HOW TO WRITE A PROFESSIONAL CV

A Curriculum vitae, also known as Resumé, is your personal marketing document intended to showcase your competence to the greatest advantage. It is a written overview of your skills, education, and work experience, used for a variety of reasons but the most common of these is to send to prospective employers when looking for a job, basically, a CV is the first chance we have to make a good impression on a recruiter. The primary difference between a resumé and a CV lies in the length, while a resumé presents a concise picture of your skills and qualifications, a CV presents a full history of your credentials. Both CVs and Resumés are;

• Tailored for a specific job
• Should represent you as the most qualified candidate
• Used to get you an interview

CVs in countries like the US for instance are used in applying for academic opportunities like scholarships, research positions, fellowships, and grants, just to name a few meanwhile Resumés are used to apply for a position in industry, non-profit, and public sector. In most parts of Europe, Asia, and Cameroon in particular, a CV is used in describing all job application documents. In this presentation, we will look at a curriculum vitae ‘’a la Camerounaise’’.

Why do we need a CV?

• It helps you market yourself; it is a great way to attract the attention of your prospective employer by selling your skills and qualifications and making recruiters choose you over other candidates.
• A CV can be applied multiple times to jobs in a specific career area
• Helps you reflect on your career to date, for instance, to see if you have achieved any targets you previously set yourself
• A CV identifies the weaknesses in our professional life
• Refreshes your mind before an interview
• Finally, a CV sets a plan for your future job potential

How to structure and format your CV

Before writing a CV, it is advisable to research your target roles, we will have difficulties writing a CV if we don’t know what recruiters want. Every job announcement has its core requirements (skills, experience & academic credentials). For example, we cannot use a sales-inclined CV to apply for a position in teaching, your chances of being recruited are very slim. Before writing a CV, browse through the job market for relevant openings in your industry, check and take note of recurring requirements. Recruiters in Cameroon are going digital, posting job ads on these websites;

https://cvdesignersandco.com/

https://www.cameroondesks.com/

https://cameroun.minajobs.net/

http://www.akwajobs.com/

https://www.jobinfocamer.com/

http://campusjeunes.net/recrutement

https://camerspace.com/

https://www.fnecm.org/ (national employment fund)

https://cm.linkedin.com/jobs/cameroun-jobs?countryRedirected=1&position=1&pageNum=0

https://www.glassdoor.com/Job/cameroon-jobs-SRCH_IL.0,8_IN52.htm

https://ngojobsinafrica.com/job-location/cameroon/

https://louma-jobs.com/cm/

https://www.google.com/search?q=jobs+cameroun&rlz=1C1OKWM_frCM822CM822&oq=jobs+cameroun&aqs=chrome..69i57j0j0i131i433j0l3j69i65j69i60.2386j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&ibp=htl;jobs&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj99dnKrNDvAhVHUxoKHUpJCFMQudcGKAJ6BAgIECg#htivrt=jobs&htidocid=trElVPhCKswGjY_ZAAAAAA%3D%3D&fpstate=tldetail

Just to name a few. Once you have a list of the most in-demand skills and knowledge for your target roles, it gives a clear picture of how to focus your CV.

The structure and format of your CV will determine its readability, your CV should be flawlessly professional and easy for busy recruiters to find the information they need. Although there’s no official CV structure, certain key information should always be included. Here are a few essential things you should aim to cover in your CV:

• Your personal details (e.g., name, address, phone number) should sit at the very top of your CV so that recruiters can easily see how to contact you, you can add a professional title next to your name to set the tone of the CV, e.g., accountant, secretary, customer service officer etc. it should relate to the roles you are applying for. The only contact details you should include are your email address (a professional-looking one with no nicknames), your phone number, and your location. Date of birth, marital status, and passport-size photographs are optional as it may occupy valuable space.

• An opening statement (a brief personal summary of who you are and what you’re looking for). It is the first proper content section of your CV, summarising your skills, experience and knowledge, its purpose is to catch a recruiter’s attention when they open your CV, excite them, and encourage them to read the rest. Some people believe that personal profiles are a waste of valuable space and time, often the case with fresh graduates as some recruiters feel that those just stepping onto the career ladder don’t have enough knowledge or experience to warrant a personal statement, however, a personal statement can have a positive impact if used correctly. If you’re struggling with what to write, break your personal statement down into three parts, introduce yourself, detail what you can offer and conclude by highlighting your career goals.

