My job right now includes screening numbers of CVs and today as I received another document that looked terrible, I say down and wrote these few notes. There are a few fundamentals to putting together a job application that is brilliant.
From global-workplace
1. Curriculum Vita
This is a document that outlines the most important aspects of your professional career. Books have been written on how to present your CV, so it’s not possible here to give you every last punctuation mark related to its creation. These are just the bare basics. Set your CV out in the following order:
~ You name at the top with a photograph (see point 2)
~ Personal Details including your contact details (with Skype and your email address) your marital status, driver’s licence, passport.
~ Professional Qualifications – this must be next – do not use abbreviations that the reader won’t understand. When you outline your degree, make sure you include what your major subjects are. Do not abbreviate the university name. Put in the dates you began your degree to when you concluded it.
~ Experience – Highlight where you worked, in which position you worked and the basics of your position. eg if you are a teacher, you would say the school, the grade and the subjects you taught. Make sure you put in the dates you started and ended at each place of employment.
~ Other experience – if you have other experience not related to your career but you think may be of interest, you can include that too, but don’t get carried away with every last thing you ever did. That will get glossed over and perceived as waffle.
~ Interests – Feel free to write a little bit about yourself in regard to your hobbies or interests.
~ References – Make sure you use references who know they may receive a call. Give their name, their position and their relationship to you eg. Head of department as well as their profession contact details.
Before you send anything, spell check it! Ensure the grammar is correct and you have used capital letters correctly.
When you save your CV on your computer, save it with what you would like the recipient to read eg. Helga van Niekerk CV.
2. A Photograph
Beneath your name at the top of the CV include a photograph. Getting the photo right may seem the simplest thing in the world to do, but you have no idea of the photographs I have seen. Pouts are out! The photo must be professional and head and shoulders. No plunging necklines, obvious tattoos, multiple piercings or bare chests. Formal, chin up with a smile is absolutely fine. If you are male, wear a tie. For women, formal wear is appropriate. You don’t need to pay a lot of money for a good photograph. You can use a cell phone, but try and avoid selfies. Get someone to take it in good light and play around with it until you and they are satisfied it is professional.
3. Attachments
For many job applications, the recruiter will require proof that you are qualified for the position for which you are applying. You need to put some effort into sending your certificates. Do not take photographs of documents. You want the your profile to be presented in the most professional way possible. If you scan a certificate in, make sure it is straight and square on the scanner, so it doesn’t come out skew. While you want to resize the document so that it is not a massive file size, you also don’t want the quality to be so bad, it can hardly be seen. Don’t scan photocopies. Scan the originals in colour and send them in individual documents correctly labelled. eg. with the your name and the title of the document.
The most important thing to do when you are presenting anything, is to do the best you can do. Aim for excellence.
Colossians 3:23
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.
Good reminder!
These are the days!
Keep the smile going.
God bless you!
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