Ministry of Communications and Information Technology

Information Technology Institute

CV WRITING
A Plan for Success

Objectives
What is a CV. When to Use It Evaluate Your Skills CV Structure. Dos and Don'ts Email Writing

Our Big Goal

To put YOU on the road to a promising career!

What is a CV?

Selling tool. Outlines your skills and experience. Opportunity to present yourself in the best possible light.

Demonstrate your strength.

Steps of Writing an Effective CV

Taking an inventory of your skills and

experiences.

Finding a suitable employer. Choosing the right format. Writing your C.V. Customizing your C.V. for each application.

Evaluate Your Skill

Most Important Factors in Recruitment

Enthusiasm

Personality
Transferable skills

Potential
Relevant Work Experience Personal Interests Any other work experience

Self Analysis
Consider your experience in and outside university.

Skills

Interests

Achievements

Interests
Reflect on all the activities you participated in during the last five years, including school, work, volunteering and leisure.
Activity
Coaching hockey

Liked
Building team Leading a group Giving constructive feedback

Disliked
Violence on the ice

Learned
Leadership Communication

Skills

List your strengths and skills and identify those areas you need to improve in order to reach your career goal. Identify concrete situations where you demonstrated these skills.
Skills Examples As a new camp counselor, proposed and led weekly meetings with the crew to discuss particular issues faced by the campers.

Leadership, initiative, problem-solving, communication

Top Ten Skills that Employers Want

VERBAL COMMUNICATI ON
TEAMWORK COMMERCIAL AWARENESS ANALYSING & INVESTIGATING

INITIATIVE/SELF MOTIVATION

DRIVE

WRITTEN COMMUNICATI ON TIME MANAGEMENT

PLANNING & ORGANISING

FLEXIBILITY

Other Important Skills

GLOBAL SKILLS NEGOTIATING & PERSUADING COMPUTING SKILLS LEADERSHIP

NUMERACY

CREATIVITY

CONFIDENCE

STRESS TOLERANCE

DECISIONMAKING

Achievements
Achievements are occasions where you recognized a problem or a situation that could have been improved and you acted on it. Did you receive some form of recognition (award, title, trophy, etc.)? Did you intervene in a situation that could have become a serious problem had you not detected it?

Achievements

Did you make a suggestion that was adopted by your classmates, team or coworkers? Did you accomplish a task using less than the usual resources? Have you trained or taught people?

Take care dont oversell yourself !

CV Structure

CV Structure
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Contact Information Objectives Education Skills Experience Honors and Awards (Optional) Interests References (Optional)

1. Contact Information

Full name Current and permanent address Phone number and optional fax number E-mail address Optional website address

2. Objective
Phrase a realistic objective or leave blank: Example: Desire a position in the office management, secretarial or clerical area. Prefer a position requiring responisbility and a variety of tasks.

Guidelines for Writing a Resume

Powerful Verbs: Achieved Developed

Managed
Demonstrated

Conducted
Planned Organised

3. Education

Organized in reverse Chronological order most recent first Postgraduate study University education Pre-university education Any relevant courses

1.

2.
3. 4.

3. Education
Continuously update!
BSc Mechanical Engineering (The Chinese University of Hong Kong) - Practical experience of programming: CNC machinery Robots BA English Translation (The Chinese University of Hong Kong - Simultaneous translation Chinese to English - Experience with publication English to Chinese

NAME
Email Address and/or Personal Web Address Campus Address: College Box # City, State Zip Code Phone Number Permanent Street: City, State Zip Code Phone Number

OR Address: College, Box # City, State Zip code (Area Code) Phone number Permanent Address: Street City, State Zip code (Area Code) Phone number

EDUCATION: Institution: location -- College: Anytown, ST Degree, Major (and concentration if appropriate), date -- Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, Expected May 2003 Cumulative GPA/GPA in major (optional) - list if 3.0 or higher with academic honors and awards Optional: relevant coursework, foreign study programs. CAREER OBJECTIVE: If you have a cover letter, you generally do not need an objective. If you decide you want one anyway, it should be a concise and meaningful statement describing your career goals. Be as specific as possible without being too restrictive.

4. Skills
SKILLS:
Computer Skills:
Even if it is only word processing skills, list familiarity with computer systems, applications and programs. If you dont have it, assume you dont know it.

