A good curriculum vitae is one of the most important tools to be able to make a good first impression to those who are looking for candidates and want to recruit. To achieve this goal, the structure and the information it must contain are fundamental aspects.
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Table of Contents
The Structure of a Good Curriculum Vitae
There are several formats available on the market.
The European curriculum or Europass it has the particularity of being very long and, therefore, difficult to hold attention.
Another format, the Summary American, tries to describe everything on a page. It also does not seem to be a good way to give indications about some characteristics of the person, despite having the advantage of being synthetic and objective, reporting the results that were achieved along the way.
A structure that we recommend will be a mix of the previous two, with a more personalized and adapted to the very, more or less long route, which we intend to demonstrate.
Let us put in our curriculum our aesthetic style and the characteristics and personal and professional path, distinctive from the competition.
Do not stretch and try to be synthetic, which in general is more difficult. The goal is not to exceed two or three pages.
Personal data
Identify with name, residence and personal contacts.
Putting the photograph can be harmful because the empathy we can create in personal contact may not be visible in the photograph and the purpose of the curriculum is to attract the recruiter to invite us for an interview.
Also mentioning the age or date of birth should be avoided, what we want to show is not the age, but the concrete experience, with results achieved.
Personal and Professional Summary
Present a summary of the technical and personal skills we have, referring to whether the experience is in the national or international market.
What technical skills do we have and how have they contributed to the success of our journey.
What are our personal skills, the soft skills. These are very relevant and usually more distinctive than technical skills. It depends on the type of work that has been developed.
These behavioral competencies can be leadership or teamwork skills;
Be result oriented and resilient;
They may be remarkable negotiating skills or communication skills and conflict resolution skills;
Ethical behavior and creative thinking;
Or the ability to create empathy, motivation and decision making.
We cannot write something that is not true and, if possible, the competences must be demonstrable, through performance evaluations or with evaluations and recommendations made by colleagues or business partners.
Try not to exceed 75 words.
Professional Career
Start with the most recent activity, as it is almost always the type of job we are applying for.
Describe the functions we performed, it is not enough to say that we were the “Chairman of the Board”.
The important thing is what has been accomplished in each function. Note the responsibilities and some quantitative data that demonstrate the capacity for achievement and success in different functions.
We can detail a little about the companies in which we work, for example, the volume of invoicing, countries in which it is or was present, number of employees.
Academic qualifications
We present the academic path, placing first the highest degree we have.
Post-graduations do not confer an academic degree but are part of our continuous learning. Being carried out in the academic field, they must be referenced here.
Professional qualifications
Face-to-face courses or “e-learning” courses attended within the scope of our professional path, must be explained. What course, where it took place, who was the responsible entity and when it was.
Some courses may have conferred certifications that must also appear here.
Other information
In this part of the curriculum vitae, we must indicate some personal interests and activities performed outside the professional scope.
If we teach or have any specific knowledge of a specific subject that may be relevant to differentiate us, we must highlight it.
Test to Get a Good Curriculum Vitae
A good curriculum vitae is a Marketing document, where we try to draw attention to our professional experience and personal skills.
We must be clear, concise and focused on the results that have been obtained.
Try to put some “Keyword”About the role, values and culture of the company to which we apply.
We must be very careful with spelling and grammatical errors.
Check if the document we are going to send, in PDF for example, is adapted to be read on mobile devices (mobile phones or tablets).
Ask friends or people you trust to read the curriculum vitae. In the end, ask how they summarize our profession, what results we obtained and what personal skills they found.
It is a way of validating the adequacy of what is written to the function for which we are applying.
Finally, put ethics high! Let us be true in everything we refer to.
It is not enough to list skills to have a good curriculum vitae. It is necessary to exemplify what we say with the achievements and results obtained, and especially in the interview phase.
Good Curriculum Vitae Example
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