13. One Page Only, Not More Not Less

I hope this blog post will be able to save you from attending CV writing seminar and hence save your $25 (if this blog post ever serve that purpose, please donate your $25 to charity). The CV style that I am going to present to you is very common among LSE students. Most students who apply for jobs in finance or consulting industry always use this "1-page only, not more not less unless" rule. Ladies and Gentlemen, without further ado, let me introduce your (prospective) CV ! (Click on the image to make it larger)

Right, let me first start with the top section. Whether or not to include a photo in your CV depends on the firm you are applying to. In UK, you are not recommended to put your photo (let alone another person's photo) because either you will scare the recruiting manager to death with your handsome/beautiful face or you are trying to get the job based on your look instead of your skills. Firms are not allowed to ask for candidates' photos too to prevent discrimination against race and sex. However, this is not the case in Asia. Most of the time, you have to attach your photo in your CV or it will not be considered at all. Please attach your "professional" photo in which you are wearing business/working suits (with ties for males) and SMILE ! You want to leave a good impression when the hiring manager first look at your CV. 

The next important thing is your full name. Make sure the font size is BIGGER than any other letter in the CV and BOLD because it is the most important thing in your CV. You want to make sure that the recruiting manager remembers your name when s/he glance through your wonderful CV. The other personal details that you should include is your home address, mobile number and your email address. It is important that you use "professional" email address in the sense that it is in the form of firstname.lastname@domain.com (or without the dot separation), please do not use any cute nickname and/or put number like "HelloKitty" or "RonnyGoh888".  I also recommend that you use gmail or googlemail instead of other domains but it is not compulsory. Please do not include your birth date (unless it is 29 February) because it's completely useless and no one cares about it.

Always remember that each item in each section is listed in reverse chronological order starting from most recent to least recent experience.

For fresh graduates, always put your education before your working or internship experience. Now, you are probably wondering why you should put "University of London International Programme" instead of your school's name. The reason is that it is University of London that issues your certificate not the institution you are studying with. You certainly do not want to confuse your prospective employer's HR when you present your certificate. If you put your school's name instead of UOL, the (stupid) HR will probably ask you why the school's name in your transcript is different from the one you state in your CV.

State whatever academic awards and their nominal values that you received during your undergrad studies and if you have not graduated make sure you state your expected honours if you are already in your third year. Otherwise just state the name of your degree, year of study and the courses that you study. 

Please do not put Mathematics 1&2, Statistics 1&2 unless you are 1000% sure that the hiring manager is also a UOL graduate because no one is going to understand what those subjects mean. Imagine you are the hiring manager and some students from other universities put Economics A, Mathematics B, Statistics C in their CV. You will probably wonder do they study both micro and macro in Econs A and how advanced ? Do they study both linear algebra and calculus or is it discrete mathematics in Maths B? 

After your undergrads studies, you may want to put your pre-university education. In the example, I put A-Level qualification. If you come from polytechnic then you may want to change that, you can state your GPA (if it is a good one), final year project, etc.

What comes next is usually your working experience. If you are working and studying part time, then you have lots of things to write on this section. Otherwise, you can put your internship experience here. For you who have "lousy" internship experience in the sense that you did not do much useful things during your internship, please do not be too honest in your CV. Even though you only helped the associates cleaning their tables, arranging their folders, etc., you should list down your experience as if you had done something for the firm. Trust me, from all the people that I spoke to, almost all of them did nothing much during their internship yet their CVs show as if they saved the world from cataclysm.

The next section will be EXTRA CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES. If you hold a top position in the the clubs such as president, vice president, or director, then I suggest you change the section's name to LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE. Now, when you list down each activity make sure it has something to do with leadership, organisation, and/or communication skills. Use keywords such as leading, assigning or delegating responsibilities, monitoring, etc. Do not forget to write down the impacts or results of your presence in the clubs. Notice that in the example, I put that "the work resulted in ..." and " led ... and won 2nd place" This also give signals to your prospective employers that you are result-oriented person. For World of Warcraft or other MMO players, please do not try to be funny and put your experience as guild leader in your CV.

Finally, the last section is SKILLS & INTERESTS. Usually people always state that they are highly proficient in MS Office even though they do not even know anything. If you are applying for jobs in finance industry, then you can list down Bloomberg and Reuters as part of your skills but make sure you know how to use these two otherwise you will shoot yourself in the foot. Next item is your language skills. Always start from your native language, then the most fluent to least fluent language(s). 

The last part is usually your interests. When you list down your interests, try not to making them sounds too general. For example, saying you enjoy playing tennis and travelling sounds phony because everyone can say so. However, if you wrote something like you are tennis national champion and you have traveled to 42 different countries then the hiring manager has no choice but to believe you that you do enjoy playing tennis and travelling.

Now, let me draw your attention to the title of this blog post. Nowadays, applicants have outnumbered number of positions available. If you cannot convince the hiring manager to invite you for an interview after s/he glanced through the first page of your CV, do not expect him to turn into second page.  If you are fresh grads, then your CV should be only 1 page long, not more unless the firm you are applying to CLEARLY state that they acceptCV that's more than a page long. If they do not state anything, then you better submit only 1 page.  Not less because you do not want to look like a antisocial lazy bum who does nothing but sleeps at home. If you do not have working/internship experience then you should have enough extra curricular activities to fill the gap. I suggest that you use 2 cm for top,bottom,left and right margins. You can squeeze those to 0.5cm each in case you need more space.

Make sure your CV looks neat, everything is in order and it is in pdf format when you submit unless the firm require you to submit in .doc or .docx format. In latter case, make sure you turn off spell check and save it. You do not want the ugly red wriggles hurt the hiring manager's eyes. Always send the CV once to yourself before you submit it to the firm. Open it from other computers and see whether it presents itself the way you want it to be. Always check out for typo. Sometimes a single letter can destroy your life. For example, Barclays Capital is also known as BarCap. If you accidentally add a letter "r" in between "C" and "a", then your relationship with the bank is over for the rest of your life.

My suggestion is always ask someone else to check your CV for you because as the author of your own CV, your eyes will often deceive you. But there is also a problem when you ask someone else to check typo for you, that is, they just glance and never read. I suggest that you put one obvious typo in your CV and see whether the person you asked to check at least notice that typo. If s/he does not, then you know that prick is not trying hard enough to help you at all. 

I hope I have covered what you need to know in order to write a good CV. But I may have missed something. So, if you have questions, please fire away in the comments.