Your CV (Curriculum Vitae) - Resume for our American friends sells you to your prospective employer. It has to be straight and too the point. However too many CV's contain irrelevant information. What are the ten things that you shouldn't write in your CV?
1) Don't use first person in your personal profile
It sounds too informal if you use the word 'I' too often. If you see CV's that say 'I am good at this' or 'I have experience at this' or 'My skills include' it sounds extremely amateurish. However, if you use the third person, it denotes a certain amount of respectability, authority and value to your previous experience. For instance, you would be better off saying 'David's core skills include...' or 'He graduated with an MBA in 2005'.
2) Don't write too much in your personal profile
Your personal profile should be a four or five line synopsis about you, your key experience and your unique skills. It shouldn't contain any more information than that. That's what the rest of your CV is for. Think of it as a subheading. It should succinctly summarise what is to follow. It is merely an extension to the selling tool that is called your CV.
3) Don't include family details
Never, ever include personal family details on your CV. If you include details like your wife's name or your children's name on your CV then it's like saying to your prospective employer that family is more important than your current job. Even if it is - it's not a very good way to 'sell' your willingness to focus on work. Think about it. Do business professionals include details about their children on marketing materials for their business? Of course not. It's as crazy as that. A CV is a selling tool for your industry experience. Nothing more, nothing less. If necessary you can talk about your family at the interview - but it doesn't do you any favours by discussion them in your CV.
4) Don't write paragraphs about your previous jobs
CV's are skimmed and not read by employers. Quite often, good potential candidates are missed out on simply because their appropriate experience couldn't be found within the thirty seconds used to initially browse a CV for relevance. Think about it from an employer's perspective. Would you really have the time to read through hundreds of CV's from start to finish? The secret to ensuring that your application has every chance of reaching the interview stage is to highlight your employment experience in bullet points. You only need a MAXIMUM of 10 bullet points for each job role. Any more, and it would be likely that not all the bullet points will be read. Make sure that you therefore only mention the most important parts of your experience about your previous employment.
5) Don't focus on what you are proud of
It's so easy to summarise the things that you are most proud of about your previous employment experience. This is an even more pertinent point for more mature individuals. Don't do it! The only pertinent employment experience to have on your CV is experience that's relevant for the position that you're applying for. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't have any other experience on there. It just means that you shouldn't focus on what you are proud of. You should focus on what is relevant.
This article is continued in 'Ten Things NOT To Write In Your CV - Part Two'.
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