Your CV
This is a very important document; with it rest your hopes and dreams for the future that next step up the career ladder, a better position, more money, new challenges, etc. Your CV therefore has to represent the best you have to ofer if you do not want to miss out on that job you saw which was perfect for you. Remember it is your sales pitch to securing you that all important interview! Getting started First, start with plain, business-like white paper. Your CV should be attractive because of its content, not the way it looks. Use a standard font, such as Times New Roman, Arial or Verdana. Keep the use of block capitals and italics to a minimum. Type your name frst and last, no middle names across the top. Shortened names like Nick and Abi are fne, but nicknames like Tiger and Bubbles will give the wrong impression! After your basic personal details (name, address, contact details, date of birth, etc), write a short personal profle about who you are and what you are aiming for something along the lines of:I am a Degree qualifed Design Engineer with 4 years post graduate experience designing high precision mechanisms and specialist laboratory products for the scientifc instrumentation sector. I consider myself to be a strong team player with an excellent work ethic and a genuine ability to bring innovative design solutions to complex engineering challenges. Please also avoid writing your CV in the 3rd person. (i.e. John is a highly skilled Project Manager with a strong background in managing large teams of engineers. His ability is gained from many years.)
Qualifcations, Language and IT Skills Start with the most recent qualifcation frst and work backwards. Start with the dates between which you studied for the qualifcation (month and year is usually sufcient), followed by the name of educational establishment and then the qualifcation and class. Be sensible with the relevance of information you include. If you have a degree, or engineering qualifcation, you dont need to list all your GCSEs and the grades you achieved. However if you are just embarking on your career having recently fnished your studies, it would be appropriate to mention GCSE and A level success. List your IT skills and CAD systems that you have used. Try to remember particular versions of systems that you have used (for instance, Solid Edge ST2 instead of just Solid Edge or ProEngineer Wildfre 2 instead of just ProEngineer). Experience Begin with your current or most recent job and work backwards. Include your dates of employment (again, month and year will sufce), name of company and a small description (eg. 20 million turnover business specialising in the design and development of leading edge particle analysis equipment). Avoid the temptation to abbreviate basic words for example: engineering should not be written as eng. and drawings should not be drawgs or dwgs. Bill of Materials can be abbreviated to BOM and Design for Manufacture can be DfM. Your experience and key achievements should be listed in bullet point format (around 10-15 bullet points per job). Your frst bullet point should be a nutshell description of your role, including your reporting line for example: - Reporting directly to the Technical Director, I lead multiple development projects overseeing a team of 5 design engineers OR - Reporting to the Drawing Ofce Manager and working in a team of 3, I was responsible for detailing sheet metal fabrications and compiling BOMs. This should be followed by a breakdown of your role. It is often easier to do this
by breaking down your weekly and monthly cycle start at the beginning of the month and think of everything that you do. Candidates with more senior level experience should concentrate on challenges and achievements, and projects that you have been involved in including their values. Wherever possible, quantify your achievements and daily duties by giving a number, a percentage or a value such as the cost down design work I conducted represented an annual saving of 150,000 on manufacturing costs, or by implementing a new manufacturing system we were able to increase productivity by 11%. Optional extras Interests and hobbies this is a popular optional feature on CVs. If you include a list, make sure each item is interesting or indicates skills transferable to the workplace. Dont exaggerate your favoured pastimes or include mundane ones watching TV is not a valid interest. Family status this is not a relevant factor in engineering recruitment and is therefore unnecessary. References if you have the space to include this, then do. Otherwise it is sufcient to include a statement to say that references are available on request.