• A bullet-pointed list of your most relevant key skills provides a snapshot of your offerings as a candidate, remember, these skills should be tailored towards your target roles. In broad terms, a skill is an ability to perform certain tasks well. Some skills can be measured and you acquire them through deliberate effort (hard skills), others are related to your personality traits (soft skills). Both types of skills are highly valued by employers and have an important role to play in your job search. You can think of your hard skills as a foundation upon which your entire application is built. They give you a fighting chance to score the job you want. Your soft skills, on the other hand, are something extra that can make your application stand out. They give you an edge over other equally capable candidates. How can you tell which of your skills are most relevant for the job you want? The easiest way is to stick to the job advertisement. Highlight all skills that are essential for the job. These are the keywords that both the hiring managers and ATS will be looking for. Once you’ve done that, see how many of those skills you already have. List them in your skills section.

• Work experience (listed in reverse chronological order – with the most recent coming first) to showcase the ability to apply your skills in the workplace. If you don’t have any paid work experience, you can add voluntary roles, academic & professional internships, part-time jobs, or an example of where you have worked to support a company or organisation. Head each role with the dates you were employed, the name of the employer and your role title. You can follow with an introductory line that describes the employer, where you sit within the organization, and what the overall goal of the role is, this builds context for readers. List your responsibilities in short concise bullet points, demonstrating how your actions impact the employer, most importantly, try to round your roles off with impressive achievements, and try to quantify these achievements with facts and figures where you can, good examples of achievements include; saving cost, generating revenue, saving time, improving processes, hitting targets and helping customers.

• Education and qualifications (listed in reverse chronological order), these are relevant academic and professional certificates. Hiring managers are looking for a few basic pieces of information when they scan your education section, including:

-The name of your school

-Location of your school

-The certificate you obtained (if applicable)

-Your field of study

-Graduation year (if applicable)

-Any relevant honours or academic recognition, coursework, activities, or other achievements obtained during your education. If you’ve recently graduated, place your education section before or in line with your work experience. Your schooling is likely the most prominent piece of your CV. If you’ve been in the workforce for several years, move your education section below your professional experience. Your interviewers will be more interested in what you’ve achieved in recent years rather than in your academic career.

• Hobbies and interests are optional if you think they would add some value to your application, for example, sporting activities indicate that you are fit, healthy, and outgoing. Solving puzzles shows you have excellent analytical and problem-solving skills meanwhile reading indicates you are open-minded and love learning new things. Common interests like eating out, watching movies, and clubbing would probably not make an impression on anybody so don’t mention it. Always list hobbies that are related to your target roles.

• References (often available on request), these are people who can testify about your character, skills, and abilities to prospective employers. You could consider your referees as your personal advocates or ambassadors because employers might contact them to provide some information about you. Most recruiters usually ask for three references at most (preferably two professional and one academic), when listing references, write their full names, title, place of work, phone numbers, and email addresses. You can also include your relationship with the reference.

You can use a word processing program like MS Word or Google Docs to create your CV, it is very easy to use and has a globally recognized format for CVs across all industries,  there are hundreds of ready, fill-in-the-blanks CV templates available online like https://cvmkr.com/?lang=fr, https://www.visualcv.com/ and https://europa.eu/europass/fr

Here is an overview of how to format your CV;

• Keep the format simple by sticking to a font that can be easily read like Times New Roman and Arial. Use bold headings of 14 – 16 pts to divide the sections of your CV, sub details should be within 10 – 12 pt. Don’t put the term ‘curriculum vitae’ at the top of the page.

• Colour schemes should be basic, black text on white backgrounds is best, don’t be tempted to use fancy colours in a bid to stand out, this would look unprofessional because coloured CVs are at times difficult to read.

• Finally, there is no certain stone rule on CV length but a Word/PDF document of 2 to 3 pages is enough to tell your story without boring readers, keep it brief & relevant, check spelling, and grammar and be logical. Remember, recruiters at times see hundreds of CVS a day, so to hold their attention, you should keep it concise. Only include what’s going to make you a good fit for the role you’re applying for, and don’t overdo it with unnecessary detail. You can always use your cover letter to elaborate on any skills and experience you didn’t have room for in your CV.

Remember not to exaggerate your CV. Not only will you demonstrate your dishonesty to a potential employer, but there can be serious consequences too.

If you need guidance in writing a professional CV, you can email us at: admin@cvdesignersandco.com or call 676417518 / 658214537