5 Must-Have CV Sections and How to Write Them

Even though the employment gap in the US and Ireland has been growing – and contributing to salary increases for five straight years – employers remain highly selective in employee search. Choosing the most qualified person isn’t enough now; the best person should be the right fit in terms of expertise and compliance with a company’s culture to make a meaningful contribution.

That’s why it’s critical for job seekers to describe their expertise as well as beliefs and behaviors to make it easier for recruiters to recognize them as a potential fit for their organization. One way to ensure that is to give them as much information as possible with the following 5 sections (listed in no particular order):

Section 1: Achievements

Always provide a clear and easy-to-understand list of your professional accomplishments. Many job seekers make a mistake by describing the tasks they performed in previous positions, and this is irrelevant to the recruiter because they want to see what you’ve done. Simply said, your job description doesn’t have any value to them.

So, make sure you write a list of your most impressive achievements including as many details as possible (“increased website traffic by 20 percent within 3 months.”)

Section 2: Education

Including this section is still relevant because employees want to get as much information from you as possible (moreover, it’s a must in case you have little or no work experience). Keep it simple and provide this:

• Name of your school

• The degree you have

• The field of study

• Any relevant extracurricular activities or academic recognition.

Section 3: Skills

According to the latest surveys of recruiters and employers, the value of specific hard and soft skills has been increasing in recent years, so they are one of the most sought-after skills. For example, the recent LinkedIn survey found that the following skills will be in most demand in 2019:

The most in-demand hard skills

• UX design

• UX writing

• People management

• AI and machine learning

• Game development

• Social media management

• Software testing.

The most in-demand soft skills

• Time Management

• Creativity

• Collaboration

• Adaptability

• Persuasion.

Section 4: Contact Information

While this one seems basic, many people forget to include it or update it with relevant information. Make sure that potential employers can contact you by sharing your city (and state if applicable), email address, and phone number. And, of course, keep them relevant.

One More Thing

Remember: recruiters read a lot of CVs every day, so make yours easily scannable by writing in small paragraphs and highlighting the most important information.

Section 5: Profile (Summary)

This would be your selling point comprised of your main skills and achievements that emphasizes your value of a potential employer. Since a lot of recruiters look for this section to get an overview of your skills and qualities quickly, you should have it.

Try to summarize your main value as an employee in one or two sentences, with special emphasis on what you’ve done and how you can help your potential employers.

Carefully selecting the words for this section – as well as for the others, for that matter – is crucial and demands an academic-level writing skills. That’s why many job seekers look for essay writer online to proofread and edit their CVs.