Language Skills:
State degree of proficiency in reading, writing and speaking.

Other Skills:
Project Management Written Correspondence Front-Office Operations Report Preparation Accounting/Bookkeeping Professional Presentations

5. Work Epxerience

Reverse chronological order! Employer name, location Full time, part time, voluntary work Dates Job title Description of duties involved Main achievements

6. Honors and Awards

List academic, leadership and athletic honors. If you only have academic awards you can list them under your GPA in the Education section.

7. Interests And Achievements

Travel Membership of clubs or societies Music/ Sports Hobbies and other activities

8. References

The names of referees Name and job title Address Telephone number and fax number E-mail address

Dos and Don'ts

Avoid a lengthy resume Do not fake Do not be too loud and ornate Avoid slang, jargons, abbreviations. DO NOT USE Funny e-mail addresses. DO NOT Use Improper Photos

Think outside the box, but not too outside to get your resume noticed. In most cases a cover letter should be attached. Print final copies of your resume on quality paper that photocopies well.

Email writing

Email Writing

Emails can be broadly classified into two categories:

Formal emails

Informal emails

Hey Dude, How r u doin man ? Hoz life goin ? Dont see u much on facebook lately. did u hear about my engagement.

Yala mobile Yahia

Dear Mr. Watson, This is to inform you that the interest on your home loan (Ref: XXXXX) has been increased by 2% per year w.e.f 1st July, 2008. The changes have been made in response to the ongoing mortgage crisis.

A letter communicating the same has been dispatched. For any query or for further information please feel free to contact us on any of our toll free numbers mentioned below.
Toll Free (US dialing): XXXXXXXXXXXXX Toll Free (International dialing): XXXXXXXX

Thank you Regional Manager, Home loans

Standard Structure
There are 8 important parts in a standard business mail:

Address Fields to / cc / bcc Subject Greeting Opening Lead-ins Body / Content Closing Statement Signature

Sample of a Standard Email

Your Mail Recipients to, cc

First Party (Direct Recipient)

Second Party (Courtesy Copy)

Your Mail Recipients Bcc

Third Party (Blind Courtesy Copy)

Subject Grab Their Attention!

Use clear, concise, descriptive wording. Choose words that are meaningful. Word the subject line to evoke interest. Avoid trying to trick readers into opening the email. Restrict yourself to one subject per message.

The Power of Greeting

Why? Sets the stage Politeness is your weapon !

Acceptable Greetings in Business Email

Dear Sir, Hi..,

Opening
Opening statements may be used to establish rapport:

Trust you are having a nice day. Thank you for your response. "I am writing in response to the case opened in relation to (person)."
Rapport-building statements may be inappropriate in some situations.

Lead-ins
The first line or paragraph of the body of an email. Importance of Writing Terrific Lead-ins: Bottom-line Summarizes the action you are asking the customer to complete. Captures readers attention and motivates them to read on.

Lead-ins
Ex:
To respond to a letter of complaint: Thank you for writing to us about your experience in our copy center last week. To say thank you: Thank you so much for contributing the oneyear corporate club membership to our auction. To confirm an agreement: I am happy to write to confirm our agreement about the summer workshop.

Lead-ins
These sentences have three things in common: They get to the point. Each one answers the reader's question "What's this about?" They are concise. They contain positive language: thank you, please, contributing, happy, pleased, congratulations, grateful, successfully, impressed, etc.

Body-Building
Characteristics of High-impact Emails: Simple and Concise. Organized Content. Appropriate Words and Sentence Construction. Effective Language.

Closing Statement
The closing should continue the "line" of your e-mail and add a little flourish of feeling to wrap everything up.

Looking forward to ... Thank you for ... Please contact me if you ...

Signature

Complimentary closing: Those phrases that come before the signature in a letter. Very truly yours, Respectfully, Sincerely yours, Sincerely, Best regards, Regards,

Signature
Ex:
John Smith President | Top Web Design USA 555-555-5555 | [email protected] | http://www.websiteurl.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/twittername | LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/linkedinname

Name Position | Company Number | email | website Twitter page | LinkedIn page

Heba Ramadan

[email protected]

Thank You