photo credit: SOCIALisBETTER

People have asked me for a standard template to get them going – so I have uploaded one here.

CV Template

Enjoy and feel free to share. It is in MS Word format

Well you’re not alone. In fact thousands of graduates, college leavers and young professionals around the world are struggling right now in getting an entry level job. And you know what? – you are competing with them!

For entry level jobs, careers and professional positions like accounting, legal, IT – Preparing for interview questions and their answers aren’t always the solution. You need that extra tool, you need to impress, standout – you need to somehow guarantee you a place a head of the queue. I would recommend taking a look at Wow you’re hired.. its an interesting read, and explains a real job getting secret that you would believe.

Get your CV online and submitted to as many jobsearch and jobboard sites as possible. Remember its a numbers game as well.
Make sure your CV is formatted on monster.com, or uploaded to an applicant tracking system of the clients.

You should make sure the skills you have and are strongest in – are of the appropriate keyword density and your location is clearly stated as in most cases recruiters love to hire local candidates.

Line managers might well turn to trusty Google and query you so make sure your online profiles are up to scratch. If you are at management level or advancing in your career then chances are someone may look for you on the search engines with a view to checking you out.

This is crazy easy – but not many people follow these simple rules.

You are going for an interview not to a club – so you need to dress to impress. And no matter what you think looks good – there is  a set process that will always look good….so follow these rules and you will always win at the meeting.   I promise.

Always wear a dark plain suit. no stripes, spots or colors please.

A simple white shirt – again not pink spots or patterns.

A plain navy blue tie – and that it.

Real shoes…with leather soles. You know …the ones that are stiff and uncomfortable…but they look the part.

Simply do this and you’ll always impress the interviewer….Good luck.

More tips from worksmart

Get Your profile Online.

It makes a difference…why?  Because your employer is searching for you.

Use these resources to be publicly searchable:  (and by the way facebook doesn’t count)

LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/

Probably the biggest online business connections network in the world – if you are not on here – then you are nowhere.

Monster http://www.monster.com

Yes we all know its for jobs, but have you got your resume or CV on there?  If not do it now.

Zoominfo http://www.zoominfo.com/

Another online resource of business contacts.  You may not be working now but you will be in the future – of course you will?

Good luck with your next job.

Getting the right format for your CV or resume is not as hard as you might think.  There are many myths surrounding how many pages you should have, or what font the document should be in, and where your address should be and so on.  Its all rubbish.  To get the correct curriculum vitae format you should focus on theses key points.

1) Make sure your name, phone number and email are right at the top of the document in a large font size.  This is what the interviewer needs to remember and so its critical that you are up there where he/she cannot miss it.

2) Start with a clear mission statement on what you will achieve for the company.

3) If you have gaps in your CV then leave the end date blank or miss out months from the date.  You need to keep it ambiguous if you have something that needs explaining at the interview.   Remember you just need to get in from of the person – and then you can explain everything.

4) No more than 4 pages – but make sure every bit of work experience tells a story with achievements.  Don’t make it too brief it will look bad and boring.  People want to see what you did, what you achieved and how you did it – and make sure its relevant to the job that you are applying to.

5) Interests.  You must have interests or hobbies on your resume.  I know its a cliche but believe me interviewers want something else to talk about apart from work.  So having – “I’m in a national volley ball competition” is going to give them something to talk about.

Good luck with your next interview.

So you are ready to go – you have the date, time and destination but are you mentally prepared?

Its critical that you rehearse to yourself the types of questions that you will get.

These are the questions you will get hit with first:

1) Tell me about yourself.

2) Give me an overview of your resume or curriculum vitae

3) Describe what was great about this job

4) What was your most challenging and difficult decision

5) Why do you want to work for us.

Simply aren’t they – but these are the first questions you are likely to be asked.  The first one is simply because the interviewer himself is nervous and doesn’t want todo much talking.  So this is where you act confident and sell yourself in 3 short sentences.

resume templates

As you may know resume templates are just another form or a CV or Curricum vitae template.  The US is more Resume oriented and the UK is more CV oriented.  Whats critical to understand about getting an interview is that you are competing with 100s of people.  Imagine you are a manager looking to hire someone and on a friday afternoon he has to review all the CVs or resumes on his desk and choose which ones to arrange the interviews next week.

He’s not going to go through them all one by one and read the content – NO – he’s going to flick through them quickly and see which one stands out.  This is where your cover letter really matters.  It sells you and your personality and to be honest could be the decider to getting the job.

So make sure you stand out from the crowd and get your cover letter different from everybody else.

There a lot more tips on this site here: http://www.wikijob.co.uk/

resume templates