Curriculum Vitae – How to Write a Successful CV

Résumé (CV) has a purpose to present you and give a better image of you to someone who hasn’t met you or doesn’t have time to.

As we all know, there are tons of examples how to write a good CV. However, no matter which one you are willing to use, the most important thing is that your CV is clear, concise, readable and above all, reliable. Additionally, don’t hesitate to give it a personal touch and make it stand out.

CV is a lot more than just your profile. It’s a marketing tool. Briefly, it represents your past skills and accomplishments. However, if you have a lot of things to specify, my advice is to stay focused on the things you consider to be the most important ones for the position you are about to apply for. Furthermore, CV shouldn’t be way too long, because there is a huge possibility that the recruitment staff won’t even take a look at it. The best length is one to two pages maximum and preferably in the PDF format (trust me, it looks much better and more professional).

Your CV should be consisted of your:

• personal information
• previous/current working experience
• education (formal as well as informal)
• personal skills (languages, social skills, organizational skills, computer skills, etc.)
• additional information (memberships in some organizations, volunteering experience, etc.)

When you specify your education, working and/or volunteering experience, internships, training, conferences, seminars, etc. always list them chronologically, starting with the last one.

Even though there are many examples of the recommended skills to put in your CV, down below you can find some of them:

• Organizational Skills
• Social Skills

What is considered to be one of more important things are extracurricular activities, such as: internships, memberships in various organizations (profit, non-profit, political, student, sport, cultural, governmental, non-governmental, etc.), volunteering experience, courses, training, seminars, conferences, workshops, etc. Not only will they complete your CV, but also you’ll learn so many new things, get new skills, gain new experience, meet amazing people and gain friends. If you have any of this experience, don’t hesitate to mention them in your CV. That’s how you’ll stand out and gain edge showing them (the people you are sending your CV to) that you are the inquisitive person who is ready to learn and improve themselves.

Personally, I’ve volunteered over 15 times on various sport and cultural events. I’ve never volunteered just to put it in the CV. The experience you get volunteering is indescribable! I recommend everyone to do it. You’ll never regret it. Even though volunteering work isn’t paid, that doesn’t mean that you’ll just waste your time. Trust me, it’s not worthless, whatsoever. Actually, it’s the opposite. The things you learn, the people you meet, the skills you gain, the amazing time you’ll have and the experience you’ll get is priceless. I know we all have a lot of commitment when it comes to university or school, but trust me, it doesn’t require that much time. It’ll also help you to multitask and deal with couple of things at once.

Your CV should be interesting as well. Be careful when you pick the design of it, font, colour and the size of the letters. It shouldn’t be way too colourful, nor all black and white. You can add a pop of colour to make it stand out and look aesthetically better. Luckily, in this internet era, there’re so many templates to be found. I recommend you to personalise it, not just use the original one. Moreover, bold the most important things (e.g. important dates, name of university, companies you worked for, job position, etc.) just to put the stress on them.

Last, but not least, you should be extra cautious when it comes to grammatical, spelling and syntax errors. Read your CV couple of times before you send it. 

When it comes to naming your CV, it’s recommended that you include your first and last name in it. For example: First name_Last name_CV. It’ll be much easier for the recruitment staff to find it in their archive among tons of other CVs and it’ll show them you thought about every detail and that you spent time working on it. 

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