Are you applying for a summer job, a job during your studies, an internship, or a traditional full-time job? You can’t do it without a CV. We have prepared for you ten helpful hints and recommendations on what a good CV should contain.
Never provide untruthful or exaggerated information in your CV. You can easily change the title of the position, but it should always primarily correspond to the job description common to the specific job position. Check that the data in your CV correspond to the data in your profile on LinkedIn or on another searchable public profile.
Avoid using whole sentences in your CV. Using clearly written bullet points will be more effective. Also avoid any unnecessary words. The recruiter is looking for key words, and too many words will just distract them. Less is usually more!
Always think about the position you want to apply for. We recommend that you prepare one version of your CV with all your experience so that you have a portfolio of experience to choose from. For a specific job position, you can then delete any irrelevant experience or you can change the order of the bullet points in the descriptions of individual positions according to what is pertinent for a particular position.
Contact information (your name, your address in the town where you are looking for work, your phone number, e-mail address, and a photo if you want to include that)
Education
Work experience
Further education + internships
Knowledge of languages
Computer knowledge
Interests
Volunteer work
Your contact information should always be provided first. If you are still a student, the second heading will be Education. Work Experience should be the third heading. If you have temporary jobs outside the field you are studying and you do not want to “mix” them with your experience in the field, you can add the section Work Experience during Studies, or Temporary Work during Studies.
A photo is not required for your CV, but is sometimes very welcome by recruiters. The recruiter remembers you better that way. The optimal format is to display your face and shoulders. You should select a photo with a soft smile or a different facial expression that could leave a good impression of you on the recruiter.
In each section, you should list your experience so that the most recent experience/current studies, etc. are always at the top. In the case of languages or other knowledge, you list the better/stronger skills first.
A good CV should primarily mention facts and verifiable information. Your CV should not include motivational paragraphs and supplementary information. This information should be used in motivation or cover letters when sending your CV. It is also not necessary to mention soft skills in your CV. This is subjective information. Soft skills are as important if not more important than facts in the recruitment process. However, the recruiter will verify them in other ways.
The recruiter makes the first decision about whether to continue reading the CV within the first 20 seconds or so. Thus, they should be able to easily navigate the information and immediately find everything they are looking for.
Your CV does not need to be only one page. Some university students already have so much relevant experience that it is not possible to put it all on one page. A longer but clearly organized CV is much better. It is hard to find important information on a page with too many words.
Tip: It is also possible to make a 1-page CV with the option of inserting a QR code with a link to LinkedIn, where experience and soft skills are more fully developed
Traditional text formats are not a suitable choice. The CV will most likely be reformatted “on the way to the recruiter”, and it gives a bad impression of your level of knowledge of text documents..
Your CV should always be named appropriately so that the recruiter immediately knows whose CV they are opening. Hence, it should contain the word “CV” or “resume” and your name. You should not use diacritical marks, because not every computer can recognize Czech characters.
