How to get cv writing right

Anisha has some advice that will support your CV writing, from first draft through to the rest of your career.

How to get CV Writing Right
Imagine if all of you — your experiences, passions and deepest enthusiasms — were narrowed down to a single side of A4 paper. Now imagine that paper was responsible for your future career. Ok, maybe it’s not as scary as it sounds. Nobody is asking you to dig out that swimming certificate you won in year five to help get a waitressing job. However, a CV is meant to clearly summarise and show how your strengths are relevant for particular positions. Whether you have a series of prospective jobs to apply for, or are simply doing some future career window shopping, I’ve got three tricks to get you started.

Get everything in one place
If you saw the blog I wrote last month on personal statements, you’ll be familiar with this. Having a master document or a mega list where you keep all your achievements up to date is such a great idea. If you can keep up with being organised, it makes things so much easier for future you. How you organise this can depend on which industry you’d like to get into, but some categories to include could look like this:

• ​Education (where you have studied and what qualifications you have achieved, like A-levels and GCSEs). 
• Voluntary experiences/ positions of responsibility 
• Paid work experience 
• Qualifications (such as first aid training or other certifications).
• Skills (such as languages you can speak to a native or professional level).
• Portfolio pieces for more creative career prospects (such as links to work which has been published).
• References (professionally from an employee or teacher, as well as a character reference from somebody who knows you well, but isn’t a family member). Just providing a name, contact details and email so employees can follow up will be enough!

You can make this as detailed as you like, but I suggest adding some extra bits to explain the relevance of what you’ve learnt from each role or position you’ve had. Not only can this help keep the experience fresh in your memory, but bullet pointing the relevant, transferable skills means that employees can see how it links to the wider world of work and that position. For example, if some positions have specifically developed your teamwork abilities, conflict resolution or problem solving. This should make writing your CV much more manageable when you come to writing it up, and, hopefully pump some pride into you. If, on a rainy day, your feeling sad and in dismay, just check out this brimming list that you’ve made.

Join the LinkedIn empire
Bored of doomscrolling on Instagram? Try the social media of the big scary adult world. You can post update on internships or projects you’re working on. What’s more, building a community or following on LinkedIn allows you to reach out to people with similar interests or who are involved in industries you’re looking at. I should preface this with a small warning, you may or may not find LinkedIn to be a little addictive. A little bit of jealousy may seep in upon seeing friends, family and foe getting what seems like every internship and job opportunity possible. Just like any social media, though, this really is just a bragging platform! 

The polished piece
Writing up your CV is made a lot easier the most specific you tailor it to the specific role you’re going for. Many universities and schools have a careers centre, which is incredibly useful if you are looking for some more professional advice on how to structure and edit your CV to suit specifically for a job. You can also find plenty of templates through a simple browser search. No matter how much content you collected on your master document or brilliantly brimming list, CV’s usually tend to be just one page long. Concise, right? Picking and choosing which experiences you want to involve, and which skills you learnt which are relevant to the role, is the key. 
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Picture:  Sparsh Paliwal (@_discoman) | Unsplash Photo Community

Author

Anisha Jaya Minocha is studying English and Spanish at the University of St Andrews, where she is School President for English. She worked in Andalucía, teaching. She is a writer and poet whose work has been showcased in winning competitions, readings and anthologies. She co-edits SINK Magazine, which gives a platform to Northern creatives, and founded the "Roots"" project with Friends of the Earth, developed during her writing residency with environmental charity Green and Away, exploring intersections between South Asian identity and ecology. Twitter: @anisha_jaya