What is a CV?

A CV or resume is a marketing document. It provides key information about your skills, experience, education and personal qualities.

When you apply for a job, you send a CV because it tells potential employers who you are, what you can do; it provides a positive presentation of your skills and experience.

Your CV must be well written and professionally presented. You need to walk the line between providing in-depth information that properly showcases your qualifications and not being too wordy, which could turn a potential employer off.

Some typical categories and headings

Personal/contact information:

• full name
• contact information, including your address, email address and phone numbers
• residency status if your are a New Zealand immigrant
• interests.

Academic background:

• a dated list of your educational details, with the most recent degrees listed first in order of importance (postgraduate, then graduate, followed by undergraduate degree, for example).

Professional licenses/certifications:

• technical certifications
• memberships and affiliations with any professional organisation
• professional development.

Technical and specialised skills:

• computer skills, including software programs, programming languages, hardware capabilities and whether you work with PCs, Macintoshes, or both.

Work experience:

• previous positions, in chronological order, with the most recent positions listed first
• a bulleted list of the tasks and responsibilities for each position (think of your day-to-day duties)
• other work experience.

References:

• full names, addresses and contact details for your references.

Keep your CV user friendly

Your CV should not include excessive graphics or data in a long paragraph format. Instead, content should be in bullet-points and short statements. Your writing style should be concise, easy to read and understand.

It’s helpful to ask a friend or your agency representative to review your CV and provide feedback. Please look at our sample CV for an example of good writing format and style.

Stay current

Make sure your CV reflects who you are today. Some people still include extensive details of their student days — a leftover from when they were first looking for jobs.

If you have been a professional for five or more years, your CV should focus on your professional life, not your student life, unless you recently added another diploma or a graduate degree. If you haven’t been looking for work for two or three years, your CV will need to be updated, both with additional work experience and a fresh perspective on your previous work and qualifications.

Presenting your CV

Before you create a final copy of your CV, make sure you run it through a spell and grammar check and proofread it thoroughly. This way you can avoid embarrassing spelling or layout errors.

An online copy of your CV should be easy to read and download. So, it is best use a text file format, such as Microsoft Word.doc. If someone asks you to e-mail them your CV, ask what file format they prefer. Microsoft Word.doc is usually fine, though.

If you’re required take a copy of your CV to an interview, make sure it’s neatly word processed and printed on one side of good-quality paper. Putting your CV in a binder or light folder will also make it more presentable.