A strong CV shows your skills and competencies and is the first opportunity to set yourself apart from other applicants. For instance by providing a well structured and neat CV or presentation letter. Information must be easily grasped and understood, since this document is the first impression one gives to his/her potential future boss. Sell your attributes effectively!

Below you can find more information on how to work out a proper CV.

In general there are no rules and which information should be mentioned first, but what data should be provided is universal. However, the following points should be given:

• personal details
• education
• work experience
• specific skills
  • language skills
  • IT knowledge
  • other
• interests and activities
• references

First of all, one should take care that the CV is not exceeding the readers interest and only important points should be mentioned. Nowadays opinions are divided, whether marital status, age and gender should be mentioned. Depending on the nature of your future job, it can be of advantage to mention your age or gender, e.g. as receptionist.

Furthermore try to keep things brief, but with an eye for details. If you participated in a special project, do not mention the dog’s name of the project leader, but how many people were involved or one or two important financial figures. Additionally, leave out outdated achievements or awards.

Moreover, try to bring your personal competencies regarding your career into focus. Organizational skills, time management, team-work, or cross-cultural abilities set you apart from the rest and are valuable competencies for the company.

Fourthly, take care of a neat and well-structured layout, in which information can easily be understood. Bring data in different sections, such as ‘education’, ‘work experience’ and ‘further competencies’. Check on what you have written over and over again and don’t rely on your computer spell checking or similar online devices. Spelling and grammar mistakes do not only let your CV look unprofessional, but also give a feeling as if the applicant did not care to bring enough effort to provide a proper CV.

When printing your CV, take care that you use qualitative white paper and do not print back-to-back.

Below you can see the differences between a good and a bad CV. (click on the images for full size view)

As one can see, all necessary information are put together in a well-structured way on 1 A4 paper. The different topics are divided properly and particular aspects can be read easily.

Important to see is, that general personal data is standing apart from educational information, languages spoken and further skills and abilities.

Further below you will find an example of an extended CV, which contains all information, but is overall to extensive.(click pictures for full size view)

Here one can easily see, that the informative content is exceeding the readers interest. The information given is too extensive and unnecessary. Your future boss, will now for which field of profession you are applying and will know what you education and work experience was about. When working as a baker, you do not tell everybody that you are making bread, everybody knows that already beforehand.