How To Write A Good CV

Let's quickly consider the various sections of a Smart CV and how to make them interesting to recruiters.

Check 1: A good CV of an experienced professional has the following sections:

1. •Title or Headline
2. •Professional Summary
3. •Career Objective
4. •Achievements and Skills
5. •Employment History or Work Experience
6. •Education and Professional Certificates
7. • Professional Accolades
8. •Leadership Experience
9. •Personal Interests or Hobbies
10. • Reference

Check 2: A CV of a professional seeking entry level or internship positions should follow the order below:

1. •Title or Headline
2. •Professional summary
3. •Career Objective
4. •Education and Professional Certificates
5. •Employment History or Work Experience
6. •Achievements and Skills
7. •Personal Interests or Hobbies
8. • Reference

Why Should The Education/Certificates Of A Recent Graduate Come First Before Skills?

The usual notion about recent graduates is that they may not have acquired years of hard "on the job" experience that may help to provide strong validity to their skills. Stating the skills first may raise lots of questions. But Stating educational and interesting certificates of professional training acquired, will be a sound validation of skills that may be listed. And there is this challenge that some busy hiring decisions makers may not have the time to go through the entire sections of a CV. Where this is the case, It may not help an applicant if the starting point of his or her CV raises questions that the recruiter was unable to resolve.

1. Title or Headline section: 

This section should contain name and contact information, such as contact address, phone number, email address, and LinkedIn profile address. Only include your LinkedIn profile address if your LinkedIn profile is optimized.

There is no need to use Curriculum Vitae (CV) as your Title or headline. CV is not your name. Use your own formal name ( in full) as the title of your CV or Resume.

2. Professional Summary section:

A professional summary is a concise interesting summary of your professional self. In other to make it interesting, it should focus on your skills, achievements and what you can do for the prospective employer. negligible stories and/or frivolous unproven details should be excluded.

Example:

Below is an example of professional summary. It is suitable for internship and entry level jobs in finance related roles. It was extracted from the reviewed CV of one of our clients for the post of an associate Financial Analyst in a Fintech company.

Professional Summary 

 "An enthusiastic graduate of economics, with reasonable competence in data analysis, data interpretation and the use of economic principles to predict market and consumer behavior. I am proficient in working with Excel; have basic knowledge of MySQL, VBA, python; and a hands on internship experience, as a Bank Teller / Customer Service Officer. The role provided opportunities that enabled me to be productively engaged in carrying out organization growth tasks. I have proven track record of performing bank reconciliation, working with teams; playing extensive role that helped to achieve loans disbursement and recovery targets; and organizing and leading of teams that successfully executed public sensitization campaigns/ seminars on sexual abuse. I am committed to stepping up to new challenges; learning and leveraging acquired professional experience to play extensive role, as a key team player, in driving exciting clients experience, through making high value contributions, that will move the organization I work with, toward the actualization of its objective."

P. S. You can adapt this approach to create your own professional summary. Make sure your professional summary is tailored to meet the requirements of your career field of interest. And note that you can make your summary to be in block form, like the one in the example above or you may include paragraphs. The approach you choose depends on your taste. Both methods are equally acceptable. And once you've created your Professional summary, use it to update the "About" section of your LinkedIn profile

If we include paragraphs, the above professional summary will look like this:

Professional Summary

 "An enthusiastic graduate of economics, with reasonable competence in data analysis, data interpretation and the use of economic principles to predict market and consumer behaviour.

"I am proficient in working with Excel; have basic knowledge of MySQL, VBA, python; and a hands on internship experience, as a Bank Teller / Customer Service Officer. The role provided opportunities that enabled me to be productively engaged in carrying out organization growth tasks.

"I have proven track record of performing bank reconciliation, working with teams; playing extensive role that helped to achieve loans disbursement and recovery targets; and organizing and leading of teams that successfully executed public sensitization campaigns/ seminars on sexual abuse.

