Making A CV

Whether you’re applying for a job or even to university, it’s likely that you’ll be asked for a CV. A CV is a brief overview of your working life, highlighting the most impressive or important things you’ve done, as well as your important qualifications and some personal details. Employers and interviewers see hundreds of these a day, so it can feel intimidating to even try to make one. Even with that, it’s something that often needs to be done; but how do you make one?

A CV is vital when applying for jobs. No matter where you go, it’s very likely that you’ll be asked for one. It’s likely that you’ll be asked for a cover letter with a CV, but a cover letter is much more specific to a job. A CV is one sheet of paper that you can use in any interview, and you only need to update it if you have another job or qualification to add to it. Overall, you’ll only have to make this document once, then it’s a matter of keeping it up to date. Everyone has a different way of making theirs, it even varies with what kind of job you’re applying for. A CV should include - 

• Your full name
  
• Your contact details, phone number, email address, address etc
  
• Experience, so any jobs or volunteer work you’ve done
  
• Education, typically I only go for college and university but that’s up to you
  
• Skills, but keep it relevant to the kinds of jobs you’re applying for
  
• Any awards, but again, keep it relevant, this could include first aid etc
  

I had to write my first CV in college as a part of our course, and it felt impossible. I didn’t know where to start. It was stressful to even think about. I remember my lecturer telling us to make it look nice. He said to make it reflect who you are as a person. Personally, I’m still not quite sure how to do that in a CV, but it sounded like a good piece of motivational advice. Since then, I’ve redone my CV quite a few times. I’ve lost count of how many. Through constant googling and picking up advice from people here and there, I’ve created a functional CV. It’s not perfect, but it’s not something that’ll be perfect the first time. It takes a couple goes to really get it down, but once you do, you’ve done it. Here are some of the tricks I picked up along the way, and hopefully these are useful to you: 

• Order things from the most important - sometimes employers only look at the first couple things you list, so it’s important to order them from the most impressive down. 
  
• Make it look nice - no one likes a messy document. That’s a general observation. Keep everything orderly and tidy, add borders, add a splash of colour, do anything to make it look sleek and tidy. This will come across as professional.
  
• Make it reflect your line of work - if you’re going for an office job or anything of the sorts, keep it minimalistic, only add colour to highlighted sections, keep it sleek. If you’re going into a creative industry, reflect that. Make it creative. Add a bit more colour, I’ve seen CVs with coloured pages before, it varies depending on the person. 
  
• Build your CV - this sounds weird, but do what you can to build it. OpenLearn (www.openlearn.com -  not sponsored, I just really like them) has a lot of free courses, it’s worth looking through them to see if there’s anything relevant to you. I work with young people quite often, so I’ve done some courses about that. I’ve done some on working in a team and being a team leader, they’ve got a good selection. Volunteering is a good way of building your CV, and it looks really good. Skills are a good way to build it too, so I’ve got the fact that I can read score/sheet music, I work well in a team, the ability to communicate regularly/competently and that I know BSL in there. Limit skills to about 5 or 7, but make sure you keep the most important ones at the top. I know my friend has the fact he knows how to do origami in his, so feel free to get creative with your skills. 
  
• Don’t lie - I know someone who lied about all of his grades on his CV and in his twenty years of working, he’s never been caught out. Some employers do ask for proof of qualifications, so keep that in mind. Personally, I’d say not to risk it, it’s not worth it, but sometimes it works out. Don’t lie though. 
  

Those are my tips on how to make a CV! Hopefully these are enough to help you get an idea of what to do or what to expect when making one! Remember, when you’re just getting started, no one’s going to expect it to be perfect or incredibly detailed. As long as you keep updating it, it’ll all be fine. Good luck! You’ve got this!

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