Learning to write a CV is one of the greatest ways to advertise a very unique product - you! Your ability to write a CV, will help market you to a prospective employer and give you an edge against the other candidates trying for the same position. The key to learning how to write a CV is to do a more compelling job of selling yourself than your competitors do. Rounding off with an effective cover letter that really appeals to an employer, your CV will work wonders for you and create opportunities that you never knew existed.

Most individuals don't spend enough time at all on learning what you need to do to write a good CV. The worst possible thing that you could do is use generic CVs, (the same one for each different position) as this is untargeted. Recruiters can easily recognize generic or slapped-together CVs and often disregard them. The time you spend learning how to create a CV is worth every minute because a well-planned CV can draw the attention of a potential employer and get you the interview you really desire.

Tailor Your CV to the Employer
It is a shame that a lot of individuals use the same CV to apply for each different position. In order to better your chances of standing out you will have to target it to the prospective employer. To do this, focus on the elements of your background or experience that best match the job profile.It is important to note that the reader may only spend a few seconds scanning your CV to ascertain whether they want to read further.

CV Writing Skills

In addition to reading the advertisement in great detail, research the company carefully and look at their website to learn what you can about the people they employ, their products and their background. What is their mission statement and what kind of a company are they? Are you likely to fit in well with their environment? If you are confident that you will then this will be a great job to go for. Not only that, but it will provide you with a lot of useful information for your interview and impress them that you have done your research.

Make a Good First Impression

In careers, initial impressions matter a great deal. This is especially true when it comes to CV writing. Creating a CV that grabs the recruiter's attention in a positive way improves your chances of getting that interview. When learning how to write a CV keep the following CV writing tips in mind:

devise a strong profile that it is concise and illustrates your key skills and qualities as an employee. It is essential to include your work-based results to show an employer that you are results-driven. We have just conducted research amongst 1000 employers and "73% of employers have rejected candidates due to a lack of work-based achievements on their Profile/CV. Use short, snappy sentences with action verbs (accomplished, headed, drove sales, etc.) that grab your reader's attention and portray you as someone who gets things done. Save personal and educational details to the end of your Profile/CV.

Mention the appropriate information

Exact and current content is an important part of learning how to write a functional and effective CV. Deciding on and developing this content should take most of the time you dedicate to the task. Each time you have completed another training course of finished another job I would suggest that you go back to your CV and write it in. This will keep it fresh in your mind and cut down the workload that you will have in the future when trying to recall the exact details of what you did.

Before you start the actual CV writing, make sure you have a unambiguous sense of what the recruiters are looking for. Then get organised by preparing the following information:

Personal details

Your full contact info: current address, telephone number, and email. Professional profile. Detect your skills, functional expertise, and industry experience. Research the advertisement and the recruiter and/or company website thoroughly before writing your profile.

Core skills, competencies, and expertise (not already included in your professional profile).

Again, you can pepper these throughout your CV and they don't necessarily have to have their own section. You can judge what is the best strategy to employ when looking at the length of your CV and the layout of it.

It is essential that you include your work-based results here and order them according to relevance. Are they impressive acheievements? Try to put them in the order that you think would best appeal to an employer.


Employment summary

This is a very important section and one that is commonly overlooked by most people. Try to mention your skills throughout this section as well as the reults sthat you achieved. Keep at the forefront of your mind that employers are results-driven, so demonstrate to them that you are too.

Always written in reverse chronolgical order with the name of the company, city, employment dates and position held.


Educational or other qualifications


Written in reverse chronological order. Include the degree, dates, major and minor subjects, and institution. Mention any industry-specific training programs and certifications.

Reviewing Your CV


Once you have learnt the basic's with regards how to write CV, always assess it for the following before submitting it to a recruiter or potential employer:


Accuracy

Make sure the CV is accurate and completely up-to-date. Don't exaggerate or fib. If you do this it will be rather detrimental to you. Imagine getting an interview based on the impressiveness of your CV, then getting to interview and messing it up. Interviewers will want to probe deeply at what you have written and extract further detail and explanation from you. A blatant lie on your part will become obvious and cause an embarressing situation. Would you want to employ someone that you cannot trust?

Language and style


Have you used shorter sentences to achieve greater impact in your CV? Writing lengthy sentences is more challenging and runs the risk of losing the concentrationof your audience. Read through your sentences a few times to determine whether they read nicely or are hard to understand. Use commas and punctuation accurately to accomplish this. Use bulleted lists for skills and achievements.


Grammar

Get a colleague to scan your CV for grammatical errors as this will be to your benefit. Spell check and proofread continuously as deliveing a CV with lots of mistakes will make you look unprofessional and it will appear that you do not care enough about the job to take your time to do it accurately.

About Author / Additional Info:
Expert CV and Career Consultancy based in the UK. To see our website please click here: http://cv4me.webs.com