The word Curriculum Vitae(LATIN WORD) literally translated means the story of your life. The words Curriculum Vitae are usually abbreviated to CV or C.V. and you will sometimes see it incorrectly written in lower case as c.v. or cv. The possessive form of Curriculum Vitae / CV should be written as Curriculum Vitae's or C.V.'s or CVs, but not as c.v.'s or cv's.

These days employers often receive a lot of CVs for each advertised position - jobs advertised in national papers can often attract hundreds of applicants. So your CV has to be just that little bit special to stand out if you want to obtain interviews. The good news (for you) is that most people do not know how to write a CV and only spend a short time preparing a CV. Writing professional CVs is a skill, which these people have not learnt

Of course your CV can continue to work in your favour even after it has obtained an interview for you. It can help you at an interview by carefully focusing the interviewer's mind on your good points and on your achievements. Once you have left the interview it will continue to work in your favour as the interviewer will probably reread it before making a decision, either on who should be invited to the second interview stage or who the job should be offered to.

General CV tips

1. These days you can write your CV in the first person (i.e. I have) or the third person (i.e. he/she has). However, you do not need to use 'I', 'he' or 'she' in a CV because its use is implied.

2. Do mention things you are good at, but do not go over the top. You can oversell yourself.

3. Don't mention things that you are bad at or say negative things about yourself in your CV.

4. Make sure that the CV you write conjures up the right image of you and your skills, capabilities and achievements. If you do not match the picture you have painted with your CV at the interview, then your application will not be taken further.

5. Be careful when you use abbreviations - they can be misunderstood.

6. If you are not happy with your CV or you only seem to get rejection letters then please get a professional CV writing service to write it for you. Yes, you will have to pay for it. But, it could save you a lot of time.

7. Re-read your CV to ensure that there are no grammatical errors and the sentence structure is correct.

8. Make sure the style of the CV remains consistent throughout. Font, Font style and size should remain the same.

9. The spacing should be paid heed to, to make sure the CV makes up for a plain and simple reading.

10. Avoid using stylistic fonts that looks jarring to the eyes.

By Priti Shah