How Does Your CV Impact Your Job Prospects?

Most people tend to send in CVs that are 4-5 pages long as a part of a job application. Their CVs record every achievement in their life, right from winning a singing competition in Class I to participating in the local gardening competition. However, it is people with a crisp and short CV who bag a job interview. Therefore, as an applicant, you can judge the importance of sending in a good CV.

Curriculum Vitas are supposed to highlight every aspect of your life relating to the job that you are applying for. The main headings of a CV include educational qualifications, additional trainings obtained, work experience and extra-curricular activities pursued. It has been found that a talent acquisition manager or HR executive doesn’t spend more than 12 seconds reading a CV. Therefore, you need to present your credentials in a compact manner so that the reader can form a complete profile of yours by reading the brief. Since the time spent on a CV is so little, it is best to limit your CV to a single page or so. Below given are some pointers that you can use to prepare your CV:

• Present your educational information in a tabular format, beginning with the highest educational qualification that you have obtained. This helps the reader assimilate the information without having to go through numerous lines. If you have pursued additional courses, you can mention them at the bottom of the table. 
• Do not include information that is not relevant to the job. If you are applying for the job of a programmer, there is no use stating the best marks that you scored in high school level history or your vital statistics. Stick to the skills that are best related to the job. 

• Do not include too much of personal information as it deviates the reader from the main content of the CV. 
• If you have pursued a number of extra-curricular activities and have won a number of accolades for it, then mention those that are of much importance, among the others. For e.g. if you have won an international, national or state level tournament, then it would do justice to leave out the ones that you won at the inter college or school level. 
• Highlight your job experience because every recruiter would want to hire someone with work experience as they would have to put in less effort to teach the person. Do not go into details about working in the firm- simply mentioning the name of the firm, your period of working, the post that you held would do. You can also include a sentence or two about your job profile, but not more than that. Even if you have completed an internship, it would benefit you loads to mention it on your CV. 

If you are not sure of how to make resumes, then you can log onto different websites to get them made according to a set template. You can also outsource it to a company. By getting a proper CV made, you can get the requisite exposure in your attempt at job search.