Your CV or resume gives your prospective employer a first impression of you. This is a powerful document that fights for you and hints to the employer or recruiter that they should call you for an interview. Therefore when writing it you should pay attention on the words you use, ensure they communicate effectively about you and what you can offer. In other words ensure you sell yourself well. A CV has the power to change your life, because it’s the first link to getting the right job.
Follow this checklist to ensure you are sending out an excellent quality representation of yourself.
Key Sections
Ensure your CV document has all the important sections clearly spelt out. For example, the personal information, Key skills and Competencies, Work Experience,Education,Computer Knowledge, Additional Achievements and Referees. Check that you use the same font for these titles, bold them and use a black color.
Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation
After you finish filling content in all the sections, proofread the whole document. Look out for any spelling mistakes, omissions and hanging sentences. Ensure you activate the spellchecker function on your computer then use it to check for any wrongly spelt words. Print out the document and read the document word for word. Observe grammar rules. Spell checker doesn’t know that you meant “manager” when you actually typed “manger.”You could also convert the word document to PDF then read through keenly making necessary corrections.
Capitalization
Ensure you observe capitalization rules. Begin each sentence, Company names and titles with a capital letter. If possible google and read more on capitalization.
Consistency
You must ensure consistency in your plurals, font size, type and color, number usage (dates, money, numbers, and percentages) and abbreviations. For example, don’t list one date as 4/2016 and then list another date as 5/04/2016.Also, list software consistently (abbreviation use). MS Excel and Microsoft Outlook are both correct, but not consistent.
Punctuation
Check for proper use of commas, colons, dashes, hyphens, quotation marks and semi-colons. Again, if you are unsure, refer to the Punctuation Manual.
Hyperlinks
All e-mail, social media, and web addresses that you list need to be deactivated in your CV. To do this in MS Word, highlight the link, go to the “Insert” drop down menu, scroll down to and click “Hyperlink”, and on the lower left-hand side of this screen there should be a little button that says “Remove link”, when you find it, give it a little click and you are good to go! Alternatively, you can highlight the link, right click on it, and scroll down to “remove link” to deactivate the link.
Education Section
When listing your degrees or certificates obtained, list only the year you obtained them. For example 2014 avoid adding dates like 2/12/2014, many CV scanning systems will not recognize that you obtained a degree, only that you attended college for a period of time.
Hanging Sentences
Read through the document and ensure all phrases and sentences are complete. Avoid run-ons that make it difficult for the recruiter to read and understand what you meant.
Reference Section
Ensure all references are well written out with the names, organization, titles, telephone contacts and functioning email addresses. Let the order be consistent.
Avoid Ampersands
Do not substitute the word and for the character or sign (&) unless it’s included in the name of a company or organization.
By Edith Mecha
Follow this checklist to ensure you are sending out an excellent quality representation of yourself.
Key Sections
Ensure your CV document has all the important sections clearly spelt out. For example, the personal information, Key skills and Competencies, Work Experience,Education,Computer Knowledge, Additional Achievements and Referees. Check that you use the same font for these titles, bold them and use a black color.
Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation
After you finish filling content in all the sections, proofread the whole document. Look out for any spelling mistakes, omissions and hanging sentences. Ensure you activate the spellchecker function on your computer then use it to check for any wrongly spelt words. Print out the document and read the document word for word. Observe grammar rules. Spell checker doesn’t know that you meant “manager” when you actually typed “manger.”You could also convert the word document to PDF then read through keenly making necessary corrections.
Capitalization
Ensure you observe capitalization rules. Begin each sentence, Company names and titles with a capital letter. If possible google and read more on capitalization.
Consistency
You must ensure consistency in your plurals, font size, type and color, number usage (dates, money, numbers, and percentages) and abbreviations. For example, don’t list one date as 4/2016 and then list another date as 5/04/2016.Also, list software consistently (abbreviation use). MS Excel and Microsoft Outlook are both correct, but not consistent.
Punctuation
Check for proper use of commas, colons, dashes, hyphens, quotation marks and semi-colons. Again, if you are unsure, refer to the Punctuation Manual.
Hyperlinks
All e-mail, social media, and web addresses that you list need to be deactivated in your CV. To do this in MS Word, highlight the link, go to the “Insert” drop down menu, scroll down to and click “Hyperlink”, and on the lower left-hand side of this screen there should be a little button that says “Remove link”, when you find it, give it a little click and you are good to go! Alternatively, you can highlight the link, right click on it, and scroll down to “remove link” to deactivate the link.
Education Section
When listing your degrees or certificates obtained, list only the year you obtained them. For example 2014 avoid adding dates like 2/12/2014, many CV scanning systems will not recognize that you obtained a degree, only that you attended college for a period of time.
Hanging Sentences
Read through the document and ensure all phrases and sentences are complete. Avoid run-ons that make it difficult for the recruiter to read and understand what you meant.
Reference Section
Ensure all references are well written out with the names, organization, titles, telephone contacts and functioning email addresses. Let the order be consistent.
Avoid Ampersands
Do not substitute the word and for the character or sign (&) unless it’s included in the name of a company or organization.
By Edith Mecha
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