CV and Résumé Writing in Auckland

For those of you who are contemplating on leaving school, or are actually in the process, writing up your CV can be a daunting task, especially when you are unsure how to 'sell' yourself, or when your experience is limited. Below I have outlined some ideas that you may wish to consider when thinking about your Point of Difference i.e. what makes you different and special in your own unique way. To help you think about this you will need to reflect on your distinctions, here are some idea starters to get you going: Youth Club member (e.g. archery) Youth Group member (e.g. church – but do not put the denomination) School debating team Scouting/Girl Guide Leader Peer Support Leader Drama Club or similar School Librarian Contributions to the school magazine (e.g. writer, editor, photographer, etc) School prize winner (e.g. essay) Merit certificate(s) (e.g. Merit Certificate in English – 1st in Class) Prefect Head Captain, Class Captain, etc Duke of Edinburgh Award (Gold, Silver or

When developing your CV a major focus will be to concentrate on what achievements you encountered in the positions you have fulfilled. Achievements can be drawn from a review of your performance appraisal where you can check what projects you were involved with, or KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) you had to measure up to. Then re-write these as achievements. To help you with this, I have compiled a selection of accomplishment based verbs I like to use when constructing people's CV: Turned around ... E.g. Turned around the company's loss into a profitable venture within 7 months. Accelerated ... E.g. Accelerated the ROA by focusing on corporate finance. Executed ... E.g. Executed asset purchase of Whitcoulls in Australia. Consolidated ... E.g. Consolidated 29 warehouses down to 4 generating annual savings of $5.8m. Generated ... E.g. Generated over 100 key client profiles. Launched ... E.g. Launched systems engineering group to managed predictive failure analysis, root cause a

Use a clear font. There is nothing worse than an employer or recruiter trying to decipher a fancy font. Simple and plain is best, leave the fancy fonts to invitations, etc. Fonts you could use are: Arial, Helvetica, Palatino or Times New Roman. Have your name and contact details easily accessible on the first page. A recruiter doesn't want to have to sift through your CV and find it on the last page in order to contact you. Make it easy for them. Contact Details: If you have a non-English name, rather than stating female or male, put in Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms. Include your full name, address, telephone numbers (work, residence, and mobile), and email addresses. Add a career objective. This determines what sort of role you are wanting and what industry. It targets the CV. Don't make it too long, and don't embellish it with purple prose (i.e. pompous language). Add your personal attributes here. The best way is for someone else to sing your praises for you, so take 'pull quo