How to make an impressive CV

Introduction:

A CV(Curriculum Vitae) is the most important and powerful tool in your professional toolkit. A good CV has the potential to impress an employer, a scholarship committee, and an admission board. Writing a CV is about strategically organizing your career path, capabilities, and ambitions. Your CV should highlight your qualifications, skills, and relevant experience in a captivating manner. CV should have the ability to communicate compellingly to the reader. 

This article will guide you through every step of the CV writing process, from understanding the purpose of the CV to making it worthy.

What is a CV?

A CV is a detailed document that includes your personal, professional information, and academic achievements. It is an efficient and more comprehensive way of describing yourself for job applications, academic submissions, and scholarship applications. 

Importance of a good CV

An impressive CV can:

• Get yourself shortlisted for jobs and applications
• Highlight your strengths and skills
• Show that you are an efficient person
• Create a strong, positive impression

Key Components of a Great CV

The following components can make your CV impressive and worth noticing:

Header / Personal Information

The header should include:

• Full name
• Phone number
• Professional email
• Location(City, Country)
• Profiles(if applicale)

Objective

An objective is a focused statement that explains who you are, what you are looking for. There should be an objective section to describe your career direction and focused goal orientation. 

Example:

“Looking for an opportunity to enhance my web development skills and gain hands-on experience in building full-stack applications.”

Education

In the education section, you should include your degree, your institution, year of education, and any kind of reward you have received.

Example:

Example:
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Sargodha University, Sargodha
September 2019 – June 2023

• CGPA: 3.72 / 4.0
  

Key Skills

This is the section to include your core skills and extra skills as a separate section. Your skills describe how efficient you are. Try to add most of the skills you have a grip on, but do not lie or exaggerate. 

Add skills by using bullet points like:

• HTML/CSS
• Javascript
• Python
• React js etc

Work Experience / Internships

In this section, you have to include all of your work experiences and internships you have done in the past, with the year and job position. 

Format:

Job title – Company name, City

mm/yy – mm/yy

Certificates and Courses

To make your CV more proficient, you have to include all the certificates and the courses. Mentioning these will enhance the worth of you and your CV.

Projects

You should also include all the past projects on which you have worked. These projects act as evidence that you are a skilled person.

Example:
E-commerce Website 

• Developed a responsive shopping site
• Integrated real-time database and payment gateway

Extracurricular activities

Besides including your academic achievements and professional skills, you should also include your extracurricular activities. These activities describe your personality by elaborating how punctual and active you are. 

Languages

In your CV, you should also include how many languages you can speak, with their proficiency level, like

Urdu –  native

English – fluent

Spanish – basic

References

References are the former employers, teachers, and mentors who know you in academic or professional settings. 

Some tips for an impressive CV

Here are some tips to act upon for making your CV more impressive and professional:

• Do not use the same CV for different purposes
• Measure your results and quantify achievements
• Use strong action words like achieved, implemented, researched, collaborated, etc
• Avoid long paragraphs 
• Use bullet points with headings
• Use professional formatting styles
• Proofread and check for any type of error

Common mistakes to avoid

These common mistakes should be avoided in writing a CV:

• Including too much personal information
• Using unofficial emails
• Adding irrelevant work
• Lying and Exaggerating

Tools used for making a CV

Here is the list of some famous tools that are used in CV making;

• Canva
• Zety / Resume.io
• Overleaf
• Resumebuild
• Jobseeker 

Conslusion

A CV is a professional presentation of qualifications, skills, and experiences. It is an effective way to describe yourself. It is helpful in job applications, scholarship applications, etc. Those persons who have impressive CVs gain importance. So this article has covered all those points that should be included in CVs to make them recognizable.