A CV is also known as a resume (pronounced “resumé”), especially in the USA.
• A CV must be formal and professional.
• CVs need to be clear, concise, neat, tidy and relevant.
• If sending by post, use good quality, white or cream coloured paper. Avoid thin photocopier paper, coloured paper and ink.
• Avoid strange fonts (Arial or Times New Roman are good standard fonts to use), logos etc. Use font size 11 or 12 and make use of underlining or bold to highlight important features or headings. Do not overuse capitals or italics.
• Your CV should be a maximum of two pages.
• Avoid large blocks of text that tend to go unread.
• Bullet points are a good tool for separating different points.
• Your CV needs to match the job. Tailor your CV to the advert.
When creating your CV select the English which corresponds to the country you are writing to, e.g.: US, GB, Canada, etc. Then verify that your spell checker is working. This will avoid typographical errors and spaces will not automatically be inserted before colons, question marks etc. (N.B.: Select the entire document before choosing the language). Before sending off your CV re-read it and have a friend and an English tutor check it to ensure that there are no spelling mistakes or grammatical errors.