By Joanna Hoddinott, Senior Recruitment Consultant - ARM

This is a short article about how not to write a CV.

Before we begin, I want to make something clear: if you think you don't need to read this, I understand. There's a fair chance you're right - a lot of the CVs I read in my job as a recruitment consultant are excellent.

However, plenty aren't, and I'm only writing this little article because the mistakes I see on many CVs could so easily be avoided by establishing a few simple ground rules. Many of these points may seem screamingly obvious, and yet I wrote this in sight of a pile of the not-so-good variety of CVs. Believe me, there are certain errors that are often repeated.

So if you're confident about your CV-writing skills (and many of you have good reason to be) by all means stop reading now.

If you're still with me, the first thing to remember about CVs is that first impressions count. An obvious point of course, but my clients receive a lot of CVs for each vacancy, and appearance is important.

Use bullet points, headings, bold letters and spacing to make your CV as easy as possible to understand. However, avoid using any of these excessively; they should help to clarify your CV, not clutter it. Try to avoid showing off your graphic design skills in a CV too, unless you're applying for a job that specifically warrants this. You may think your own personal watermark is the epitome of cool, but somebody who doesn't know you will think it's corny. Sorry.

Secondly, make your CV easy to read! Use a clear font of reasonable size. A lot of people like to use a fancy font that they think represents their personality, but more standard fonts like Verdana, Arial and Tahoma work best. If somebody is reading your CV, it's because they are interested in content rather than style for its own sake, and fonts without a serif are easier to read than fonts that have a serif. A serif is a small line at the extremities of a main stroke in a typed character.

Pay some attention to syntax and grammar. Use short, clear sentences, and don't try to write like James Joyce. Some people try to write complicated sentences because they want to come across as articulate and sophisticated. If you are articulate and sophisticated, it'll show. Good business communication is clear, concise and to the point.

It's a myth that CVs should never be more than two pages. If you're very experienced and have a lot of relevant jobs and/or projects under your belt, include them. There's a difference between a CV that warrants three pages and a three page CV that is all waffle. Clearly, if you're a graduate or first-jobber, you shouldn't need three pages. For really experienced professionals, recruitment consultants sometimes expect three to four pages, but HR managers nearly always expect fewer - three should be the absolute limit if you apply directly to a company.

Number the pages and carefully check your spelling. Get somebody else to proof read your CV if you can. Many of the bad CVs I have seen are written without due care and attention to spelling. Proof read, and then proof read again!

Include a technical Skills Summary - always a useful tool to clearly show your skills and level of competence.

Order: put your most recent experience first. Your most recent experience should also be the most detailed. Provide less detail for each previous position. Please also note that the last five to eight years of your career tend to be the most relevant so we don't need to see reams of information on a job you did fifteen years ago - a sentence or two will suffice. An HR Manager friend of mine insists that a summary of even fifteen years in a senior role can be kept to a handful of concise points, if you stick to an overview of your key achievements.

Make sure that the dates on your CV match up! Mismatches are a worry for hiring managers and recruitment professionals alike and instantly cause doubts.

Essential Information: on the front page of your CV, include your name, address, contact details and education. The age discrimination act will come into force on 1st October and fewer and fewer people are putting their date of birth on their CV as a result. This is fine, and a good thing: you're selling yourself on your knowledge and skills, not your age.

Tailor your CV for each role you apply to, or include a cover letter highlighting relevant experience.

Does wit woo? Or rather, is a CV an appropriate forum for displaying your comedy genius? Generally, no.

I know of a few people who claim that they got their job because the mirth-to-word ratio of their personal profile would not have disgraced Groucho Marx. Indeed, it is sometimes true that a hiring manager may notice you because your sense of humour fortuitously matches theirs.
Normally though, humour in a CV is strictly a no-no, screaming "smarty-pants" or worse.

All these points are pretty obvious, I'm sure, so sorry if you feel I'm teaching you to suck eggs. But the number of people who don't use their CV to represent themselves as well as they could is surprising. Maybe you will learn something from this, and maybe you won't. Either way, I wish you the very best of luck in your job search - but follow this advice and you might be surprised at how "lucky" you are!