CV is an abbreviation of the Latin term ‘Curriculum Vitae’ which means ‘course of life’. It is a short document, usually two or more pages, that gives information about you. It includes your personal details, education, work experience, skills, interests, and achievements such as awards, distinctions, honors, and publications. A CV is not just a document: it is your professional story, and it must always be enclosed with a job application.

Your CV is the very first step towards securing a job – it introduces you to the interviewers before you even walk into the interview room. Therefore, it must be impressive enough to make you stand out among a large pool of applicants. Employers carefully assess CVs to shortlist candidates for interviews. Despite having the required qualifications and skills, many applicants fail to get shortlisted simply because they do not present themselves effectively on their CV.

Moreover, the selection panel reads your CV to form an initial impression about you even before meeting you. In other words, your CV speaks on your behalf. That is why both the content and presentation of your CV must be compelling, well-organized, and professional.
The guidelines for composing an elegant CV are as follows:

The CV is divided into the following sections:

1. Personal Details: Name, date of birth, address, contact number, e-mail address, and a small picture.
2. Educational Details: List of degrees and programs of formal education, obtained marks, total marks, names of institutions, year of passing exams, and aggregate marks.
3. Professional Experience: List of your work experiences, start and end dates of the experience, names of organizations, job title, and description.
4. Achievements and Accomplishments: Awards, distinctions, honours, volunteer internships, membership of programs, participation in debates and competitions, and so on.
5. Skills and Abilities: Computer skills, communication skills, leadership qualities, teamwork abilities, organizational skills, and so on.

You can also add more sections to your CV, such as a section of research publications to outline your published papers. You may add a section of references if a job advertisement requires it; otherwise, you can omit it. Two referees are enough, which can include your academic tutors and/or your employer from the organization where you worked. In the referees section, you can also write ‘referees are available upon request’.

The CV is an important document. You have to make it once and can submit it each time you apply for a job. Hence, you should give proper time to make the contents of your CV.

1. Take a pen and paper.
2. Start writing for each section of the CV as given above.
3. Some details are clearly known to you, such as your personal details, e.g., name, date of birth, address, contact numbers, and e-mail address. You just need to refine their wordings and style of writing. Follow the correct format of writing your date of birth, e.g., 15th April, 1985. Similarly, your address should be composed in a correct manner, e.g., House No. 345, New Gardens, Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. Use a correct contact number and e-mail address, as they will be used for contacting you.
4. Select a good and simple picture of yourself to be added in the section of personal details. It should be a passport-size photograph.
5. Educational details should be correctly listed on your CV. Write down the titles of your degrees and academic programs, names of the institutions, duration of the program, years of passing exams, and aggregate marks. Ensure that all these details are correct, as reflected on your degrees and certificates.
6. You may also add the key subjects or courses of the program in the description for each degree in the section of Educational Details. It highlights the major subjects of your academic qualification to the reader. It also reflects the relevance of your education to the job you are applying for.
7. The details of work experience, skills and abilities, and achievements require proper brainstorming. You have to think about them carefully to present these details in an inspiring manner.
8. Write down the title for each work experience, start and end date (duration), and name of the organization of your experience. To make your experience details look appealing and relevant, add a short description of your job tasks to each experience title. Your regular employment as well as your temporary internship should be mentioned as your experience.
9. If you have no work experience to mention, don’t worry! Start thinking if you have ever participated (even as a volunteer) in a workshop, seminar, program, or a campaign. You can mention such participation as your experience, as you have gained practical learning from it.
10. For skills and abilities, think about your abilities and skills that should be presented on your CV. We may have many skills and abilities, but we either do not consider them or do not know how to mention them in correct wordings on a CV. Suppose you are good at operating a computer; you must mention that you have good computer skills. You can also add the name of a computer program, e.g., Microsoft Office. You can include many qualities such as leadership qualities, communication skills, command of various languages, teamwork and organizational skills, managerial skills, and so on.
11. For the achievements and accomplishments section, you should include all your awards, medals, distinctions, and the top three positions secured in academics and co-curricular competitions. You can also mention your other distinctive accomplishments such as attending workshops or seminars, membership of societies in college or university, performing as a student-proctor, membership of the editorial board of a college or school magazine, membership of a welfare group such as a blood-donation group, or having written articles for newspapers, and so on.

The content and style of your CV are equally important for having an exquisite impression. You must compose your CV on a computer to style it and give it a professional look.

Guidelines for composing a CV on a computer are as follows:

1. There are many computer programs for writing a CV. For example, Microsoft Office is a well-known program for writing and printing purposes. It is an easy program, and almost everyone can use it nowadays.
2. Design: You can make a format for your CV or download a format from the internet. The format must be clean and simple.
3. Drafting the details: The details of the CV must be written in concise form. Write your details in short and simplified sentences or phrases. It should reflect the basic information. Avoid unnecessary elongation of sentences and phrases. It will hide your basic information from being read by the reader. Your CV must be short. It helps the reader easily read all your details in less time and know more about you.
4. Font type and size: Use proper fonts for writing your CV to give it a professional look. Times New Roman is one of the nice fonts. Similarly, write some information in bold or italic to distinguish between groups of information. For instance, you may write the title of your educational degree in bold and the institution name in italics. Use a proper font size. The size of the font should not be too small or too large. It will affect the overall design of your CV. For instance, if your font is ‘Times New Roman’, the best size for it is 12 or 13. Font size varies for different fonts.
5. Demarcation of sections: Use lines or boxes for each section to show the demarcation of sections. You can use a table within a section, if required.
6. Use proper bullets for listing items in the CV.
7. Have proper spacing between the lines. The lines should not be too compact. They should be spaced enough to be read easily.
8. Wording of CV: The words used to express your details should be properly selected. The overall wording of the CV should be appealing enough to engage the reader to read it.
9. Printing your CV: A CV should not be more than two or three pages. Two or three pages are enough for reflecting all your details. Set the page size on the computer as ‘A4 size page’ for printing your CV. Take a printout of your CV and proofread it for errors, if any. Check spelling and grammatical errors in your CV.