Writing a Catchy CV

What is a CV for? A CV or resume is quite simply an advertisement to sell yourself to an employer. The purpose of your CV is to make you attractive, interesting, worth considering to the company and so is helps you to get short-listed for interview or the written test.

An employer may have several hundred enquiries about a single job; he or she will only choose a few people who appear suitable for interview. Therefore, your CV must be as good as you can make it.

Your CV should be designed to differentiate you from rest of the crowd: For that it should have following characteristics: - ·Be both informative and persuasive ·Highlight your marketable skills; abilities and work experience which are most useful to an employer and which match the job requirements. ·Outline all relevant information about your education and work experience, which are most useful to the job or, type of job you have targeted. ·Identify the selling points that set you aside from other candidates. ·Communicate your most relevant qualifications and achievements to potential employers. ·Present your positive aspects in a concise and well-structured document.

Stick to the Basic Rules ·The term "Bio-data" is out of fashion. Curriculum Vitae (CV) is more suitable to be used and leaves a better impact on the person reading it.

·Before writing your CV sit down and think as to what information you want to highlight.

·Include your achievements, your hobbies and interests, academic qualifications, details of your work experience (if any) and your job objectives. Don't write a final CV without including all these.

·Begin your CV with a section on personal particulars. Exclude family background. Write your date of birth and not your age by this you do not have to change your CV each time you send an application.

·Your CV must be easy to read, short and attractive and must distinguish you from others.

There are two communication principles to remember:

·'KISS' - 'keep it simple, stupid'. It should be simple and yet attractive.

·'If they didn't hear it, you didn't say it'. It simply means that you should so design it that a person should be able to catch the highlights of your CV even if he just scans through it, may be, just for a minute. The salient and important points must draw his attention instead of he searching for the main features of it.

What to include: CV should include following points positively: -

·Personal details ·Education ·Work experience ·Achievements ·Extracurricular activities ·Interests ·Skills ·References (only if asked)

Presentation is of the utmost importance. Make sure your CV looks good: You must ensure that you: -

·Commit no spelling mistakes. ·Use good quality paper. ·Do not send curriculum vitae with spelling errors corrected by whitening fluid or by hand. ·Use proper margins and spend time formatting it properly. ·Send the printed laser outputs instead of photocopying or otherwise quality of the photocopying should be of very high quality. ·Don't lie even if it is a small lie. Usually such lies are about achievements, grades and marks or summer projects and are bound to be caught later on.

Special Tips for the Freshers: Your basic task is of communicating the fact that your skills, school and college education work experience, achievements, projects and extracurricular activities - all add up to make you the right person for the job.

Interests Section of Your CV: Employers are looking for a balanced mixture of interests that are outlined by a few bullet points few examples are as follows. Just remember that any work, which you have done on your own, carries lot of importance and weight: -

·Voluntary work done at any stage and at any level. ·Team works. ·Organizing the events if any in the college or work place ·Any other activities