Sorry it's been a while since the last blogpost, I had a request via Twitter to write about CV tips and what to include or not to include so I thought I would share my infinite wisdom with you. I should include a disclaimer here that I haven't actually had to do my own CV for years so the info here is gleaned from our Career Centre experts and I guess from looking at CVs a lot when uploading them for candidates and from interviewing for RecruitIreland.com - you learn pretty quickly what works and what doesn't work.

Firstly as my colleague Rebecca has mentioned before, the most important thing to keep an eye on and remember when writing your CV is to make SURE the spelling is correct (I will be triple checking this post to ensure I'm not being a hypocrite) - I can't emphasise enough how necessary this is, there is nothing worse than picking up a CV and noticing that there is a misspelling or a word typed typed twice.

There is a saying that an employer will make up their mind about you having read the first few lines of your CV and I have to say this is somewhat true, your CV is the only way you can sell yourself (cheesy I know), present your skills and show the employer that you will be a good fit both for their job and their company. I think if you bear this in mind when writing your CV it will keep you focussed on what's relevant and keep in mind it will probably only get 2 minutes attention.

Which brings me to my next point, relevance, it really isn't relevant to include your Junior Cert, Leaving Cert and Confirmation photo on your CV so unless the application process requests these details leave them out. Some people think they have to include a Date of Birth, Nationality and Marital Status, again you don't, it's entirely your decision - I don't include these because again I don't see that they are relevant for a role - unless of course the job requires a native German speaker or something.

Keep it short and sweet within reason, everyone says your CV shouldn't be too long, it shouldn't be too short either - remember you want them to bring you to interview stage and they cannot do this unless you show you have the experience needed so don't shy away from including detail where it's necessary. Having said that a thesis isn't going to get you anywhere either, 2 pages max I think. The interviewer/employer wants to find the info they want quickly so be sure and use Bold and Underline where relevant (there's that word again) - for example I always bold the company name and job title in my CV.

So begin with your name and contact info and be sure to include an email address here, you wouldn't believe how many CVs we come across without this. Next up is Education and Courses, make sure you include dates. Then begin your Experience with your most recent employer and role first, again dates are really important here so double check that they are in chronological order and don't cross over unless they should. Some people include Hobbies, some prefer not to, I guess it depends again on whether you can use this in your interview, for example if your hobby is Marathon running or Triathlons these would prove your determination and commitment. Last but not least is References which again you do NOT have to include, a simple line like "References available on request" will suffice.

So that's it folks, I hope this makes sense, if you have any queries or questions feel free to comment below and if you want more info our Career Centre has some killer expert advice too!

According to much research which has been conducted over the last few months by moi the first step for your blog is to introduce yourself and always ensure your blog has an informal tone without being too informal. Now I should preface by saying under normal circumstances I find it difficult to draw the line between informal and too informal so this should be fun!!

So the intro bit - I am the Website Development Manager (and yes I am aware it sounds makey uppey!) for RecruitIreland.com, we are a jobsite basically where advertisers, aka employers and recruitment agencies post jobs and candidates log on and find jobs - simple enough eh, certainly not rocket science!

My role in the company - *yawn* - I'm bored by this already, basically to cut a long story short, I worked in Business Development and Sales for the last 8ish years, still do some Account Management incidentally for those clients who are reading this and thinking, "but she rang me last week looking for more money and trying to sell me something else" , but now I am also responsible for the "techy stuff" - quite a challenge for someone who is not really that technical skills wise, doesn't have technical training (oracle wha?) and really never thought I would work in this area!

This month the Leaving Cert Results came out and it got me thinking about when I did mine all those years ago - isn't it funny how when you are in school you have these ideas about what you want to do and where you want your career and job to take you and then when you actually do the Leaving, leave school, go to college (if you do) or start work invariably we end up doing something completely different.

I remember I wanted to do Linguistics (or something like that), so so badly, I was 5 points out so i did Business Studies instead, purely because my 4 friends (not that I only had 4 or anything) were doing it - and I ended up here in a half sales and half technical role where I really never thought I would be, with barely a word of German or French and not to mention Irish...

So what did you want to be when you grew up, sit back and think about it for a minute, then let us know in the comments below.

Vicki