1. Contact Details

Top of the page, front and centre should always be your contact details. This should include your name, phone number and email address. If you have set up a LinkedIn profile and are confident in its merits, you can also include the link to this. Recruiters want to be able to find information quickly, as they have a high volume CVs to go through. Incorrect or hard to find contact details can often lead to your CV being discarded.

2. Personal Statement

Your personal statement is a brief paragraph that will generally be found underneath your contact details. This short piece gives you the opportunity to make your CV stand out from other applicants. You can use this section to point out some of your strong attributes that have been mentioned in the job spec or that are associated with particular roles. This should be customised based on the role you are applying for.  (No more than 7 lines in length)

3. Education

The order of your graduate CV cannot be understated. If we think logically about this, the first thing a graduate recruiter is going to look for on your CV is your educational credentials. They are seeking graduates with particular qualifications, therefore having your education near the top of your CV is vitally important. What final year students again need to remember is that these recruiters have lots of CVs to go through in a short space of time and by making yours easy to read and navigate, you are automatically getting on the “right side” of the recruiter.

When entering details of your education, ensure you include all degrees, Masters etc that you have obtained, beginning with the most recent. Other elements that need to be included are, the start and end date of the qualification, the institution you obtained it from, the core modules of each course and any large projects/thesis you may have completed throughout this qualification. Remember, make it as easy to read, understand and navigate as possible.

4. Key Skills

This is a section that is often omitted from graduate CVs, yet can potentially hold some real positive nuggets of information for recruiters. Throughout your time in 3rd level, you will have picked up certain skills that are crucial as to how well you can perform in a role. These can include such things as communication skills picked up during group projects, or specific skills such as MS excel (V-Look ups etc). By mentioning these, you are making your case for consideration even stronger. These skills can be laid out in bullet points or listed. Just ensure they are clear and easy to navigate through.

5. Work Experience

For any other type of CV, work experience would be the most important section within the CV, however with a graduate CV, work experience comes second to Education. As stated above, recruiters seeking graduates will go looking firstly for your educational credentials, and then will follow on to any relevant experience you may have. It is important that final year students include work experience, especially any relevant internships or work placements that relate to their course. Similar to your 3rd level courses, include the dates of this work experience and brief description of what your main tasks included. This does not need to be an exhaustive list.

6. Hobbies/Interests

Again, this is a section that is often missing from graduate CVs, but holds a certain level of importance and can result in a positive reaction from recruiters. You can use this heading for such things as sporting hobbies or volunteering among a host of other options. If used correctly, this section can be turned into a tipping point on which recruiters will bring you forward to the next stage. For example, by mentioning that you have played GAA for your local team for X amount of years, you are showing that you can perform as part of a team.

7.  References

There has been much debate as to whether one should include references or simply leave “References available on request”. For graduates, we would suggest the latter. The reason for this is because you should offer references based on the particular position you are applying for. For example, certain modules might be more important for certain roles. In this case, you would include a lecturer for that module as a referee. Always ensure you have the permission from your referee to use them. Recruiters do not want to be calling people, only to be told that they do not know the person and will need to look up their details.

With regards to CV length, it is advised to try keep it no longer than 2 pages, however if you have cut out all irrelevant information and you are just over two pages, do not be too worried. Never leave out information that you think may possibly be relevant. Better to have too much than too little.