Guided Draft: Organise your CV information
Now we need to organise all the information you've gathered for your CV into categories - when we 'present' this information on paper, these categories will become your CV's 'sections'.
For now, get our your pen and paper, head up a different page for each category, and divide up the info you collected.
Divide your material into categories
These are your essential CV categories, but you may have some info about yourself left over - your leftover research could be divided up into these optional categories:
Personal/Contact details
This is the easiest category:
- Your name
- Your postal address
- Your contact telephone numbers
- Your email address
Qualifications/Education
In this category, put your university education, any other tertiary qualifications or certificates, and your highest high school qualification.
Skills
For this category, make a list of all the skills and attributes you identified when you were researching yourself.
- In preparation for the next stage, grab your highlighters again and use different colours to group similar skills together - for example, you could highlight all the skills and attributes that have something to do with communication one colour, then everything to do with time management and organisation another colour and so on.
- At the bottom of this category, make a note of how many different colours you used, and have a go at giving each colour a title, eg, Yellow=Communication, Pink=Research and Analysis. Your CV Guide will come in handy here - check out pages 8-10 for some title ideas.
Paid Employment
Make a list of all the paid positions you've held - include:
- the title of the position (eg, retail assistant, manager, waiter, labourer, etc)
- the name of the company, organisation or person who employed you
- the dates you worked there
- a list of tasks and responsibilities the job involved
For now, don't leave anything out. Any weeding of this category can be done later in the process.
Voluntary Work
Put all your unpaid work, including work experience gained through your degree programme such as placements, internships or special projects such as conference organisation or helping out to run an event. Include any community involvement such as running a youthgroup or working on a helpline, in this category.
Again, include everything for now, and list the tasks or responsibilities under each volunteer position.
Interests/Activities
Put all your interests and spare-time activities (such as sports or crochet) in this category. We'll elaborate a bit more on this information later.
Referees
In the preparation stage, you will have contacted some people who are going to act as your referees. In this category, note the details of each referee, including:
- Name
- Position
- Company or organisation
- Postal address
- Work telephone numbers
- Email address
Personality/Personal Attributes
Put anything about your personality and temperament in this category.
Career Goals
Information about your career objectives can go in this category.
Achievements/Awards
Stuff like Dux, scholarships, first place in any academic competitions and so on goes in this category.
Training/Professional Development
Put any short courses or skills development, such as first aid certificates, food safety certificates and so on, in this category.
Publications/Conferences
If you're writing an academic CV, this category is essential - make a list of all your publications and conference involvement for this category.
Academic Record
Write out your own academic record for this category - list your papers and note what skills you gained from them.
The next step looks at the layout of your CV and tricks to make sure your CV gets read.