Struggling to draw up a CV...

[OoohShiny]

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this thread so please move it if required!

I have a CV 'in a safe place' and it has been a number of years since I needed to update it.

However, now I come to update it again, I am totally confused as to what needs to go where, and even what needs to go on it


I mean, in the old days, a CV was something like this:

Name
Age
Contact details
School + qualifications
Post-school qualifications
Work-based qualifications
Your work history and experience, from recent to oldest
A statement about how you like spending time with your family and all that other guff


Now, though....

Do I include my age / date of birth? Ageism is supposed to be ruled out now so why provide it?
Contact details - do I put these at the end so my work experience comes at the start, to grab attention / save time reading for the assessor?
School qualifications - do I even need to bother with listing out my subjects and their grades, seeing as it was a long time ago, I've since managed to achieve a university education, and my work experience is surely what an assessor will be looking for?
How far should I go back with my employment history? Only jobs within my current sector (which has been a while now) because they will be most relevant, or even stuff like working at a supermarket when I was a teenager? (I can provide full details if an HR team require it to secure an appointment?)
Should I still aim to stick below two pages?
Should I use a classic Times New Roman or something 'sans serif'?


If anyone has any recommendations or sites with good examples, I would be most grateful!!

 

[new-beginning]

Name
Contact info
work history relating to position seeking
most current first, followed by other work history
education
maybe a couple of bits about social/service info (i.e. past military, current or recent past volunteer, etc.)

I certainly would NOT put age or family info.

 

[telephone89]

I think contact info at the top is still important. Good for referencing.
No age.
Keep school brief, especially if it was years ago, OR you could put a list of qualifications/skills and add your schooling to that (ie MS Clinical Psychology - Harvard)
work experience, if youve been in this area for a while stick with that OR other relevant things. No one gives a shit if you bagged groceries 20 years ago.
Keep it short! Recruiters do NOT like length resumes.
Do not add any personal stuff on the resume (enjoying time with the fam). Keep it professional. If you think its relevant, you should add this to your cover letter. Maybe its touted a family friendly company so you want to work that in somehow. Or they do charity work with animal rescues, so you can throw in your love of animals and appreciation of that charity.

Agree with @new-beginning to add volunteer or other relevant work to the resume (if applicable).

 

[yssie]

Is this a resume or a CV (ex. for an academic position)?
Resume - 1-2 pages max. Most recent relevant experience first.
CV - all published papers, conference talks, etc.

 

[monarch64]

You can hire an expert freelancer on Upwork.com to update your CV if you're so inclined.

 

[Miss Marple]

find some examples online typical for your location. After 5+ years f experience it usually makes sense to move education to the bottom. No age or family status if in the US.

Assuming you are generally applying for jobs and not updating your CV because you were invited to apply to one specific job, Make sure that you include key words for you industry. AI filters rely heavily on those.

Create a long version of your CV that includes everything you can think of. Edit the long version to customize for each job you apply to. I changed jobs recently. My updated long form CV was nearly 2 pages. The version I actually sent out was 1 page. And I had many of the same questions you had. It had been about 10 years since the prior update.

Have trusted friends review. Got my current job because I sent it to several friends for comment. Even better if said trusted friends are willing to share a copy of their own CV. Helps to get you thinking in the right direction.

As somebody who has looked at a lot of CVs, I also appreciate a short summary statement that makes it clear the type of job being applied for. Example: "Engineer with x years of experience doing y activities". Cover letters or emails often get separated from the CV.

Good luck!

 

[MaisOuiMadame]

Great advice so far, but iirc you're not in the US, right? Some of the requirements (customs, really) vary widely based on country, industry and size of company . In SME (up to800 employees) *in my country* they definitely still want to see the traditional thing with birth date and possibly your favourite pastimes . Multinationals are more neutral, generally. Sometimes make you fill in their questionnaire directly online to filter more efficiently, as opposed to going through uploaded individual docs. So you need to know the recipient companies' policies and their process.

 

[OoohShiny]

Excellent replies, all, thank you very much!

Is this a resume or a CV (ex. for an academic position)?
Resume - 1-2 pages max. Most recent relevant experience first.
CV - all published papers, conference talks, etc.

This is a very good question, and not one I had thought of.

I'm am not an academic so don't have anything published, so strictly speaking it would be a resume, but I've never called it that!!

I am in the UK and always thought of a CV as the former - I'm not sure we usually refer to them as a resume in the UK??


