For most people, a CV is the first point of contact between themselves and a company. It is therefore very important that your CV gives the best possible first impression. Basics like spelling and grammar need to be perfect. You also need to make sure that you have enough relevant, detailed information on your CV.
What information is required?
You’ll need to add info like your name, date of birth, geographical area, education and work experience. As an IT Developer it’s also important to add a detailed skills matrix or at least add the “technologies used” under each job description.
It’s not necessary to have pages and pages full of information. Hardly any info with only headings won’t do either. It’s important to give enough relevant info so the person reading your CV can create a clear picture of what you do everyday, how you do it and what technologies you use to do it.
Education
Here you need to put all the details of your education. Certificate/Diploma/Degree name, institution and year completed i.e. Matric, X High School, 2002. You can also add your subjects as well as your marks, especially if you had good marks/distinctions.
Here you can also add your University projects, if applicable. I.e. Final year project: X, what your role was, what you had to do, what technologies you used and what the final mark was.
Extra info like leadership roles during high school, awards/achievements in school etc. can also be added here.
Employment details
This also needs to be as detailed as possible. Company name, your title, the duration and your job description. You can have a few lines of job description (your overall responsibilities) and then you can perhaps list a few projects with descriptions (project detail and your role in each project). Remember to add all the technologies you use.
Adding reasons for leaving each job is also important. It shows what you like and not like i.e. “Left this company in Jhb to work in Pretoria” and it helps to show the reader your preferences i.e. “Wasn’t doing any Web development”. Just in case they too don’t do web development, nobody’s time gets wasted.
Back to basics
As mentioned above, correct spelling on your CV is very important. When dealing with recruitment agencies, they will most likely fix the errors and do final touch-ups on your CV before sending it to employers. If your CV ends up at an employer however and it’s full of spelling mistakes, it doesn’t give a good impression, especially since “Word” underlines all the mistakes. Not everyone is great at spelling and in this industry it isn’t necessarily the most important thing, but, attention to detail usually is, so it might be a good idea to have a friend give you CV a once over to make sure everything makes sense and there aren’t any silly mistakes.
Additional information
It’s great to add extra info, especially if it’s relevant or a good “selling point” i.e. special achievements, awards received etc. If you don’t want a subsection for this, you can make a note of each achievement underneath each job under employment details.