudge.

Do not photocopy CVs. They never look as good as printed copies.

Avoid sending your CV with pictures. If a recruiter doesn’t like what you look like, that’s it and if they use databases to sort CVs, your picture might distort the layout of your CV and that works against you.

I hope you learnt a thing or two.

Enjoy the rest of your day.

—

Naomi Lucas

GraduatePro