"I am committed to stepping up to new challenges; learning and leveraging acquired professional experience to play extensive role, as a key team player, in driving exciting clients experience, through making high value contributions, that will move the organization I work with, toward the actualization of its objective."

3. Objective Section:

The career objective section should necessarily be a two way goal. If it's just about you, it will send wrong signals that paint you as selfish and immature. Don't just say you are looking for a good organisation, wherein you can learn and grow. That's pure selfishness and it will hunt you. Be careful enough to tell the company what you want to do for them and then let them know what you're expecting in return. That makes it a two-way thing. Also, there's nothing wrong in specifying the kind of company you want to work in, in your objective statement.

Example of a good OBJECTIVE STATEMENT: " I seek to join an organisation that has a fast-paced work environment, where I can consistently  bring the knowledge gained from my academic trainings and my  ( say 3 years of hands on ) professional experience to bare in contributing to achieving the objective of the company, while developing and advancing my career."

Note: By adding that you want to join a faced paced environment, you have specified the kind of company you love to work for. By specifying the experience you are bringing onboard, [e.g, 3 years professional experience and the theoretical knowledge gained during your academic trainings], you are pointing out that you are a good deal-- an asset. And by stating that you will consistently commit to making valuable contributions that will aid in achieving the goals of the company, you have provided a fair reason for stating that you require career development and growth as fair compensation for your valuable contribution. How about that? Doesn't it make sense? 

4. Achievements And Skills Section:

This section should carry your proven achievement as a professional, student etc. The skills included should be followed with a brief two sentences that show how each of the skills have helped you to complete tasks.

It is not appealing to just list skills. If everyone does that, who will be different from the others. State your skill and attach a brief description of an achievement you have made using that skill. It's better like that.

Example:

Below is a part of skill section extracted from the CV of one of our clients who got offered a position as a Data Analyst Intern after we reviewed her CV and by following our career guides.

CORE COMPETENCES

Effective Communication: Effectively communicated with loan users. This resulted to 55% decrease in default rate.

Analysis of Data: Organized and analysed data gathered from 1500 RSA Pins within 3 months and performed complete data recapture exercise that recorded improvement in data completeness compared to the recapture exercise recorded in previous periods.

Problem Solving: Developed strategic solutions  that was approved, implemented, and led to 55% decrease in loan default rate.

Teamwork: worked with a team of 4 persons to develop contents for 60 episodes of Aajirebi program within one month.

P. S. S. You may adapt the approach above when stating your key skills in your CV.

5. Employment History or Work Experience Section:

This section should carry straight to the point details of the positions and organisation you've worked with. In stating the duties of the positions, present them as things you've done using catchy 'adjectives and past tenses' like "Successfully completed" "Timely carried out" "Performed Routine... " etc.

6. Education and Professional Certificate section:

Include here your relevant professional trainings completed and academic qualifications obtained starting with the most recent qualifications. Your most recent certificate is the one you have just acquired and added to your previous qualifications. Eg, If you were among the recently inducted ICAN members, your most recent certificate is ICAN [ ACA], followed by the date of issue and the Issuer of the certificate

Here's what we mean:

Chartered Accountant [ACA]                                                 Certification Year( E.g., 2020) 
Institute Of Chartered Accountants Of Nigeria [ICAN]

7. Leadership Experience Section:

Depending on the relevance of your leadership experiences to the role you are applying to, such should be included in this section if they are relevant.

8. The Case For Professional Accolade Section:

If you have a long list of professional awards you have received, it should be added here. If you must add them here, they must be excluded from the skill section in 4 above.

9. Personal interests Section or Hobbies:

Personal interests or hobbies that are relevant to the role you seek should be added in this section.

10. Reference:

Available on request or

Will be furnished on request

Have any Specific Issue You would want us to review in this lesson? Please let's us know in the comment below or via smatkariaprofesionalsnetwork@gmail.com 

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