Currently rewriting my CV for the first time since graduate applications. Looking for advice on how best to subdivide the Career History section. I want to make clear the career progression I have made, however I also need to detail the projects I have worked on (small in number due to ERP work). Some of the programmes I have worked on span a number of job titles.Any advice on how best to represent this please? By job title and then "projects during this grade" or by project and then "roles during this project" somehow also incorporating "promotions during this project"?? (Without these headings of course)Also as I currently work in IT Consulting I need to provide some breakdown of my IT skills. Is it normal to have a dedicated CV section for this? I don't want to come across as *too much* of a techy if at all possible. Any advice in this area?Thanks in advance

Related to the above, how should you structure a CV if you have worked on lots (literally hundreds) of small projects during the last 7 years?The problem I have is that no one project on its own is a 'big major accomplishment'. I have learnt an awful lot but don't have any 'major case studies' to talk about, so to speak. If I try to list even a brief cross-section of the work I've done (e.g. listing even 15 representative assignments), it just doesn't give the full picture. How do I get around this?

MJ if you could take this up in a separate thread I'd be grateful

To MJ, make a heading that says : 3 selected projects out of XXX projects.The top 3 selected projects should be the powerful ones and totally different from one another.

I believe in providing reasonably comprehensive details of my engagement experience. My CV fits on two pages and includes my career progression and skills. I have a separate 'project experience' section which I append to the back of the CV -- that way, someone gets an overall story from my first two pages, but can delve into more detail if they wish. Generally this format has been well-received by recruiters and consultancies.

Thanks Village Idiot. Can other users of this forum please share the CV format they follow?

Any input from SAP / ERP consultants please?

I would have to disagree with Village Idiot based on my personal experience and discussion with some recruiters. An senior recruiter at GS told me that she would only consider one page CV. When I said that some pople might have many years of exprience and would face difficulties to summareise everything in one page CV. She replied that she have seen CVs of Vice Presidents and even Managing Directors in the IB. These people have worked around 7 to 15 years in IB with glotified achievements and still managed to highlight the key achievements in one page CV.The point is have it formatted into two:(i) One page CV with the key highlights(ii) two or 3 page long resumeInform the recruiters that you have the expanded version of 3 page resume ready for submission.

AC, you are welcome to share your experience, and I don't claim to have all the right answers.I do a significant amount of recruitment as part of my role; however, and can tell you that I cannot remember the last time I've seen a one-page CV from a consultant. Most are at least 2-3, and some are 7+. The length doesn't bother me at all, and it certainly won't screen someone out. I think that's more a myth than a fact.

Writing a 1 page CV for a MD or Senior Partner would be easy. The job title speaks for itself and you can describe the accomplishments at a very high level (e.g. "built up a practice of 50 staff and increased the firm's profitability by 10%").Writing a 1 page CV for a graduate would be relatively easy since there would be little or no work experience section.Writing a 1 page CV for somebody who is mid-career is almost impossible. The range and breadth of things they have achieved cannot easily be summarised into one or two 'highlights'. No one achievement is so big and great that it stands out above the rest. If you do focus on a handful of the main things, you leave out a whole raft of good work you've done that possibly accounts for 80% of your actual experience. The detail is important at this level - I just don't see how it can be summarised in anything less than 2 pages.

Going with a two-pager leaving the majority of fine detail out. For structure I&apos;m thinking the following <Profile: bullets x 3>Personal DetailsEducation and QualificationsCareer HistoryProject RolesKey SkillsIT SkillsInterests (v brief)"Referees Available On Request"Is this overkill? How I&apos;m going to fit this onto 2 sides I don&apos;t know! I&apos;d rather not take the font any smaller than a 10...

Goodness me. Another sad thread. What is the world coming to?If you cannot:a) Conduct your own researchandb) Communicate effectively and efficientlyThen you should give up all hope of progressing in this “space”.

I would have thought that there&apos;s room for a thread to discuss this topic on a "career forum" without the usual sad peanut gallery.In case you&apos;re too clever to realise, this is part of "the research". Everyone knows how to write a CV but getting it right is something there&apos;s been years of debate on and books and books of advice.So back to my previous post ... feedback welcome on the above CV structure.

