Jobs And Interview

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There are certain items which must be included in every CV. Other items may or may not be mentioned depending on whether they are relevant or not. The items which must be included are given below:

Personal Information: Name, date of birth, marital status, language known, address, telephone number.

Educational Background: Institutions attended with years, marks obtained, qualifications, achievements, computer literacy.

Employment History: Name of organisation(s), years, designation(s), responsibilities, achievements and training programme attended. Include any part time or summer employment if you do not have any full time experience.

Stick to the Basic Rules
Stick to these proven guidelines for writing a CV:

The term "Bio-data" is out. Curriculum Vitae (CV) has replaced it.

Do not make a mistake of beginning your CV with the title "Bio-data" especially if you are applying for the managerial position.

Before writing your CV sit down and think through what information you want to highlight. Include your achievements, your hobbies and interests, academic qualifications, details of your work experience (if any) and your job objectives. Don't write a final CV without including all these.

Begin your CV with a section on personal particulars. Exclude family background.

Write your date of birth and not your age. If your CV were to go in a databank, only to be retrieved 2 or 3 years later, it would be difficult to make an estimate of your age.

You must give your phone number even if you do not have your own phone. Give a phone number of your friend or a relative who can pass on a message to you quickly. This is very essential as many vacancies have to be filled urgently and interviews have to be set up at a very short notice. Always mention the STD code of your town of residence if applying outside the city and remember to mention country code as well when applying abroad.

Don't clutter your CV with irrelevant information. Mention your nationality only when applying abroad or when specifically asked to do so.

Mention your father's occupation when applying for a position at the entry level or a junior level non-management job, or when specifically asked.

Try and give maximum possible information in minimum space.

You may include a job objective at the beginning. Your objective should be as specific as you can make it or it can be tailor-made to exactly correspond with the requirements of an advertisement to which you are replying.

Make sure that the reader is quickly able to assess your accomplishments. If you have had work experience, start with your most recent experience and then the experiences that you have had with the organisations you were previously in. Your most recent experience will be the one most relevant to your new job. So mention it first and your previous experiences later.

Similarly, start your academic background with the most recent qualification.

Make sure that your CV is not longer than two pages. It should, at the same time, not be so short that your prospective employer does not know anything about you after going through it. It must be concise and should be informative.

Presentation
Make sure your CV looks good. Presentation is of utmost importance. You must:

(a) Avoid spelling mistakes.

(b) Use good quality paper.

(c) Do not send curriculum vitae with spelling errors corrected by whitening fluid or by hand.

(d) Use proper margins and spend time formatting it properly.

(e) Send the printed laser outputs instead of photocopying. It may cost you more but it says a lot about you.

Don't lie even if it is a small lie. Usually such lies are about achievements, grades and marks or summer projects. The personnel departments in most companies do take pains in verifying claims.