Assembling the Right Information.

You need to assemble the right personal information and documentation to prepare a curriculum vitae (CV). Generally, employers are interested in your most recent qualifications and professional experiences. It's okay to skip over irrelevant work experience and training and target what is most appropriate. You need to prioritise your qualifications and training into the most important and relevant, rather than having them in chronological order. School qualifications are not important unless you are a recent school leaver.

Different organisations have different expectations about whether you need to produce original copies of your qualifications and references. Usually, they will do their own security checks, including ringing your referees and checking your academic qualifications at the educational institution from which you graduated.

Always keep your original copies of academic qualifications, professional documentation, and references safely filed with your curriculum vitae.

Checklist

Here's a checklist to help you assemble the right information.

1. Provide personal information details: name, address, email, telephone (think about who will answer the phone and how - a mobile number is best). You don't need to provide age, gender, nationality, religion, health, or marital status.
2. Provide valid and comprehensive information. Assemble documentation that supports your education and training history, such as school and/or training institution certificates. This could include educational, training, and achievement records.
3. Include these details of your education and training history in the CV.
4. Provide information, and assemble documentation, that supports your employment history such as employer references and/or employment statements.
5. Include details of your employment history in the CV.
6. Using the supplied documentation, identify the personal qualities, specific and transferable skills, and abilities that best represent you. Include these in the appropriate sections of the CV. These qualities, skills, and abilities should show you in the best possible light. Examples could include loyal, mature, reliable, analytical, a self starter, and able to work independently.
7. Provide details of at least two people who are willing to act as referees for you. You must include the name, contact telephone number or email address of each referee. You may choose to state whether the reference is personal or professional, and the referee's relationship to you. State their position if they are a professional referee.