CV REVIEW NOTE (Part 2): Clarity

In the first part of the review notes, I talked about Career Objective. I gave a guide with examples of how to achieve a proper Career Objective (as about 95%+ of the CVs I reviewed had poorly structured Career Objectives)

In this part of the CV Review Note, I'll cover a subject that affects every aspect of your CV - Clarity.
Next week and the weeks to come, I'll go through every section of the CV in turn and clarity has a major impact on the overall image of your CV.


CLARITY
Clarity has to do with neatness, understandability coherence, intelligibility etc.

How can you achieve clarity on your CV?

-Keep the information you include on your CV brief and simple.
-Avoid use of ambiguous words and phrases
-Arrange items properly (Page layout, Bullet point style and size, text alignment add to how well your CV is received)
-Use a readable font size and style
- Separate items properly and avoid clustering information (which most people do in a bid to have fewer pages on their CV)
- Avoid the use of too many bold characters (this could be distracting)



I understand it is really quite tasking to sit down and write about things you’ve done a while ago, so give yourself time. Perhaps use a day to work on each section of your CV and in a week you should be through.

Always bear it in mind that you are not the only one looking for a job; thousands of people may have applied for that same job opening (and trust me when I say this usually is the case in Nigeria because there is a high rate of unemployment).
Help the recruiters to understand your CV - arrange item properly, choose a readable font and space things properly.

Do you expect a recruiter to believe you are good at using MS Word (as stated on your CV) when you have submitted a CV that is poorly presented? - Poor use of bullet points, uneven lines and unreadable fonts. etc

Do you expect a recruiter to believe you have good communication skills when you have several grammatical errors on your CV as well as long and unclear phrases?

I was impressed by about 2 CVs I reviewed recently. They were so neat, I almost didn’t know where to start from with reviewing these CVs. If I were a recruiter, I'd have been interested in reading them.

Then there were other CVs with really scattered arrangements BUT with good content - very good skills but things were written all over the place.

Please refer to our last CV illustration where it became evident that the value of the content of a CV is greatly reduced by poor clarity.

Always bear the previous paragraph in mind, the value of the content of your CV is affected by overall clarity.

Please take the time and get it right.


RELATED POSTS:

CV REVIEW NOTE (Part 1): Career Objective

CV REVIEW NOTE (Part 3): NYSC & Industrial Training Work Experience

CV REVIEW NOTE (Part 4): Showing Your Belief on Your CV

Writing a CV (When You Have ZERO Work Experience)

Illustration: Creating a More Effective CV (Part 1)
Illustration: Creating a More Effective CV (Part 2)
Illustration: Creating a More Effective CV (Part 3)
Creating A CV: An Additional Guide