CV Preparation A CV will be one of the first things both an agency and employer will see. Their decision upon whether to call you in for an interview or put you forward for jobs will often be based upon the style and content of your CV. It is important to remember that a CV should be designed for the person reading it, and not for yourself. You will need to ask yourself ‘what information will they be looking for’ and include all of this in a concise and relevant document, so if your’s is not one of these, then you may find your CV gets put at the bottom of the pile. Your CV should cover these areas in the following order Personal Details These should be name, address, e-mail, telephone number, mobile number and date of birth. General Skills A short passage of text or no more than 5 bullet points containing your general skills can sometimes serve as a good introduction. You may want to include details of the types of contract you are familiar with, financial or budgetary skills, management skills or other such details. This can serve as a good opener, but don’t be tempted to pad this section out with general, meaningless statements such as the old classic ‘works well as an individual or as part of a team’. Education If you have been working for more then 2-3 years then detail should be kept to a minimum. Higher Education (HND, Degree) or apprenticeship should contain the name of the course, qualifications and where you obtained it. Secondary education details should be kept to a minimum including only the type and number of qualifications you obtained (i.e. A levels, GCSE’s , O levels) If you have been working for less than 2 years, then it might prove beneficial to include some more detail on your education. You could include the names of some relevant modules you studied in further education or include the names of relevant secondary or further education courses you have attained. If you have any professional qualifications (i.e. NRSWA register, Nebosh, CORGI, ACOPS) then also include them in this section, but leave details of other one day or week long courses you have attended until the back of your CV. Work Experience For each position you have held, state the dates you worked there, the name of the company and your position. Explain what exactly your main responsibilities were and the type of work you were involved in. Many people often make the mistake that a person will immediately know the type of work a particular company is involved in, and that they will also understand exactly what they were doing if they give a job title. This is very rarely the case, and you should only assume that the reader of your CV only has a very basic knowledge of your industry - i.e. a carpenter works with wood. If the jobs you have had have been project based , prospective employers will want to know more about what the project was (e.g. construction of £3 million, steel portal framed industrial unit). As people’s responsibilities often change on different projects, you need to take the same approach to the different projects as you would for different jobs, giving dates, names, your job title and what your duties entailed. If, however, you have worked on 10 or more projects, then it would take up too much time to list them all in this way. It is much better to list the various types of projects you have worked on with a company, (e.g. earthworks, land reclamation, roads, infrastructure, RC structure and WWTW projects) and generally what your responsibilities have included. After this, list some of the projects you have worked on, ensuring that you give a wide range of different types. Courses Attended List here all of the professional courses you have attended, which would be of interest to future employers, such as Health and Safety, First Aid, management courses etc. Interests Try to keep this to a few lines only and never go into too much detail. Employers will look at this section to get a general idea of the type of person you are and will often use this as an icebreaker in an interview situation. CV Presentation The style of your CV and how it is presented will often have an impact on its overall effectiveness. Please take note of the following points. * Always check your CV for spelling and grammar mistakes. * Avoid overly long, wordy CVs, which contain too much narrative. * Your CV should be concise, but not too brief—you need to ensure that you have contained enough relevant information and that it is clearly presented. *Forget all that nonsense about keeping it to one or two pages. If you’re a recent graduate then that advice is valid, but if you’ve been in the industry for 20 years then you could looking at 3 well presented pages. * Wherever possible, get your CV typed up on a computer. If you do not have access to that computer all the time, make several copies onto floppy discs. Most agencies much prefer CVs by email or on disc, and it will also enable you to post it on the Web. * Stick to the same font style and size (12 point Arial or Times New Roman) for the body of the text. *Avoid using boxes and heading styles for new sections, as these can often be incompatible with recruitment software systems. Use bold and larger point sizes for titles for new sections.