A Curriculum Vitae (C.V.) is a summary of your training, experience and skills that is used by an employer to decide whether you would be a suitable candidate for a job. A curriculum vitae is your personal advertisement that highlights those characteristics about you that are the most interesting, the most impressive and unique. C.V.’s are also called résumés, especially outside of Quebec. C.V.’s can be on paper or electronic.
A good C.V. is one that allows employers to easily and quickly determine whether your skills and experience match their needs. The easier you make this for the employer, the better. Its purpose is to sufficiently impress a potential employer so that he or she invites you to an interview to learn more about you.
What follows are suggestions. It is difficult to always predict exactly what each employer wants or expects to see in a C.V., therefore generalizations are not always possible. In the end, you must emphasize and include what best reflects your skills and personality.
Step One
Make a complete list of all your education, work experience, volunteer experience, extra-curricular activities, and internships, with dates.
“One-Liners”
For each of your experiences, write a few short sentences explaining the tasks you performed. The tasks you describe will illustrate to an employer the skills you have to offer. The best sentences are those that emphasize your achievements, that is, activities that you undertook on your own initiative that resulted in positive change. Use strong “action” verbs and adjectives in your sentences, e.g. designated, oversaw, planned, examined, attained, improved, reduced, remarkable, renowned, influential, major, solid, etc.
These sentences are called your “one-liners” and they can change your C.V. from a “dead” one to one that can excite or interest an employer. You must put modesty aside. Be direct, assertive, professional, concise, and honest.
For example:
・ Evaluated the fitness of members and constructed personal fitness programs based on the results.
・ Undertook research on ESL learning difficulties experienced by recent Haitian immigrants in Montreal and developed appropriate educational materials.
・ Co-ordinated team of four and consulted with staff of several major firms to design chainsaw/auger conversion kit resulting in offer from manufacturer to test prototype.
・ As a result of a sensitive and innovative approach, successfully taught water-shy adults to swim.
・ As editor-in-chief of the McGill Film Club Newsletter, edited and wrote articles with Word for Mac enabling the group to obtain funding and attract new members.The purpose is to emphasize your skills and achievements by using specific examples.
Step Two
Decide to whom you are writing the C.V. The C.V. needs to be targeted as specifically as possible to a particular career area or job. Research the key skills and capabilities associated with this career area.
Look over the list of activities that you created in the first step. From that list, take the activities that you consider to be most associated with your target. For example, a teacher would list her/his teaching internships, voluntary tutoring experiences, summer camp counsellor jobs and day care centre substitute work. All of these “relevant” activities should be put in one section called “Career-Related Experience.”
Step Three
Now that you have done the groundwork, start constructing your C.V. The basic principle to follow is to put relevant information first and give it the most space.
The sections of your C.V. could be as follows:
Name, Address, Telephone Number, Fax, E-mail
・ Do not include other information such as your SIN, date of birth or nationality.
Career Objective
・ Only include an objective if you are clear about what you want to do. A career objective should contain an industry and a general position, e.g., “a management trainee position in the international banking industry.”
・ If your C.V. is for an “unskilled” part-time or summer job, this section is not necessary.
Languages
・ If you are fully bilingual, write “Fluent English and French (written and spoken).”
・ If you are not fluent in French but can get by, write “English, French.”
・ If you are a monolingual English speaker, it would probably be better to leave this section out.
Computers
・ List the software with which you are familiar.
Education
・ Bold your degrees, not the universities.
・ You can include “one-liners” about research you undertook, or prizes you were awarded.
Career-Related Experience (see Step Two)
・ Bold your job or position titles, not the company or organization.
・ Give yourself the job title that best matches your actual responsibilities.
Other work experience
・ List other activities or jobs that are not related to your target career and include “one-liners” for activities where you had tasks that illustrated “transferable” skills (leadership, teamwork, communication, adaptability, research, organizational skills, etc.).
・ It may be difficult, but drop activities and jobs that are less important, especially if your C.V. is long.
Interests
・ If you are going to list leisure activities, be as specific as possible because they are sometimes used as “ice-breakers” at interviews; they could also match the interests of the interviewer! It is not necessarily the activity that may be of interest to the employer but rather the personal characteristics that can be inferred from it.
References
・ Write, “References will be supplied upon request.”
Make the C.V. look as attractive as possible. It should be clear and concise as well as having enough detail to communicate the important facts to the employers.
Use point form and a visually attractive layout. Make sure there is a good balance between white space and text and limit yourself to 2 pages. Print it with a laser printer on good quality paper. Use a clear font, preferably Times Roman 12 pt.
Ensure that there are no typographical or grammatical errors. These will certainly eliminate you.
(from McGILL University Student Service, Career and Placement, Tools&tips)