Tips for writing a great CV

How do you show your best side to a potential employer? By using your CV as your marketing tool. It is usually your CV that will land you a job interview! Here is how to make it work for you!

If you haven’t written a CV before - or you feel unsure about your content - then book Elab Online to attend an Employability and Careers CV and cover letter workshop.

1/Target, target, target

Don’t send out the same generic CV.

Target your CV to each job you apply for. You do this by tweaking your CV for each job, emphasising the strengths and expertise you have that the employer is asking for in the job description.

2/ Have a Summary Profile/Skill Summary

This summary is extremely important and should sit on the first page of your CV. It should contain bullet points, briefly outlining relevant information about education, work history and skills (not full sentences).

Focus and refresh it for each role by:

• Reviewing the details of the job in the advertisement
• Identifying qualifications asked for
• Identifying skills asked for, then including all the skills you have that they want
• Using active words, ‘proficient user of programing languages xxxx xxxxx’, rather than just listing the programing languages
  NB: Make sure you highlight your use of those skills in the work history section as well

3/ Make your work history work for you

• Put your Work History in chronological order, from newest to oldest. Employers want to quickly see what you've been doing recently and then how you've progressed, rather than wade through information from years ago to see your current status
• Include proper dates, eg Feb 2024 – July 2025, not 2025
• Use verbs to describe tasks eg Assist and motivate, Write press releases, Negotiate with, Effectively communicate…..
• Remember to include achievements in a subsection at the end of each entry, but only genuine achievements, eg, Met targets every month, Promoted to duty manager when manager was away, Won employee of the month ….

4/ Education & Achievements need to be displayed

• Again, list your educational qualifications in chronological order from most recent. For example, if you’re still studying; Feb 2024 – current
• Include relevant papers from your qualification, not every paper. Only include grades if they're high
• Add Other Certification or Short Courses in a separate heading - if you have any
• Show off achievements by putting them under an Achievements heading if you have any outside of your work history, eg sports blue, church leadership, won academic accolades, the AUT Edge Award or Beyond AUT Award.

5/ Highlight your interests

• Interests and hobbies show you have a life outside of study, that you have things you can chat about with customers or colleagues and they reveal a lot about your personality
• Be honest though. If you say you go tramping, you can get caught out if you don’t tramp and a recruiter or employer starts chatting about tramping as an icebreaker with you at the start of a job interview

6/ Choose the right referees

• It doesn’t matter whether you name them on your CV, or state you’ll supply referee names on request, BUT make sure you ask them first and then keep them up to date with the type of roles and the organisations you’re applying for. You will appear disorganised if referees are surprised you’ve applied for a job, or don’t know you’ve referred them.
• Think carefully about who to ask. Who would describe you in the best light for the role? Who can talk about you with passion and enthusiasm? (And no, that cannot be aunty, best friend, class mate)!

7/ And finally ....layout tips

Resources

Elab Online has a great set of resources, including samples of good CVs. But the best way to make sure your CV is up to date and looking good is to attend a CV workshop run by the Employability team by Zoom or in the Employability Lab. Bookings can be made on Elab Online. Once you've attended a workshop, you can put your CV through the CV Dropbox on Elab Online and have it checked by one of the Employability and Careers team. Easy!!!

Written by Angela McCarthy, writer for AUT Employability and Careers