Curriculum Vitae: framing a classic CV format
The strenghts of a classic template for resumè When contacting private companies, it is advisable to propose a classic format CV, made up of 5 sections, three of which are essential and two are optional:
1) Contact details
2) Professional Profile
3) Work experience
4) Further information
5) Data protection release statement
Points (2) to (3) are your CV’s fundamental sections.
A classic format CV, provided that it is well structured, allows for better communication in comparison with the european format. It enables you to describe in a summary form the roles you’ve covered and your achievements by giving each the appropriate space in relation to your communication target.
Let me give you an example: your earliest work experiences should be given less importance than your latest, as it is likely that you have progressed with each additional professional step: emphasising the abilities you have today, therefore, is more important than dwelling on your past accomplishments. Moreover, you must consider whether work experience in the distant past would still be relevant to your competitiveness in the market or whether you’d need to update your knowledge, refresh your skills and do some further training. You should keep in mind that companies searching for a specific know-how usually select personnel who already have that skill, and that, even when they are prepared to provide training, they prefer to hire young people rather than retrain experienced workers. There’s no point examining the merits of this approach as it’s just the way things go.
Moreover, you’re not obliged to respect a strict chronological order, if this doesn’t help to highlight your skills: for example, you might have worked for the same company over different periods of time and have covered a variety of roles. In this case, a purely chronological order might be both ineffective and uneconomical, whereas grouping your skills under relevant sub-headings might make it easier for your reader to understand.
According to how you far on you are in your career, you may choose a chronological or anti-chronological order, that is, you may either go from the oldest to the most recent experience or the other way round.
Young people that are just out of education with little or no professional experience are recommended to write their CV in chronological order to clearly show how they moved from their studies to the job market.
People with ten or more years of professional experience, on the other hand, should prefer an anti-chronological order, so as to emphasise their latest employment and its importance in relation to potential new appointments.
Below you can find an effective CV
template, which we have developed thanks to years of experience:
Chronological (anti-chronological) cv template (177 kb.)
Further details, such as your willingness to travel and your professional goals should be included in your covering letter, where you can customise information to target your interlocutor. Remember: vagueness doesn’t pay off when it comes to effective communication.
If your CV is aimed at a country other than Italy, you’ll have to adjust your style of communication. As far as Europe is concerned, the template we provide is perfectly adequate, as it focuses on data and skills. However, if you’re aiming at a company based in the US, you’ll have to revise the style, and perhaps also the structure.
In this regard, it’s worth remembering that professional CV writing services on the Internet are usually provided by agencies in English-speaking countries, so they aren’t always the best choice if your CV is aimed at the Italian market: e.g. just as employers in the UK expect us to adapt to their system, so Italian companies expect applicants to respect their own national standards.