I like the idea of creating a 'long' resume/CV, though, and then slimming as required. I guess the bonus of a slimline version is that you don't have to go into too much detail, which I imagine can be beneficial if you were working on something in only a relatively minor role but might want to 'emphasise' your contribution without having to explain it in writing...

As somebody who has looked at a lot of CVs, I also appreciate a short summary statement that makes it clear the type of job being applied for. Example: "Engineer with x years of experience doing y activities". Cover letters or emails often get separated from the CV.

I am wondering if I could do a short paragraph of the things I am interested in / the skills I have (to bring them out more clearly from a list of workplaces/projects) / the things I'm interested in working on, and put it on the end, if I have room on a second page??

 

[Miss Marple]

A short paragraph sounds more like something that should go on your cover letter.

If your experience and last title are relevant to the job you are applying for, then nothing further required, but many people are looking for a bit of a switch in job duties.

 

[Arcadian]

You know, I alway thought the CV was the short form of the resume...at least thats what I used it as! I haven't done either in years so surely lost as to how to even go about that anymore.

 

[Tartansparkles]

For the UK I'd say no age, I'm also in the UK and think of it as a CV.

I am wondering if I could do a short paragraph of the things I am interested in / the skills I have (to bring them out more clearly from a list of workplaces/projects) / the things I'm interested in working on, and put it on the end, if I have room on a second page??

I would be careful how you phrase 'the things you are interested in' because if you flip this to an employer's perspective, their thinking will likely be "what are you going to do for me?". I would relate the skills you have as specifically as you can to the requirements of the post. (Although more difficult to do if this is a scenario where the CV is being handed to an agency)

 

[dk168]

Rightly or wrongly, mine is arranged in this order:
Contact details (name, mobile phone and email address)
Key strengths, knowledge and experience in bullet points.
Work experience starting with the most recent, stating main responsibilities and achievements, with progressively less details the older they were.
Main academic (where and when I went to university) and professional qualifications.
Extra curricula activities (to show I have a life outside work)
Personal details (no age, no marital status) - I just mention no dependant except for a cat and a dog, a clean driving licence, and a full UK resident.

I try to keep it within 2-sided A4 with mostly 10pt font.

DK

 

[GliderPoss]

I always put:

1. Name (no age or marital status)
2. Contact Details
3. Work history from most recent to oldest for past 10 years with a few dot points about each (add abbreviation for any older roles with "details provided on request")
4. Education - university and school
5. References - at least 4 of them

Maximum 2 pages. I do a cover letter describing my personality a bit more, addressing the position criteria and what I could bring to the role.

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

thanks @OoohShiny for this thread and to everyone who has replied
i need to desperately do mine after working for the same company for 14 years and now after almost a year off
my plan is to send ny cv to local bussiness in my area of experience (hardwear, DIY and timber sales)
ive lost a bit of confidence but i know working again will help plus i know no one in this town we moved to
oooh shinny - i don't mean to hijack your thread
good luck

 

[OoohShiny]

thanks @OoohShiny for this thread and to everyone who has replied
i need to desperately do mine after working for the same company for 14 years and now after almost a year off
my plan is to send ny cv to local bussiness in my area of experience (hardwear, DIY and timber sales)
ive lost a bit of confidence but i know working again will help plus i know no one in this town we moved to
oooh shinny - i don't mean to hijack your thread
good luck

No worries

Good luck to you too!

Having confidence (or at least looking like you have confidence...) seems to be key, so hopefully we can both find some and get good new jobs!


I am now currently trying to get my bulletpoints for each job cut down so that it all fits onto two pages - it's hard to do because you don't want to miss important things off so I am trying to group by 'theme', such as 'partnership working', 'management', 'providing advice', etc.

I know it only has to have enough of interest on it to get you through the door for an interview, which is where you can shine (or fall flat on your face... lol) but finding the balance between 'too light', 'succinct', and 'too detailed' is really difficult!


Thank you again for everyone's input!

 

[OoohShiny]

Just to come back to this thread to rant, WTF is wrong with companies and their utterly ridiculous and unrealistic demands within Job / Person Specifications?

I'm sitting here staring at my screen with no way to realistically evidence "Able to drive culture change within an organisation" and 'Able to shape and influence policies at a local, regional and national level".

It's a ****ing senior project management role in an organisation of which there is probably 30+ similar in the UK, and the team will have six or more people in it - they can't all be 'driving culture change' and 'influencing national policy' because that would be insane for anyone else working there and totally unachievable!!

But if I don't evidence it or write some BS... black mark for me!


It is utterly soul destroying to be putting effort in when you know it's a total waste of time.