Writing Résumés / Curricula Vitae

Introduction

What to include in your CV

How to highlight important information

Organisation of information

Task 1

Task2

Task3

Task 4

Additional Resources

Further Reading

Sample CV

Introduction

A resume or a curriculum vitae (CV) is a summary of your educational, employment and pertinent  personal details. It is often sent to a prospective employer along with a cover letter/ letter of application. Your letter of application aims to attract the reader’s attention and to make him/her want to find out more about you. Your resume is the document which gives more details about you (also see the module on Writing Application Letters).

What to include in your CV

As a student, you may be concerned that you have very little work experience to show in your CV. Although this may be true, you may still have some useful information, e.g. memberships of clubs, societies, part-time and summer jobs, voluntary work, group leadership, etc., to include in the document. All these experiences can be used to emphasise the good qualities that you have, such as leadership, motivation and initiative, so as to convince the reader that you are the right person for the job.

The purpose of your CV is to provide your prospective employer with some evidence that you are capable of doing the job well. Therefore you need to think about what special skills and qualities are being sought. Sometimes, the requirements are clearly given in the advertisement but sometimes you need to draw upon your common sense.

How to highlight important information

Some job seekers have only very little experience. And yet they are able to expand on what they have done and make their jobs, courses and experiences sound useful and interesting on paper.

Although the layout and style of a CV are quite personal, the general principle is that it should be easy for the reader to understand the information. For this purpose, the language should be clear and brief and the layout consistent. As you may have already noticed from the above example, information in a CV is often given in note form to make it easier to read.

Organisation of information

There is no set organisation for a CV. It can be organised in a variety of ways in order to highlight certain aspects of your background. For instance, as a student, you may want to place your educational background before your employment experience because it may be the most impressive part of your background. However, as you gain more work experience, you will probably want to place work experience first. By the time you have had two or three posts, you will probably stop writing down your secondary school experience. Some writers may choose to present information in chronological order and some may want to begin with the current situation and work back. It all depends on what you want to emphasise.

During the course of your career, you should be prepared to write and rewrite your CV many times depending on your purpose in writing it and your intended reader. It is tempting to include all the details when you have accumulated more experience. But remember, not many prospective employers have time to go through a long CV. Also, a lengthy CV contains so many details that it is not easy to get the most important points to stand out. As a general rule, a CV should contain no more than two pages. It is therefore important to know how to match one’s own abilities with job requirements so that you know what information to select when only some of your experiences can be included.

It is a good idea to look at other people’s CV to find out what looks attractive. A Sample CV is given at the end of this module for your reference. It is developed from a Sample Letter of Application attached to a related module, Writing Application Letters. To see other models, you may try Task 1 and Business Writing for Hong Kong pp.193 & 203-206.

Task 1

If you want to look at more CVs written by other people, you may try those in the Job-seeking Package. Go through the documents and think about the following questions:

1. What do you like or dislike about them? For example, perhaps you like the layout but not the organisation of information in one of the CVs. Explain why.
2. Do you think they included irrelevant information or too much detail?
3. Is there any information not included which you would include?

Task 2

If you want to practise presenting information in CV in note form, do the exercise on p.200 in Business Writing for Hong Kong.

Task 3

There is a CV containing some mistakes on pp.201 in Business Writing for Hong Kong. You may try to edit it to polish your proof reading skills. The answers are available on p. 324.

Task 4

Step 1 Complete the Resume Worksheet below and check whether there is any additional information that you would like to give. Try to put down as much information as possible at this stage.

Resume Worksheet

Answer the following questions on your own or, if you have a partner, interview each other for listening and speaking practice.

