How to Write an International CV?

What is CV?

A CV or Curriculum Vitae is:

·                  Your Life History

·                  Your Job History

·                  Your Achievements

·                  Your Skills

Why should I have a CV ?

A CV or curriculum vitae is a marketing tool. With your CV you will be able to promote yourself. Imagine the CV as being a brochure that will list the benefits of a particular service. The service being your time and skills! When writing a CV look at it from your employers point of view. Would you stand out against the competition (the other candidates) and would the manager want to talk to you for a possible job? You have to ask yourself these questions when writing your CV or curriculum vitae.

Networking and interviewing are essential for your job hunt and your CV is just the first step in the job search. However, a CV will be your first contact with potential employers and will open the door. If you are invited for an interview, you would then be in a position to explain and expand on what is in your CV.

A CV is an essential tool in your job search. When applying for a vacancy, you generally first have to send your CV to present yourself to the prospective employer.

How to Write a CV

 In the CV heading you can write your general information:

·                  Name

·                  Surname

·                  Local address

·                  E-mail address

·                  Phone number

(If applying for an overseas job, please remember to include your international dialling code.) Include your mobile/cell phone number if you are going to relocate soon.

CV Skills Summary

The Skills Summary section of your CV includes your main skills. You should only include keywords in his section, do not go into lengthy descriptions of your skills. The skill summary is also called personal profile.

CV Objective

The CV Objective, sometimes also referred to as CV Personal Profile states "What is the next step in my career?" This should be a short, concise statement that informs the employer what kind of position you are looking for. The type of position, the role (managerial, supervisor, contractor) should be included as well.

If you are job hunting it is a good idea to have several CV's with different profiles or objectives. For example, you can have a CV for a sales supervisor and the other for a shop floor manager. Your 'sales supervisor' CV can highlight achievements in this area, and the CV would be tuned to that particular in terms of job descriptions and achievements.

Education on your CV

List all of your qualifications in this section. Include all of your education including certifications from non-academic institutions, especially those that are related to the job vacancy. If you have more work experience than qualifications, put your work experience before your qualifications.

A CV is your first point of contact with an employer. From the employer's perspective, it's the only available information with which to assess your skills and suitability for a job.

How To Write a CV

So your CV has to be tailored for that employer. All jobs are different, and so are all employers. It's important that your CV speaks directly to the job, addresses criteria, and above all else is relevant to the position.

The CV needs to be interesting, as well as clear and concise. It should make a good first impression. You can fit a lot of information into a paragraph.

Making Your CV More Interesting

There are standard CV formats, most of which cover basic information requirements, but to stand out, a CV needs to distinguish the applicant. The idea is to create an identity for the employer to see.

One of the best ways of doing this is to show what you've accomplished in your work. This is very similar to listing skills, which is a common format in many CVs, but here it means showing what you've done with those skills.

Everyone has a storehouse of what they've done, things they've achieved on the job. What's important is to be able to quantify those things as a work value measurement. The employer needs to see results which relate to the job.

Remembering that this CV is being targeted to a specific job, you need to show a potential employer that your previous work has been both productive and impressive.

What is a Targeted CV?

Think about your previous work, and how it relates to your CV.

Say you were on a production line, and you managed to come up with a way of speeding up production by eliminating some wasteful or unnecessary part of the process. Or, if you were in a government job, if you found a quicker way of processing applications.

Note that this all equates to a clearly defined situation. It took 20 minutes on the production line, now it takes 15. Applications used to take three days, now they take one.

If you're in a money-making job, prove you know how to make money, when listing what you've done. If you can say 'My section took in million in revenue in the course of our project' you're saying something that means a lot to your employer. If you can say 'My register takes in ,000 plus per day,' it's a quantification of your level of responsibility and your experience.

The whole idea here is that your CV is a very interesting document to anyone reading it. There are clear indications of what you've done, how you did it, and these are tangible proof of your skills.

Compare this to a colorless, drab, statement like 'Worked on production line' or 'Processed applications' and there's a bit of a difference.

Note that without these identifying characteristics, your application can get lost in the crowd quite easily, and quite understandably. What's to distinguish one process worker from another?

Because that's exactly what the employer has to do. Somehow, with only the CVs to guide them, employers have to try to find the best people for the job.

Every word on a CV is valuable.

You have to produce an advertisement for yourself and your skills. Like any advertisement, presentation matters. How you describe your experience and skills is crucial.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Do not ever falsify information, or give any misleading information to an employer under any circumstances whatever.

It's illegal, it's self destructive, and it's just plain stupid.

Don't even think about it.

You can say goodbye to any job like that. It's certain death.

Don't put yourself in a position where your statements can't be trusted. Only give verifiable information, and do not exaggerate.

In some cases you may be going for a promotion or a position which is above your previous levels of experience. In these cases, your prior work record, and your hard facts, are far more important.

Remember that you're competing with other people. Quality of information is what really matters on any CV. Keep it real, at all times.

