Step by step
If you’re looking for generic, high-level advice or inspiration on writing a resume, continue. Generally specific instructions follow:
- OPTIONAL: “Curriculum Vitae” at the top
- Your name and contact details. Instead of “E-mail: monemail@adomain.com” simply “monemail@adomain.com”, now everyone knows what email addresses look like. Likewise “+01 683483098” better than “Phone: +01 683483098”
- Social networks concern what you use for professional purposes: Linkedin, Twitter, Blog
- OPTIONAL: Brief paragraph about yourself, no more than 3 lines.
- Experience, most recent first, each entry including:
- Start and finish: It’s probably best to follow the “January 2018 to March 2020” format, as it’s more readable than using just numbers.
- Position: “I was the POSITION for”
- Company: “COMPANY NAME”
- Location: “(CITY/COUNTRY)”
- Line manager “reporting to the POSITION OF LINE MANAGER”,
- Responsibilities: “in charge of THIS AND THAT”.
- Success Story: Explain one of your accomplishments and its results in terms of savings, sales, or whatever is applicable.
- Sector: Often “Cybersecurity” but can be any: Media, Transport, whatever.
6. Education: degrees, certifications, including the institution you studied at, the name of the degree or certification earned, the year, and the certificate number if it can be publicly verified.
Getting your program written correctly can easily take a week. This is a very dense document with a LOT of information, some of which probably won’t immediately come to mind.
Mistakes to avoid when formatting are using too many colors and not enough white space. If you can make your resume look in any way like the Wikipedia homepage, you’ve done a great job. I have a vcf file as a QR on the first page of my CV just in case someone wants to easily store my contact, but as far as I know it has never been used so I can’t recommend it. Finally, try not to let the CV exceed two pages. Maybe ask GPT to summarize it for you if it’s too long?