1. What is your name? _______________________________________________________

2. What is your address?______________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

3. What are your telephone/fax/pager/email numbers? _______________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

4. What is your date of birth?___________________________________________________

5. Where did you graduate from secondary school? _________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

a. When did you graduate?_________________________________________

b. What did you study? ____________________________________________

c. Did you receive any distinctions/awards? ____________________________

_______________________________________________________________

6. What department are you studying in now?______________________________________

a. What year are you? _____________________________________________

b. When will you graduate? ________________________________________

7. Who were your past employers? _______________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

a. What responsibilities did you have at work? __________________________

_______________________________________________________________

b. What dates did you work for each employer? ________________________

c. What is each employer’s address?   _________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

8. What are your interests? _____________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

9. What languages do you speak? ________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

a. How would you describe them? (e.g. native, fluent, conversational ability, written ability) ________________________________________________

10. What computer skills do you have? ___________________________________________

11. What clubs/ organisations do you belong to? ____________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

12. What extra-curricular activities and voluntary activities are you involved with?

___________________________________________________________________________

13. What are the names, addresses and telephone numbers of two academic/ professional

referees? ________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

14. Is there any additional information you would like to include? ______________________

___________________________________________________________________________

Step 2

You have probably written down some personal data, educational qualifications, work experience and interests. Now take some time to think about what post you will be applying for. It works best if you have a specific job in mind. You may use the job advertisements in the newspapers, or you can simply imagine and note down the type of job you are seeking and three requirements that you think it would demand. Go through your personal details again and see what experiences and qualities you should use as the important selling points if you want to get the job. Decide the order you want to put these points in.

Step 3

Using the ordered information you have, draft a CV for yourself. You may need to expand and explain what you have done and what you learnt from doing it. Use any style that you like. It does not have to be like the samples you have seen.

Step 4

After you have written your CV, go through it again carefully to check whether:

• the personal details are accurate,
• the given information is relevant and interesting with emphasis on the right things,
• the document is reader-friendly, and
• the length is not too short or too long.

Step 5

After you have revised your CV, proof-read the document to avoid careless mistakes, such as misspelling and inconsistencies.

Additional Resources

Pathway on Application Letters & CVs (ELSC Resource Room)

Job-seeking Package

For formatting your CV, consult Resume Wizard on Microsoft Word.

Further Reading

Business Writing for Hong Kong by Grahame Bilbow, Longman, 1991, pp.191 - 197.

Job Seeker’s Guide by South China Morning Post, pp. 6 - 7.

The above materials can be found in the ELSC Resources Room on the Business shelf.

(Sample CV)

Kwong Chi-ming, Tommy

Education and Academic Qualifications:

9/1995 - 6/1998 Bachelor of Information Technology Faculty of Computing Hong Kong Polytechnic University

6 - 9/1997 Advanced Computer Course (Summer Programme) Faculty of Computer Technology The Chinese University Passed with a Merit in each module

9/1988 - 7/1995 St Peter’s Secondary School A-Level Exam Results Computer Science (A) Physics (B) Chemistry (C) Use of English (D)

O-Level Exam Results Physics (A) Chemistry (A) Computer Science (B) English (B) Chinese (C) Maths (B) Biology (C) Religious Knowledge (B)

Employment:

9 - 12/1997 Student Research Assistant Faculty of Computing The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Responsibilities: handling graphic presentations of data for research projects; conducting data analysis. During this period of time, I had an opportunity to participate in a variety of projects which helped me develop my own research ideas and skills. Also, I learned to search information and handle project work independently.

7 - 9/1995 Programmer (Summer job) Hi-tech Graphic Production Studio Rm 2280, Hopkins Plaza, Kowloon Responsibilities: designing general layout for projects and some graphic work; collaborating with graphic designers on design projects. These two months gave me insight into the various design disciplines including Graphics and Three Dimensional Design.

Awards: Distinction in the Hong Kong Computer Graphic Design Competition (1996)

Extra-Curricula Activities and Volunteer Work:

1995 - 1997 Graphic Editor Newsletter of Student Union The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

1992 - 1995 Volunteer Worker Kowloon Community Centre

Interests: Reading, hiking and playing basketball

Languages: Cantonese (native), Putonghua (fluent), English (fluent)

References:

Professor P. Utley, Head of the Faculty of Computing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, H.K.

Tel: 2712 3456 Fax: 2722 3456

Mr. S. Chan, Director, Hi-tech Graphic Production Studio

Rm 2280, Hopkins Plaza, Kowloon, H.K.

Tel: 2888 8888 Fax: 2999 9999

Last revised: September, 1998

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