CV

Learning Guide

CV

Learning Guide

Careers & Employability

Empowering UAL students
and graduates to make a
living doing what they love

arts.ac.uk/careers

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Content What and Why? 3 What CV stands for Curriculum Vitae which is Latin
and Why? for ‘the course of your life’. A CV is a factual
Making It Accessible 3-4 document that summarises your experience,
skills, education, achievements and other
The Basics 5-9 relevant professional information.

Set Yourself Apart 10 A CV is used to showcase your professional

profile and usually requested when you
Checklist 11 apply for jobs, work experience or other
opportunities. It is a document about you
Resource Guide 12 - 13 written for an employer. There are different
types of CVs depending on their purpose (for
example an artist CV).

Making It It is important to consider how easy it is for

Accessible others to understand and access what you
are communicating to them throughout your
professional journey. Thinking SCULPTURE is
our way of ensuring we embed accessibility
creatively.

When creating and sending your CV to

employers or clients, you will need to make
sure it is accessible to employers and
recruiters.

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Making It Structure – does it flow? The Basics Content
Accessible Colour and contrast – is it clear? Average time spent reading a CV is between
Use of images – have you used a caption? 7-10 seconds. Make an impact from the
Links – do they work correctly? beginning by putting the content you most
Plain English – can you understand it? want the employer to read at the top of your
Titles – is it laid out clearly? CV, e.g. a tailored list of your skills.
User testing – have others reviewed it?
Review – check their feedback Include links to any online content you want
Edit and fix – make any necessary changes an employer to see, such as LinkedIn, online
portfolios, profiles, websites and social media
You should also consider (only if relevant and professional).
• Document format
Check if the employer would like CVs to be Always ensure the experience and skills you
sent in a particular format or size. include on your CV are relevant and match both
• Document name the job description or any additional information
Save your CV as ‘Your Name / Company you have about the opportunity.  
Name / CV’ so it’s easily identifiable.
Don’t try and squeeze all your experiences into
• Accessibility your CV. Edit and focus on your most relevant
Make your document more accessible by and valuable skills and experience.
avoiding the use of bright colours or a font
size smaller than 11pt. Don’t include a picture, date of birth, address
or nationality. These aren’t necessary in
this document, with the exception of online
professional platforms, such as LinkedIn. Too
much personal information might lead to an
employer being less objective. (in the UK,
there is the Equality Act 2010, which protects
people from discrimination on the basis of their
religion, sex, gender reassignment, marital
status, race, age, disability, sexuality)

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The Basics Structure Work experience
Make sure that your name, email and telephone When writing about your work experience,
number are clearly visible. focus on your achievements where possible
and not solely on your ‘duties’ within the role.
Arrange your experience in reverse You can do this by reflecting on what you
chronological order, i.e. in each section list your successfully contributed to. Are there any
most recent experience first. quantifiable achievements you can include?

You don’t need to separate ‘unpaid Don’t forget to mention additional professional
internships’, ‘university projects’ etc. It is all achievements outside of paid work experience.
valuable experience. These can be projects you’ve initiated,
research you’ve undertaken, commissions
Biographies or personal statements you’ve done, or examples from your voluntary
If you are including a biography or personal work experience. The value of your skills is
statement, it must be concise, distinctive and not validated by money. You do not need to
connect directly with the employer or client / explicitly indicate on your CV whether the role
opportunity you are applying for. As a CV is a was paid or unpaid.
document people read quickly, paragraphs of
narrative text don’t always work well. Consider You can choose to divide your work experience
if your biography or personal statement will into two sections and place your most relevant
work better elsewhere, such as in the body of work experience section above an additional
an introductory email or in your cover letter. work experience section. This will give you
freedom to draw attention to the experience
that is most relevant to your audience.
Remember to display your experience using
reverse chronological order.

