What is a CV? You may have heard of it, but you don’t fully understand it. And you don’t know what information a CV will include and how to write the most impressive CV. Let’s find out through this article by FPT Shop.
What is a CV? Abbreviation for CV
CV (Curriculum Vitae) is a summarized version of the literal translation of a resume. This version will include basic information such as educational background, experience, skills related to the job you want to apply for, and initial impression information for the employer when screening applications. And CV is not a self-narrative biography form.
CV is considered as an indirect meeting between you and the employer. From CV, the employer can make initial evaluations about the candidate before deciding to invite you for a direct interview. Therefore, it can be seen that CV is a very important document and let’s learn more about the ways to write a CV.
What is the role of a CV?
CV plays an important role and is indispensable in the job application process. Because if there is no CV, recruiters cannot know the information of the candidates. Therefore, the CV is a document containing information for the candidates and employers to interact indirectly. Currently, if the applicant does not have a CV, the recruiter will not be interested from the beginning to avoid wasting time with the candidate.
CV and cover letter are important parts of a job application. Some companies will require additional confirmation documents from the local area, but some businesses do not.
Is it difficult to write a CV?
To answer this question, in our opinion, it is not too difficult because it requires the writer to summarize the necessary information. This must show the experiences and skills you have so that the employer can see and be impressed when reading your CV.
However, it is not too difficult to make you give up, easy or difficult depending on what you want to express and write in your CV. Therefore, we cannot evaluate whether writing a CV is difficult or easy depends entirely on yourself.
Classification of CV
There are two types of CVs: traditional CV and online CV. Currently, making an online CV is extremely popular because of its convenience as well as a variety of template CVs. In addition, you only need to write according to the available form, so you can avoid missing the point.
For the traditional CV format, you will present information in Word format to make it neat. But with this traditional form, you can still provide enough information to the employer. However, the traditional CV will be quite boring, unattractive, and look like a normal document.
What does a CV include?
You need to make sure that the CV includes all the necessary information to meet the requirements of the employer. So what does a job application CV include? Let’s find out.
- Personal information: In this section, you need to present basic information including your full name, date of birth, contact phone number, email address, or you can add more information about your current address and workplace address.
- Work experience: For work experience, you need to organize and select information reasonably. You should choose relevant experiences for the position you are applying for and not list all the previous jobs you have done.
- Educational background: In this section, what is this CV, in this section, you should state your major, university. You should list degrees from college and above and may add short courses you have experienced.
- Related skills: In this section, you should present skills that support the position you are applying for, such as office informatics skills, foreign languages, etc.
- Career objectives: You need to specify the time milestones and achievements you will achieve in your work and career. Usually, career objectives are expressed through two parts: short-term objectives and long-term objectives.
- Certificates, awards: Certificates are attractive parts in the process of submitting a CV. You will list the certificates you have achieved during your study and work. If you do not have a certificate, you can skip this section.
- Extracurricular activities: You should mention extracurricular activities, clubs related to the position you are applying for.
How to write a CV to impress the employer
What is the impressive writing style in a CV? It can be seen that at present, a job application CV is one of the important factors that help the initial evaluation subjective of the employer. Therefore, to make a good impression on the employer, we will present writing methods to help you get the employer’s attention.
Present skills related to the applied position
If you prioritize presenting skills related to the applied position first, it will help the employer understand valuable information without reading the entire CV. And it somewhat helps them consider whether you are suitable for the applied position or not.
Furthermore, you must be honest with the information you provide in your CV, as it is difficult for recruiters to overlook.
Pay attention to indirect experience
If you are a fresh graduate, you have very little experience to be able to compete with many other candidates. However, not much or little experience is important depends on your ability to create advantages from preparation. And you must guide the employer properly and choose personal experiences to analyze your abilities.
Provide additional information interaction sources
When you pass through social media accounts, you will have more information about yourself, as well as better evaluations due to those resources. Platforms that reflect your personality clearly, such as Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram,…
Pay attention when using email
Regarding email, you must use real and serious names because this is where you will communicate with recruiters. Besides, the way of writing an email is also a concern, you should not mention information that is already in your CV in the email because it is not necessary. Because the email should only be a section to introduce how you know about the job opening. You feel that you are suitable for the company’s position or not and attach an English or Vietnamese CV file depending on the company’s requirements or you can attach both English and Vietnamese CV versions.
Concise language style
What is the language style in the CV? This is something you need to pay attention to when writing a CV. If a CV has a format, layout, complete content organization, it will make a great CV.
And a point to note is the language style. Because no employer spends 5 minutes to read a CV that contains long and difficult to understand sentences. Or writing too casual and having no basic writing knowledge will make your CV immediately eliminated.
Mistakes to avoid when writing a CV
Spelling and grammar errors
All errors such as spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, typing errors,… are mistakes that should not be made when writing a CV. Employers will evaluate you as careless, inattentive. Therefore, remember to check all those errors before submitting the CV.
Using inappropriate, cluttered fonts
Wanting to stand out and attract employers is something that everyone wants, but you should not abuse colors and inappropriate designs. This will make the employer confused, make them feel uncomfortable, and have the risk of eliminating your CV.
Non-credible CV
A CV that shows dishonesty, what is this? This is something to be avoided and will eliminate you immediately. It can be seen that employers are very sharp-eyed in assessing the authenticity of the CV. They have many ways to verify your information, so it is easy to find out that you are not honest.
Do not list unnecessary information
If the candidate shares too much about work experience, education level,… but it is not relevant to the employer’s requirements, these pieces of information are completely meaningless. Therefore, you should try to filter information, present information based on what the employer is looking for.
Expressing with scattered, lengthy sentences
If your CV is too wordy and not focused on some sections such as skills, experience that the employer requires, that CV will be easily overlooked and evaluated as unprofessional. So write concisely but enough for the employer to understand the important information in your CV.
Choosing the appropriate format, file size for the CV
You should note that a reasonable length of a job application CV is from 1 to 2 pages. Because there are so many CVs, employers do not have much time to read all of those CVs. Therefore, the shorter, concise, the better. If you send an online CV, export it to a PDF file to ensure that the format is not faulty. And do not use WORD files or design files that the employer cannot open or that have font errors.
Conclusion
Above are all the contents related to what is a CV and what you need to understand about the CV. Hopefully, these sharing will make your CV writing process more convenient and help you get the desired job.