A good CV (Curriculum Vitae) is your own personal sales document, your passport to an interview.

It should include a summary of your education and work history and should provide prospective employers with all the necessary information to make them want to know more about you.

Sometimes you will need to tailor your CV to meet the very specific requirements of a certain employer, but in most cases a general CV will be all that the employer requires.

There is no right way of putting a CV together, it is very much a matter of personal preference, but there are a few guidelines to be taken into account. The information that you should include is:

• Full name
• Address
• Telephone number
• Key skills
• Education, qualifications and training
• Career history
• Personal interests
• Referees

Education and career history should be in reverse chronological order – most recent first. Include the grades of your exams, if you don’t an employer may be left with the impression that you are ashamed of them – if any of them are on the low side you can use a covering letter to say why and what you have done since to compensate. 

Your personal interests are often as important as qualifications and work history so think carefully about what you put, but be honest. Think about the transferable skills, which your hobbies have helped you to acquire.

Examples that you may like to consider are:

• Wide ranging interests suggest a well-rounded adaptable person;
• Team activities highlight your ability to work as part of a team;
• An interest in a particular subject area makes you sound more interesting than the wide band covered by the words "Reading, Music, Sport".
  

When writing your CV you should remember that an employer may get hundreds of applications for any one job and you need to make yours stand out.

Some important things to remember are:

• Write your CV with the needs of the reader uppermost in your mind
• Use short sentences and plain English – KISS – Keep it short and simple
• Read and re-read until you have taken out everything that is irrelevant
• Print it on good quality paper – if you want to make it stand out from the rest you can use a slightly tinted paper or even use coloured print on white paper; Don’t be tempted to use too many different colours and styles, this will just look untidy
• Make sure there is plenty of ‘white space’ surrounding the text
• Keep it to two pages – where this is not possible make sure the most important items are on the first two pages – faced with a large number of CV’s to read a prospective employer will probably only get this far
• Account for every year from secondary school on – gaps can lead to awkward questions at interview. If you have taken a year or more out say why
• Be positive – use action words to describe your experiences

Check the final product through, run a spell check and if possible get someone else to proof read it. It is all too easy to miss errors when you have put something together yourself and mistakes are the first thing an employer will notice.