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The Basics Skills Layout
Include a tailored skills list for the employer Here are some suggestions on sections to
when preparing your CV. Have you identified include and some key tips to consider when
the key skills the employer is looking for in writing your CV
candidates on the job description? Have
you included a list of skills which you can Keep it to a maximum of one page. You should
evidence with examples from your recent or consider having 2 pages if you have extensive
relevant work experience? Have you included a experience in an industry and applying for a
balanced list of skills that focuses on both your senior position.
soft and hard (technical) skills?
Consider writing in bullet points rather than
Education blocks of text to make your CV easy and quick
Employers will usually indicate on the job to read. Make sure you have a good amount
description what level of education a candidate of line spacing around the text, and check you
would need to be eligible for the role. Include have included some white space to make it
a section for your education and include accessible,
predicted course grades if you are currently
studying. Consider how you want your CV to be read.
For example, columns (newspaper style) or left
If you have little work experience, us to right? Think of intent and purpose, and the
your education section to inckude your audience who will be reading it.
achievements. Have you been awarded a
high mark in a module that is relevant to the Consider visual identity, does this reflect the
role or industry? You can highlight this subtly style of other documents you will be sending
by including the name of specific modules or the employer, such as a cover letter, portfolio,
pieces of work under the relevant grade. personal statement?

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Set Yourself Adjust your CV for every position or Checklist Visual impact and branding
Apart opportunity you are applying for.  If you are Is the look and feel of your CV consistent with
applying for a range of different types of roles your cover letter, portfolio and website?
try to make different master CV for each type.
This way you can make adjustments, rather Tailor every time
than starting from the beginning each time. Have you analysed the job description and
Have one master CV that has everything on it person specification carefully and matched
so you can cut and paste a tailored CV. your skills to those listed? Have you researched
the company further to highlight and include
Always try to put yourself in the employers’ other relevant and relatable work experience?
position. What would you want to see from a
candidate if you received hundreds of CVs? Be consistent
What would make you remember somebody? Have you checked that your layout is
What would you need to know about them? consistent? Have you used the same font and
What would make them stand out?   spacing throughout?

Have you used the same writing style

throughout your CV? Be specific and concise
when describing your experience, check you
clearly described your main achievements and
responsibilities. Consider writing in bullet points
and keeping your CV to 1 page max

Check!
Have you checked your spelling and grammar?
You can contact the UAL Language Centre if
you need help with this. Don’t forget to also
check your phone number and email address
so the employer can contact you, you would
be surprised how many people make a mistake
there!

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Resource If English is an additional language to you, you Prospects – Example CVs - https://www.pros-
Guide can access language support and development pects.ac.uk/careers-advice/cvs-and-cover-let-
services via UAL’s Language Centre: https:// ters/example-cvs
www.arts.ac.uk/study-at-ual/language-centre/
english-language-development-for-ual-students Prospects – Writing a personal statement -
https://www.prospects.ac.uk/careers-advice/
If you need support proofreading, use free, cvs-and-cover-letters/writing-a-personal-state-
inbuilt services such as Microsoft’s spelling and ment-for-your-cv
grammar checker. Alternatively you can down-
load browser extensions like Grammarly, ProW- The following links are to American web re-
ritingAid, Ginger. They will do a similar job, sources. Pay attention to spelling and gram-
however most are only free for a trial period. matical changes.

It’s Nice That – Top creatives show their CVs - The Muse – Verbs that will make your CV awe-
https://www.itsnicethat.com/features/the-grad- some - https://www.themuse.com/advice/185-
uates-2018-2018-cv-advice-210618 powerful-verbs-that-will-make-your-resume-
awesome
Artquest – How to create an artist CV - https://
www.artquest.org.uk/how-to-articles/artist-cv/ Resume.IO – If you struggle with layout, there
are some handy template builders online that
Vitae – Creating effective CVs as a researcher can help remove technicalities, like this one.
- https://www.vitae.ac.uk/researcher-careers/ Beware that they start free but will likely charge
career-management-for-researchers/creat- a fee once you are ready to download your
ing-effective-cvs-as-a-researcher/creating-ef- CV - https://resume.io/?gclid=EAIaIQobCh-
fective-cvs-as-a-researcher MIoNbbv6ex7AIVie3tCh3M1gihEAAYASAAE-
gIeUPD_BwE
Creative CV Guide (2010) - https://www.not-
tingham.ac.uk/careers/documents/students/
other/creativecvguide(1).pdf

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