Course: How to write a CV

Education Category: General
Ages: 16+

During my Bachelor's semester abroad in Rwanda, I gave a short course on "how to write a CV".

My fellow Rwandan student friends told me they were a bit insecure about how to go about job searching. So I thought, why not give a short course? And we would all exchange ideas!

My course consisted of 3 parts: Presentation, Creativity and Action. This is the way I approached it:

  1. PowerPoint presentation (if not available: with paper examples) with my own CV on it. I went through section-by-section to explain what I had put on my CV and why.

 

  • Section 1: Personal information
    • Name
    • Address
    • Phone number
    • E-mail
    • LinkedIn page > you can first write your resume and then copy the information to make a LinkedIn page - however, not everybody has the ability to access internet.

 

  • Section 2: Education
    • Full name of the degree, possibly with track
    • Name of the institution
    • Location of the institution: city and country
    • Duration e.g.: Sep 2013 - Aug 2017

Example: 

Bachelor of Arts in African Studies

Track: History and Anthropology

Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.

  • Section 3 & 4: Work / Volunteer experience
    • Function
    • Organisation with short explanation about the organisation
    • Tasks included to show what you are capable of
    • Duration of your time there

Example:

Costumer Service Call Centre Assistant at KPN.

KPN: a sustainable provider of telecommunication and internet services.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Tasks included:

  • Providing extensive costumer service
  • Administration of personal data
  • Sales of ICT services

Dec 2015 - Jan 2017

  • Section 5: Languages
    • What languages do you speak? And on what level?

Language categories:

native speaker
near native / fluent
excellent command / highly proficient in spoken and written English
very good command
good command / good working knowledge
basic communication skills / working knowledge

 

Example:

Dutch: Native speaker

English: Fluent

Swahili: Basic communication skills

  • Section 6: Skills
    • You can put hard and soft skills.
      • Examples of hard skills: working with Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel, fast typing, computer programming, presenting.
      • Examples of soft skills: not afraid of taking initiative, orderly, positive, good leadership.

2. Be creative! This is an example of my CV. But a CV is personal and can be adjusted to one's own creativity.

One can:

  • Add Hobbies
  • Add Contact details of former employers for references
  • Indicate briefly why you left a job
  • Adjust the order of the sections. After gaining years of experience, it might be logical to put Work Experience on top and Education below that.

3. Let's write a CV!

Why not start writing while we are all together? This way ideas can be exchanged and productivity will flow.

  • They sat in groups of 4 and discussed their ideas, wrote down the order of the sections the way they liked it, and eventually everybody had a CV on paper!

 

I did encounter a small problem that I didn't expect: "What if I don't have an address?" ... OK, these students didn't live on the street, but they lived in student apartments or campus housing that often is located on a street without a name or number. Therefore, the postal service wouldn't be able to find them. So I suggested to them to write down the address of a parent or family memember or friend who lives nearby, that has a steady place and steady address for them to collect their possible invitations from.

 

That was my short course! Please feel free to commend down below your own ideas and suggestions.
 

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