Candidates » C.V.
General
Your CV is your business card. It has to reflect your personality and to be in adequation with the position you apply for.
Studies show that a recruiter spends in average 30 to 45 seconds reading one application. So you have to make a good impression and to draw up a concise CV that transmits essential information.
A few simple rules
Young graduates’ CV must not be more than one page.
A CV can be structured as follows :
General Information
- your first name + your family name
- your complete contact details (address, phone number, mobile number, email)
- your date of birth
- your nationality
- your civil status
- your driving license
You can also add a title that specifies the kind of job you apply for. For example: Site supervisor in construction; HVAC Drafter; Project Engineer in Piping…
Concerning your e-mail address, avoid using eccentric names such as “superman@hotmail.com” or “teddybear@hotmail.com”. You should create a classic and professional address, for example “firstname.name@hotmail.com”.
If necessary, you should also change the message on your voicemail and record a neutral message.
Education
Education and experience are often listed in anti-chronological order (beginning with the most recent and ending with the oldest one) with start and end dates.
You can add any interesting information such as the title of your thesis or a stay abroad in the school frame.
If you have no work experience yet, do not hesitate to mention student jobs or other experience acquired at or out of school.
Work experience
An experienced candidate should highlight his work experience by listing his different jobs in anti-chronological order (from the most recent to the oldest one).
It is also useful to specify the activity sector of the companies you worked in and to detail your responsibilities.
If you worked as a drafter, you can mention the software that you used. If you managed a team or a building site, we advise you to specify the number of people under your responsibility and the budget of the project to allow the recruiter to have a more precise idea of the scale of the works.
Languages
In first place, mention your mother tongue. Then mention the other languages that you know, either in alphabetical order, or starting with the one that you master the best.
If you stayed abroad for a long period of time (linguistic exchange or with your family), do not forget to mention it next to the language in question and to specify the duration of the stay. If you succeeded in specific languages tests, you can also add it and specify your result.
IT
In this section, list your IT knowledge and specify the last version of the softwares that you know. For example : Word, Excel, Access, Outlook… ; programming languages; drafting softwares (Autocad, Solidworks, Catia, ME-10…).
Additional information
In this section, you can mention your hobbies and any information that you would like to add to allow the person who reads your resume to know more about you and your personality. This list must not be too long, this is just a way to bring a personal touch to your CV.