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2. Curriculum Vitae (CV
Subject title Curriculum Vitae (CV)
Purpose of the activity The aim of the activity is to introduce youngsters with the information on how to write a proper CV, what to include in it, what to not include and what are the important aspects to focus on.
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Duration 2 hours.
Location and tools Sheets of paper, printed CV templates, writing tools, projector.
Number of participants 10–20 participants.
Acquaintance/ team building methods At the beginning of the session and before preparing for the theoretical and especially for the practical part, participants are asked to divide into groups of 4–5 people and share in detail all their available work experience: volunteering, initiatives at school or in local communities, hobbies. Attention is drawn to the fact that work experience is not necessarily only paid work experience or services, but also activities carried out on a voluntary basis that have provided knowledge and experience.
About 10–15 minutes are provided for this experience sharing. At the end of the task, all groups sit in a circle and the group representatives share what types of experiences have been identified.
Practical tasks After the theoretical part, participants are asked to write a CV with their own personal information. Youth worker must print out several templates of CVs and hand them outto participants, including a blank paper. Each takes one template and a blank paper. Based on the layout of the CV, the participant must write his/her CV with personal information. The youth worker walks around and checks the written information andgives recommendations, if necessary. Task ends when everyone finishes their CV.
Additionally, if the time allows, finished CVs can be exchanged among the participants, colourful pens may be handed out and participants check other people CVs and try to look for some improvements.
End of session reflection methods Participants are invited to ask questions that arose during the performance of the task and to share with all the curriculum vitae prepared by them, the facts marked in it.
Notes to the leader The workshop is designed for youngsters starting from 16 years old, who are starting to seek job or are currently looking for a job and need to write a CV. Workshop is designed both for youngsters who have already written a CV and who have never done that before. By the end of the workshop, youngsters will be able to write a properCV using their experience and personal information.
THEORETICAL INFORMATION
The theoretical part encompasses tips and tricks on how to write a successful curriculum vitae (CV). The best would be to do a presentation which could be shown on theprojector, and it should entail lots of real life examples. Throughout the presentation, examples from real CVs should be added to show how different options can be done. The presentation has two parts. First, talks about the structure and what should be written (and what should not be written) in each part of the CV. Second, talks about general rules about the CV. The structure part. The CV generally has the following sections: top of the CV with the contact information, personal profile – the goal of the CV, education, work experience, skills and additional sections (achievements, hobbies). We will discuss each part in more detail below.
1. Top of the CV with the contact information: usually entails name and surname, address, phone number, e-mail, and if the person has, website, LinkedIn profile. Youngsters must remember that no birth date, no personal codes, nopassport information, nothing so sensitive and personal should be put on the CV. E-mail has to professional, such as name. surname@gmail.com, it cannot be anything like bunny96@gmail.com.
2. Personal profile – the goal of the CV: here the youngster has to specify the goal of this CV, which usually includes the position for which he/she applies. It should be written so that HR specialist would immediately see for whichposition the candidate is applying and is also seeing that the candidate has prepared the CV specifically for this position. This section can also include a short summary about the candidate, in a maximum of two sentences, which may include characteristics, career goals. 3. Education: the most important thing about the education and the followingsection, work experience, is the fact that all information must be put in achronological order, starting from the most recent. Namely, starting with the current education and continuing with the past ones. There is not one right layout for the education section. Youth worker needs to put on the presentation excerpts from various CVs to show how it could be done. In addition, it needs to be stated that all information must be consistent, for example, if the first education has date layout dd.mm.yyyy, then the following has to follow it and not suddenly change to 1st May of 2011. Moreover, education usually includes the name of the institution, the name of a degree, the name of the profession (if acquired) and if some exceptional marks were achieved, the test results could be included, for example, the final exam scores, if they look high enough and of course the education includes the period when the education was taken.
4. Work experience: the same as with the education, the information must be in a chronological order, starting from the most recent one. The work experience usually includes the name of the company, the position held and the responsibilities. Important is to stress the consistency of how to write the responsibilities, the information must be consistent, for example, all verbs ending with –ing, or in infinitive or in any other form, but all responsibilities must be written in the same manner. Youth worker must again show examples of various CVs of how the work experience can be written.
5. Skills: here can be included both IT skills, language skills and other skills, such as a driving licence. All IT skills should be listed, starting from Microsoft Office package, ending with all video editing, statistics programs. It should be stressed that if a youngster is highly proficient at any of the programs, the program must be put on the CV. In addition, the best way how to describe language levels is using CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages), namely starting from A1 to C2. Moreover, other skills may be added, such as having a driving licence, where the category should be noted.
6. Additional section: here anything additional can be
listed, for example,personal achievements in some tournaments, Olympiads, sports. Here can be noted contributions to a local society, volunteering, being in associations, committees and so on. Again, youth worker must present some examples from real CVs.
There should be another slide after this section with information that is also worth noting. • CV must be 1 or maximum 2 pages long. If information is more than that, the youngster must delete the unnecessary information and tailor the CV to the specific position.
• Font needs to be clear, no Italics, it has to be simple enough to read. • CV needs to be double checked for spelling, the best would be to give it tosomeone else to double check it for mistakes.
• Do not lie! All information on the CV must have only truthful information.