Source: http://www.cvtips.com

See my international CV as an example:

Maria Mironova
99 Gorkogo St., – apt. 99

Blagoveschensk, Russia, 675011
Cell phone: 8924-6999999 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting            8924-6999999      end_of_the_skype_highlighting
mironova_mariya@inbox.ru

PERSONAL DETAILS

Full name: Mironova Maria Vladimirovna, Mrs.
Nationality: Russian (born in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Russian Federation)
DOB: 03/23/1984

PROFILE

My area of profession is teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL). On the one hand, it is a mind-boggling experience that gives me a perfect opportunity to reveal my managerial skills. While teaching I can show my creativity and satisfy my students’ curiosity. On the other hand, it is a difficult work which requires a considerable amount of patience. My job is a real challenge so it makes me energetic and ready to make quick decisions. For more than four years of teaching I changed courses from linguistic disciplines like interpreting and translating, to EFL for journalists, social workers and engineers. My current courses include EFL for undergraduate and M.A. students of the School of Economics, as well as Business English for undergraduate students of management specialization. I try to use different teaching techniques including brainstorming, round tables and role plays.

SKILLS BASE

·                        Familiarity with both the research field and the teaching work

·                        Proven leadership and human management skills

·                        Time-efficient, systematic working methodology

·                        Rapid adaptability to new problem-solving and new locations

·                        Languages: Russian, English, German, and Chinese

·                        IT: Word, Excel, Windows, Photoshop, Movie Maker, Power Point, etc.

EDUCATION
Post-graduate, German languages, Amur State University, 2010

Concentrations: Cognitive Linguistics, Psycholinguistics

Dissertation: Cultural specificity of color names in idioms (on the material of modern American literature)

M.A., English-German Interpreting, Amur State University, 2006

Concentrations: Linguistics, Theory of Translation

Thesis: National specificity of color names in English and Chinese

SPECIAL COURSES

Innovative approaches in teaching ESL, FEELTA, 2010

Techniques of University teaching and improving teaching skills, Amur State University, 2008

IDL 103 – Security, Civil Liberties and Terrorism, The Stanford Institute for International Studies, 2004

Chinese language, School of Eastern Languages, 2004

EXPERIENCE
Amur State University

Assistant professor

2006 – present time

Newspaper “Life” (“Zhizn”), site  www.life.ru

Reporter

2009-2010

News agency “Port Amur”, site  www.portamur.ru

Reporter

2009

Public opinion investigation agency “Monitoring”

Interviewer

2003-2004

Newspaper Moskovskiy Komsomolets on Amur 

Freelance journalist

2001 – 2003

PRESENTATIONS
Mironova, Maria (2010). Color metaphorization in cognitive science. Paper presented at the VIII International FEELTA Conference: From Broadcasting to Narrowcasting: Global Englishes, Local Contexts.

SHORT LIST OF RELEVANT PUBLICATIONS

type of publication	title	publisher	publication year
book	“Colorful English” course book for ESL learners	Amur State University	2010
conference working paper	“Color metaphorization in cognitive science”	Far Eastern English Teachers Association (FEELTA)	2010
online article	“Realization of color names "white" and "black" in modern American literature (cultural approach)” http://conference.kemsu.ru/GetDocsFile?id=19911&table=papers_file&type=0&conn=confDB	Kemerovo State University	2010
journal article	“Polysemantics of adjectives “white” and “black” in  English and Chinese” original article “Полисемантич­ность прилага­тельных  «белый» и «черный» (на примере фразеоло­гических единиц английского и ки­тайского языков)”	Blagoveschesk State Pedagogical University	2010
journal article	“Color names in cultural world per­ception of modern Americans” original article “Цветообозначения в культурной кар­тине мира совре­менных американ­цев”	Amur State University	2009
journal article	“The aspect of devel­opment of general typology of idioms in cognitive aspect of phraseology” original article “Разра­ботка свод­ной типо­логии фразеоло­гических единиц”	Far Eastern State University	2009
journal article	“Classification of color adjectives in English and Russian” original article “Классификация прилагательных цвета (на примере цветообозначений русского и англий­ского языков)”	Amur State University	2009
journal article	“Metaphorization of color idioms in fiction literature” original article “Метафоризация фразеологизмов с компонентом «цвет» в художест-венной картине мира”	Rostov-on-Don State University	2009
journal article	“Ethnical peculiarity of color terms in the context of English and Chinese cultures” original article “Этноспецифич­ность цветообо­значе­ний в контек­сте английской и китай­ской культур”	Amur State University	2008
journal article	“Cultural peculiarity of color terms in cognitive aspect (on the material of Eng­lish and Chinese idioms)” original article “Культурная спе­ци­фика цве­тообо­зна­че­ний в когни­тив­ном аспекте (на ма­териале фра­зео­логиз­мов анг­лий­ского и китай­ского язы­ков)”	Amur State University	2008

REFERENCES
References available upon request.