How I made the best CV you've ever seen...

This section of the brief was actually super handy because, as anyone who knows me will undoubtedly know, I am very very bad with money, and am often flat bloke but I have somehow managed to survive my way through the last two-and-a-bit years without a job.
However, my brilliant plan to live off of my student finance and not have to get off my arse to work and contribute to society in any way met a slight hitch when Martyn (yes, I'm blaming you for this) organised a trip to New York, which cost us £300 each. So for the first time in an impressively long time I found myself looking for a job and being faced with the task of... *dramatic music*

~CREATING A CV~

Now, as you may have guessed by my earlier post (where I quite literally copied and pasted an essay I'd already written for a different assessment into a blog post because it applies to this one as well) I like shortcuts. So I sat down with my bezzie mate Google and started looking for CV tips, guidelines and templates. A couple of clickidy-clacks on the keyboard later and LO AND BEHOLD, I came across this badboy:

This babe of a website (www.livecareer.co.uk/) helps you create a CV from scratch and has a whole bunch of different templates, tips and tricks to make it as easy as possible. I know I'm sounding a bit like a salesperson here but it really is pretty damn brilliant and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who's struggling with making a CV.

Right, first things first, what's a CV?

CV stands for "Curriculum Vitae" and the Google definition states that it is: "a brief account of a person's education, qualifications, and previous occupations, typically sent with a job application." (See, me and Google, man; BFFs) So basically, a CV is a document, usually about a page long, which shows your grades in school/college/university (depending on how far up the educational ladder you are), any past work experience or jobs you've had, your contact information, and a little bit about you. 

The reason some people (myself included) find writing CVs quite difficult/uncomfortable is because you're basically telling someone how amazing you are and why they should employ you right this second because you're everything they've been looking for all wrapped up with a ribbon on top. Without sounding like a total asshole, of course, else they definitely won't employ you, just saying. You want to find a nice balance between "please hire me I need money and I want to work here" and "YOU LITERALLY COULDN'T DO ANY BETTER THAN ME; I'M A GIFT FROM GOD." I can't help but to go to one extreme or the other when I write CVs so this website was dead helpful for me because it showed me how to make myself look as desireable as possible from an employer's point of view without trying to convince them that the sun literally shines out of my arse.

 So the first thing you do on your quest to write a kickass CV is to determine what kind of job you're looking for. This helps you make sure you only include relevant information and leave out the useless bits which will just take up space. However, if you're like me and you're  looking for literally any job you can get because you're so incredibly poor oh my god, you'll want to make your CV fairly standard and not focus too much on one specific subject. A good idea is to draw attention to the skills you have which could help you in a whole bunch of different situations and show that you're a super well-rounded person.

On our lord and saviour LiveCareer.com, you start by filling in the easy stuff. Your name, address, contact info, that kinda stuff, and it looks like this:

Literal babe website LiveCareer even gives you little tips and definitions to help you with each step which, as well as being super cute, is dead handy when it comes to the summary and skills parts. This part really isn't challenging at all and takes like two seconds so let's move on.

The next section is the dreaded SUMMARY part and your new BFF LiveCareer suggests skipping it and then going back to it once you've finished everything else, which I wholly support because summing your entire being into a few employer-pleasing sentences is quite literally terrifying and requires some mental preparation.
(At least it does for me, idk how it is for you, I'm not here to reflect my personal issues onto you, dear reader*, just to pass this class)

 * Hey Martyn, how's it going? Go get a cup of tea you wonderful man, you deserve it for reading this far tbh

I survived this section by following these simple steps:

Step one: Read through the nice, comforting tips

Step two: Abandon this section and continue to fill out the rest of the CV

Step three: Begrudgingly return to this section and reread the tips

Step four: Have an identity crisis 

Step five: Browse through the examples and steal the ones that are at all applicable to me 

Step six: Profit

BEHOLD, WHO I AM AS AN EMPLOYEE CONDENSED INTO JUST TWO SENTENCES. LET'S MOVE ON TO THE NEXT SECTION.

This part is the bit where you brag about all the things you're good at.

Genuine angel from internet heaven LiveCareer has a whole buttload of tips to help with this stage so it isn't that bad.

These next few steps are fairly self-explanatory so I'll just whiz through them and show you what they look like :)

Past Jobs you've had:

School/College/Uni grades. 

Interests:

And last but not least, your references. 

This is the part where you sweet talk your amazing, beautiful, caring, and all around wonderful business teacher/style icon/father figure Martyn to write you a super nice reference explaining how lovely and amicable and hard working you are if any future employers contact him to find out what you're like to work with and whether or not they should hire you.

The last step is to double check everything, pick a nice template that you're happy with and print that baby off. 

And that's how I made the best CV you're ever seen.

You're welcome.