Looking for your first job in itself is an exhilarating experience, particularly when you’re a fresh graduate and there is a huge crowd to compete with. Drafting a professional profile is quite a complex task when it comes to listing down your achievements eventually and as a student you don’t have many. But with or without achievement by the end of the day, you need a job to start your professional life and be successful; again, the first step to start this journey is to write a good CV. At this point, you may be unsure from where to start and what to use to produce an interview-winning profile for yourself.
Following are the tips that will assist you to create an excellent CV and make you stand out from the rest of the candidates.
Make your profile appealing at the very first glance so that the recruiter would like to give you a chance. Choose appropriate format, font style, line spacing, and font size to represent your profile. Generate a proper structure with different headings and fill them with relevant material. You may download some ready-to-use formats but make sure to tailor your profile to the desired job you are applying for. Make your CV look like an advertisement rather than a long boring list of your achievements or educational background. It must provide the reader the crisp they needed and persuade them to meet you. According to Eye-Tracking Study, Ladders Inc. a recruiting manager hardly spends 7 seconds on a single CV. Profiles that succeeded in capturing recruiters’ attention featured simple layouts, with clear sections and heading titles.
Select an attractive professional title for yourself, it can be either related to your educational background or the job you’re willing to look for, just remember to support this title throughout your CV by showcasing your interest, abilities, or relevant skills. In case, if you’re applying for a job unrelated to your educational background or past exposure, enlist the transferable skills that you can use to make a perfect fit for the required position.
Add your contact and personal information including email, phone number, and city. Make a professional email dedicated to the CV with your name and avoid using weird emails with funky names. Escape adding your identity number, gender, or marital status, these are unnecessary detail that may contribute to your rejection rather than selection.
Enlist your educational background and in reverse chronological order to provide a clear and concise snapshot of your achievements and abilities. Highlight what courses you’re good at and CGPA within the section that you think can help you demonstrate the abilities needed for this job. Remember not to generate a long list of your courses just keep it to the point and relevant.
Prepare your work experience section with all the internships and related activities you’ve participated in. Ensure that this section is quite appealing, use power words, and acme all the skills that you’ve gained from the exposure to make the hiring manager more confident about you. Add all semester projects that you’ve executed and provide a 2 – 3 line description about them. Focus more on the results than the responsibilities.
Add extracurricular activities and honors to give the recruiter an idea about your competencies and interest. It can also be used to show your personality traits and transferable skills that can benefit the organization. Showcase all the recognitions and awards you’ve received throughout the periods, for example being a part of the student council, sports or any event management role. As a fresher, this section will significantly boost your candidacy, if drafted properly.
After this make a small section of skills and abilities and insert keywords like ‘Project Management’, ‘Market research’, ‘Data analysis’ and ‘Communication skills’ to highlight all your technical and soft skills. You may formulate sentences as well like; Proficient in using MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
By the end add two references and their contact information or you may add the note, in the end stating ‘references are available on request’.
Proofread your CV again before exporting it. Leave it for some time and then again review it with a fresh eye. Make sure it doesn’t have basic grammatical, punctuation, or structural mistakes, as well as don’t leave blank white space on the page, perplexed multiple columns, and unnecessary long stories. By the end ask a friend, teacher, or any other peer to review it for you.
Ensure all the information you’ve stated in the CV is backup by evidence don’t put information that is irrelevant or incorrect, as well as don’t stretch the truth and bring it to another level. Try to keep things actual, simple and attractive. Make the recruiter fall for your real skills and abilities. Remember this piece of paper is the only thing holding your entire credentials, abilities, and ultimately your personality. If it is that important it must be perfect from every aspect.
Last but not the least, hire a Professional to do it for you. CV writing services in Pakistan has been a challenge from the start, there is a quite slim chance that people here realize how important it is to get a professional CV and how complicated it is to make one. Fortunately, there are CV writers in Pakistan that can innovate these resources to the next level and help you in standing out from the crowd. As per the quote ‘the work suits in the hands of the one skilled to do it you need to hire a good Pakistani CV writing service for yourself and confirm your chance to win the interview.
Additional Note: Before forwarding your CV make sure it is specific to each job you’re applying for. Be responsible read, the job description and analyzing your CV to ensure you demonstrate those specifications. Make minor changes as per need every time you apply for a new job. To increase your candidacy, you may also add a cover letter specific to each job.