Tuesday 4 October 2011

CV Workshop - 'Skills' heading

If this is the first time you are viewing this blog series, please refer back to the first summary post called 'CV Workshop - Top 5 Headings for your CV'.

I have left one of the most important CV headings till last; this is because this section should be a very clear and concise part of your CV. This is significant as employers will want to look here to determine your suitability for the job/placement.

I’ve placed key skills at the end of my CV, but really you can put it anywhere, the reason I placed it at the bottom is because it seemed like a nice section to round off my CV. Thus, effectively I’ve got a section summary containing the skills that I’ve learnt from the above (education, employment history and experience).

A really obvious skill to include in this section would be your computer skills. This skill is one of the most significant these days as everything is going electronic so, your employer will want to know whether you’re at least computer literate and to what standard. This is particularly true in the publishing industry - they do want people with computer skills. These skills are transferable in terms of Ebook production, websites and digital marketing. Luckily I have a double A-Level in ICT so I have quite a lot of computer skills that I can put in this section. However, if you’re struggling with this section you should at least put some of the basic skills down. This could include MS office package (a lot of people can use MS office), familiarity with a MAC or Windows operating system, typing speed etc. It’s definitely the little skills which will count – so don’t leave stuff out thinking that it will just be assumed.

As always, don’t forget to keep this section consistent with the other headings. So, I’ve spoken before about indentation and bolding/italicising fonts; make sure this heading is the same. Keep your font between 10 and 12, so that it’s readable and make sure you’re not too experimental with size or fonts – if in doubt, you can’t go wrong with size 12 times new roman.

I hope you’ve found the CV workshop series useful. At a later date, I will do a template for a CV, so that it can be more easily visualised.

1 comment:

  1. I'm a student about to graduate this summer and am starting to realise I'm interested in publishing. I've been looking into internships and have found your CV Workshop series so helpful!
    I see you're graduating soon too! Good luck with everything and I hope you find a job in publishing that you love. You really seem to have done your research and are doing so much to help other graduates, you deserve it!

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