What is a good CV? You will get a lot of different advice on the matter, but ultimately a good CV gets the right information across in a simple form. Ideally your CV should be no longer than 2 A4 sized pages in a simple format and spell checked.

Your CV should be attractive in appearance and consistent, all formatted in the same manner. Avoid different fonts and font sizes and the excessive use of underlining, bold and italics, all of which make the CV hard to read. The information should be targeted to the industry in question and all details should be relevant.

As the majority of CVs these days are attached to an email you need to make sure that the format can be opened by the receiver. MS Word and PDF are the most popular formats as they are universally accepted. If you want to incorporate images into your cv then PDF would be ideal to keep the file size small (also perfect if sending to or from a Mac).

Please see a sample layout below including all the essential details.

NAME

Summary

Brief overview of your career aspirations

Personal Information

Date of Birth (optional):
Address:
Telephone No:
Mobile No:
Email:
Nationality (optional):
Work Permit Status (if applicable):
Target Salary:
Availability for Interview:
Availability to Commence:

Education

Third Level & Secondary Level details including Qualifications (include Dates)
Additional Courses and Qualifications (include Dates)

Skills

All Computer Applications you are familiar with stating your proficiency level for each.
All other Relevant Skills

Employment Details

Name and Address of each Employer, stating your position and details of your responsibilities and projects worked on.
Dates to the nearest Month for each place of employment
Reason for leaving each place of employment

Achievements

All relevant Achievements

Interests

Relevant Interests & Hobbies

References

Name, Address, Relationship and Contact No. for two or three Referees