Writing a CV – APPM

1. What is a CV?

A CV, or curriculum vitæ, literally translates as ‘the career of one’s life’.

It is a summary of personal details, past experience, current employment and future aspirations.

All of this must be summarised and presented on one page for an entry-level executive and on a maximum of two pages for a senior executive.

Summarising the key highlights of one’s professional and personal life convincingly in just a few lines may seem impossible unless certain rules are followed.

2. Rules to follow for a good CV

Once you have gathered all the standard elements to include in your CV (personal details, education, professional experience, and extra-curricular activities), you must follow certain basic principles to ensure a good layout.

Formatting rules

· The layout must not force the reader to move back and forth from left to right.

All sections of the CV must be left-aligned, with a new line for each new piece of information, because the eye ‘moves down’ quickly along a page but ‘scans’ from side to side with greater difficulty.

The CV must always be typed on white A4 paper without a consistent first-line indent, but with a margin of 1 to 2 cm.
Use no more than three different fonts: one for headings, one for section titles and another for the body text.
Do not overuse bold type. If everything is highlighted as important, then ultimately nothing is important.
Overuse of formatting should be avoided. Often, some candidates put the same term in bold, italics, capital letters and underlined.
Key points, such as job titles and company names, should not be underlined.
Also avoid frills such as colours, drawings and underlining. Such frills may please the author but generally put recruiters off.
If the CV is more than one page long, it must be stapled at the top left without using paper clips.
Do not use negative phrasing in a CV, such as: ‘have never been’, ‘have not been’, ‘did not achieve a positive result’, ‘I failed’, ‘I repeated a year’, ‘unsatisfactory’, etc.

Key guidelines

The text must be clear, precise, coherent and very straightforward.
Never make categorical or distorted value judgements about yourself or the companies you have worked for.
Abbreviations should be avoided and the CV must not be printed on both sides of the page
Spelling mistakes.
Never send a CV with a telephone number that has been crossed out or altered.
Do not include a photograph unless requested. It must not be stapled or held in place with a paperclip, but should be glued in the top right-hand corner.
Do not refer to yourself in the third person.
Do not format your CV as a table.
The CV must not be written entirely in capital letters.

3. How should the different sections of a CV be organised?

Personal details or identity;
Education;
Languages;
Work experience;

Personal details or identity

This should never be placed at the end of your CV, as the recruiter will be looking for this essential information and will wonder why it is not at the top of the CV.
Not stating your age or date of birth raises questions, so you might as well include them.
Your first name and surname must be on the same line.
Do not specify your gender, but precede your first name with ‘Mr’, ‘Mrs’ or ‘Miss’ – though this can often come across as pretentious.
On one line: the house number and street name.
On the same line: the post office box and the town. The country name must be added if you are applying for an international role.
Your home address is more important than your office address, although the latter is advisable.
For the office number, write ‘LD’ or indicate it discreetly
Marital status (single, married or divorced).
It is not advisable to write ‘CV’ or ‘curriculum vitae’ at the top of the page, as this is self-evident.

Education

For those aged up to 45 or at the mid-point of their career, it is recommended to list your education below your personal details.
For older candidates, this section may be placed second from last.
The most relevant qualification – i.e. the most important one – should be listed first, in chronological order from most recent to oldest.
A CV is not a list of qualifications. Not everything needs to be mentioned. If you are a graduate of ENA with a specialisation in management, the recruiter will assume you have passed your A-levels.

A manager with sufficient experience should not list qualifications such as the CEP or DEF.

The qualification, specialism, name of the institution and date of graduation must not be omitted.
Executives should highlight key career milestones and relevant training.
First-time job applicants, such as young people, should mention and explain the work they carried out at school.
Abbreviations should be avoided as they are open to various interpretations – ENA and ENPT, for example.
Ambiguous or imprecise phrasing, such as ‘Ecole Normale d’Administration’, ‘one year’ or ‘first year’, should be avoided.
Qualifications or work placements obtained as part of continuing professional development may be listed under the ‘additional training’ section.

Languages

As proficiency in at least one foreign language is becoming increasingly crucial in recruitment, it is best to list them between ‘Education’ and ‘Professional Experience’ if you have a truly perfect command of the language; otherwise, list them just before ‘Extracurricular Activities’.

In this era of economic ‘globalisation’, and particularly for certain roles, you will be regarded as ‘at a disadvantage’ if you do not speak at least one other language.

Note

Bilingual: when you have a perfect command of two languages, both spoken and written.
Fluent: used when you have spent a relatively long period in the country in question.
Read, written and spoken: this does not mean much, as it does not accurately reflect the level of proficiency in a foreign language.
If you wish to indicate that you can get by in English, for example, you could write ‘reasonable command of English’.
If you only know a few phrases that just about allow for a conversation, you might as well write ‘average English’.

Work experience

Your strengths and key achievements should be highlighted on the first page, as this is the page that is read most often.
Present your initial education and further training separately.
Highlight the main qualification that is most valuable and relevant to the role.

The longer your professional career, the less your initial training matters, and the more your most recent experience is generally the most valuable and revealing.

Extracurricular activities

Sport
Leisure or hobbies
Voluntary work.

This section is not of crucial importance.
Including them in your CV is not a bad thing, but it cannot be said that they improve or strengthen your CV either.
It does, however, allow you to personalise your CV and present a well-rounded picture of yourself.
This can be useful in certain cases. If the recruiter shares the same extra-curricular activities as the candidate, it helps to start the interview on a more friendly note.
Reading the newspapers, listening to the radio or watching the news on television do not fall under the ‘extra-curricular’ heading.
Reading a novel. Yes, but you need to know the title of the last novel you read and the author’s name.

Sport: Only mention sports that you actually practise.

For example, if you say you have a black belt in judo, you must be able to state the date you obtained it!

Taking part in a team sport can demonstrate team spirit and a taste for shared effort, but it can also mean weekly commitments for training sessions.

Leisure activities: those you engage in most frequently or most regularly.

Community activities: In this section, it is neither useful nor advisable to mention your political or trade union preferences or commitments.

IT skills: list them

Work experience: list your most significant work experience placements, explaining why you chose them and at which companies.

Should the CV be in chronological order or not?

A chronological order makes more sense, as it follows the career path as it was followed.
However, as with recruitment and CV writing, direct and quick access to essential information must be facilitated; you should therefore opt for reverse chronological order, i.e. from the most recent to the oldest.
In this case, the further back you go from the present, the shorter the description of the activities carried out should be.
A chronological order is recommended in cases where you have progressed through the ranks within the same company or have had frequent changes of role within the same company.

In conclusion, the general rule is to use reverse chronological order.

However, never mix chronological and reverse chronological order in the same CV.
It is common for people to write, for example, ‘from 1990 to the present day’ or ‘to date’, even though they are no longer with the company.
Do not overuse bold text, which is reserved for the company name and qualifications obtained.

How do you fill in gaps in a CV?

If there has been a gap in your career, it is best to mention it and explain the reason. Do not specify the exact dates and months; simply state the year.

In conclusion, I would say that you should always avoid exaggeration in a CV.

Presenting yourself as you are, without embellishment, is the best way to make a good impression and be appreciated.
Writing a sincere and persuasive CV will give you peace of mind during the interview.
If you secure a job through deception, the deception may be uncovered during the probationary period or before it is completed.

For those writing a one-page CV, don’t overcomplicate it – the length of a CV is never a measure of a person’s competence.

Source: ‘Take stock of your employability’