Amidst the increasing competitive job market, it is pathetic to find inadequate CVs among really impressive ones.

Les Brown described today’s world as times of overwhelming complexity, accelerated change and tremendous competition. Recruiters, managers, CEOs… get easily irritated by irrelevances.

Because of the volume of applications they receive, they just skim through all the CVs and select the most appealing ones (not just aesthetically).

In the organization where I work, I’m surprise to find incoherent CVs with typographical errors. To cut a long story short, I have attached a model of a CV that caught the attention of our recruitment manager.

The structure sells your strength first and provides personal and career history afterwards. Many people do this the other way round which has less impact.

Also, very importantly, you should compress your personal information in a neat format.

It is important to emphasize strengths such as relevant achievements, capability and attitude, and appreciation of what is required to make a difference in the role, rather than putting a lot of emphasis on academic qualifications.

Lastly, don’t lie in your CV or keep changing figures – date of birth, date of graduation etc. We compare all the CVs you’ve ever submitted to us and determine if you are a liar or you can be a trusted employee.

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it opened , thanks

Now, let us dissect the important parts of a CV and examine a good format.

For now, let’s take the personal and profile information.

It is shocking to find that many job seekers still use the generic-

PERSONAL INFORMATION
NAME: Xy Zg Yh
ADDRESS: 6, Abc Road, America State
P.O.BOX: 123, Nigeria Post Office, America State
E-MAIL: umarmusayaradua@yahoo.com
PHONE NUMBER: 08066666666
DATE OF BIRTH: June 12, 1993

The problem with this personal information is that it eats up your precious space where you can quickly and easily sell your strength.

It might surprise you realize that you can compress all these into 3 lines like this-
[center]
Xy Zg Yh
6, Abc Road • America State •NIGERIA• MOBILE NO: +234-8066666666
E-MAIL: umarmusayaradua@yahoo.com • D.O.B: June 12, 1993[/center]

Even though you can still add your P.O.Box, we all know that it’s highly unlikely any one would send you a courier. Your email and phone numbers are what you need to be contacted for jobs in Nigeria.

You can download the attachment to see how this is implemented in a CV.

I have decided to add previous info so we can follow through

It will do us more good if you can add your own suggestion.


Profile info:
I have said the most important thing earlier. You have to emphasize strengths such as relevant achievements, capability and attitude, and appreciation of what is required to make a difference in the role and express them in active languages that can subconsciously make strong impressions on the recruiter or manager.

I have listed some strong words and phrases you can use to write your profile on the CV. I have also attached a copy of our discussion till date.
I wish you the best.

Sorry, I couldnt attach the other PDF. It's 206 kb