I was once told to put your most important attributes first, which I think is good advice. My work experience is more impressive than my education summary, hence mine goes, details, WE, Skills, education, personal summary (if needed/room), references.

I&apos;m a systems imp consultant and put one together a while back using the following structure:Personal Details Career overview (type of projects, promotions)Project Roles listed chronologicallyEducationLanguages"Referees Available On Request" Haven&apos;t had to use it in anger yet though, so can&apos;t tell you about success.I&apos;ve got two other questions if anyone wants to give some advice: - How much commentary should the CV have as opposed to bare bullet points? - After 4 years into career, is there any point in recording internships and bar work, and A-level qualifications?

Interesting... do you put "references available on request" or "referees available on request".Also, for somebody who doesn&apos;t have any real hobbies (when I have spare time I mostly spend it doing chores or relaxing), what can you put in the &apos;interests&apos; section?

Thanks for getting back on topic guys."References available on request" vs "referees available on request" ... well to me "references available" sounds like having a written reference in-hand. Which most people don&apos;t. But both are fine in my opinion.Many people will be in your situation regarding interests. Either leave it out completely if you are happy to be represented in this way, alternatively a brief sentence along the lines of "When I have time outside of work I enjoy socialising with friends and family, <sport> and <hobby>" should suffice.

Part of the above got stripped out. It was supposed to read "... socialising with friends and family, and -sport- and -hobby-". Sounds obvious but at my employer when recruiting experienced hires we always look for not just the right experience for the job but the right person for the team - so some indication of being sociable is favourable.

Re: bullet points, they make things stand out more (ie a list of important achievements), and make the CV in general easier on the eye. Reading CVs shouldn’t be an effort or you’ll get nowhere.Is far as the personal interests goes, I only put this in if I’m applying for something that needs slightly different skills than I have on my CV. For example, when I left uni I applied to a stock broking firm, however I had no banking etc work experience. So I put in the interests about how creative/entrepreneurial I am, and how I play the markets with fake money online etc etc. It worked and I got invited to an interview even though my academic results aren’t too high. The personality thing, and how you get on well with people will come across in the interview anyway, so I’ve never bothered with that.

>After 4 years into career, is there any point in>recording internships and bar work, and A->level qualifications?Internships and bar work can go, but you need to keep your A-levels on there -- otherwise people think you&apos;re burying bad marks.

What about length of CV and CL?does 2p CV and 1p CL sound fine....I am a recent undergrad, and would like to highlight my educational/internship/leadership/awards/skills sections.

there is no golden rule as far as I am concerned. Ultimately, if a hiring company wants someone from MBBB and you work for Bain, you can state your job title/company name and do whatever you like with the rest of the CV. For most of us, we need to think about how to structure a CV. Inevitably, it depends on the quality/knowledge of the person reading it. If you are responding to an advert requesting specific skills/experiences, you should make it very obvious that you have such skills/experience to the point that a simple (human/automated) word search of the document will produce enough results.Overall, I agree with the post above that your most impressive/saleable achievments should be at the top. If you were left school at 15 with no qualifications but came through the school of hard knocks to reach a good level, you should not start with your academic achievements. If you have an MBA from Wharton, this is probably the thing to lead with in many cases. If you work for an unknown company but have done some key projects, you have to highlight the specific projects. Even the MBBB will sometimes bend the rules of standard entry if they need specific industry experience.Most of the time, the best approach is a 2 page clear document with the option of providing a more detailed project summary if this is required. If you have less than 3 - 4 years experience, it should be poossible to list your projects. However, you may take the decision not to do this as it is often good to have some info "up your sleeve" so that you can emphasise the most important stuff later.An American Vice President (of a company, not the country) once said to me that a CV should "tell me what you had to do and then tell me if you got the job done". Simply put, it is quite powerful to list some of the key objectives and then to list your achievements against them (assuming you overachieved).Overall, sometimes you are going to take a pot shot, of course, but most of the time, you should assess the needs of the hiring company first and only apply if you meet the requirements or can make a strong case. You are better to be a sniper than a scud if you follow....

in response to the references/referees question, why waste a line of your CV by including that at all. Assuming you are keeping the CV to 2 pages, a spare line or 2 should insure it stays 2 pages when the recruiter adds a company logo (if you are applying through that channel). Also, that is space on your CV, which could be far better used.