Preparing A Killer CV

If formality didn’t call for it, one could simply start typing out their curriculum vitae and hand it in as if it was a 30-minute pop quiz. However, rarely does that happen and rarely do serious hiring companies or institutions entertain a CV without an excellent cover letter. Therefore, as part of your job application arsenal, you should be able to master the art of cover letter making. There are a lot of areas to consider when making your cover letter. Here are just a couple of ideas that you could consider.

Make it appear professional
One of the things that you could focus on is the appearance of your cover letter. You should be able to make the impression that you are doing everything that you can so that you will be able to give the company positive insights into your character. One of the subtle and simple things that you could do is to ensure that when you said your curriculum vitae to your preferred company or institution you should have enough postage. If you, as an applicant, make your company pay for the lacking postage that you neglected, what would it say about you? As a rule of thumb, never make the company you’re applying for pay for anything when you’re applying. It will communicate that you haven’t put in enough effort in researching even just a simple matter as that.

One thing that you also have to take into account is to always check the quality of stationery that you use. It’s important that you never seem cheap to the company that you are applying to. First of all, that communicates that you are not taking them seriously and secondly, that gives them the impression that they’re not on top of your list. Personal stationery will help out a lot as well if you’re looking for that certain factor that will separate you from the rest of the common CVs.

For other supplementary advice regarding the appearance and construction of your CV, you should avoid using italics or underlined fonts. And since we’re on the topic, common fonts are a good thing to remember in cover letters.

Just remember to present your CV in a very professional manner and take it very seriously. If you err on the side of caution, chances are you won’t have to be following up on the company to check if they already read your documents. They’ll most probably be the one to call you and tell you you’re hired.

Learning To Follow Instructions

Whenever organizations or specific institutions request for a curriculum vitae, you should be careful enough to follow directions or else, your document might simply end up at the end of the stack instead of standing out. There are a lot of things that job applicants take for granted because they simply choose to not follow the directions that have been laid out by the employer.
One of the simplest things is when the employer asks you to send in your curriculum vitae through a defined format such as Microsoft Word. Most curriculum vitae are able to arrive in Microsoft Word but there are other people who simply go their own way and email their curriculum vitae in ASCII text. These particular CVs will probably be stored in the database but this will be shown as a crude text file which is devoid of any formatting. Even though your name will still appear in the listing of a certain employer’s database, when your curriculum vitae is viewed, it will come out as simply an unattractive and disorganized list of your accomplishments.
It’s also important to note that if you ever want to send in a hard copy of your curriculum vitae, you should do so only after you’ve sent in your soft copy. There have been some instances wherein the person only sent a come of their CV through regular snail mail and not through electronic means. These paper copies of your CV will have to be manually scanned and saved into the database. Although in Word format, no one in his or her right mind would go through so many scanned files and edit them to make them look like a professionally-crafted curriculum vitae. Aside from the fact that you were not able to follow instructions, forcing them to use an OCR or Optical Character Recognition software will only slow things down for you and your application process.
You ask what could be worse than this? Try processing a curriculum vitae that was sent via fax! That will probably give you an idea of what human resources goes through every year.  Just be always sure that you always send in what human resources asks you to send. You should be reminded that instructions are there for a purpose especially when it’s about your CV. Never print out when they ask for an electronic copy and always keep in mind that a faxed copy of your curriculum vitae is not an electronic version of your normal one.

The Truth Hurts

It’s not everyday that you see interviewees telling the truth. And the lying doesn’t change that much when you’re trying to put it into writing. There have been statistics by various survey sources such as IRS and IAG that say that curriculum vitaes in the past year have not been entirely truthful. This is a very stark reminder of how interviewees and interviewers alike should handle the truth with care—especially with something so fragile and precious as a CV.
CVs are always being prepared whenever someone would like to prepare for a job interview of a teaching position in a distinguished university. However most people really do not look into one critical factor that will most probably make or break a curriculum vitae: the truth.
The truth has been as elusive as the perfect fit for a specific job position. In a survey that was conducted by one of the sources, around 86% of interviewers believe that CVs and application forms are not 100% true. There are several other details which state that 35% of curriculum vitaes that they receive are certified to b e factually correct. It is for this sole reason why the truth is a valuable commodity that no one presently seems to value. It is important that each and every thing that an interviewee says is the truth because people who are truthful and can convince the interviewer as being truthful indeed are placed in a very distinct type of group and this is where the rotten apples are separated from the good ones. It is definitely common sense to simply hire an honest and solid applicant over a brutally dishonest applicant who has a “star” quality more than a movie star. It simply will not work. The truth is being true to yourself as well as the one who is interviewing you will eventually pay off simply because you have approached a situation with integrity of spirit. Whatever faults the interviewer will find in you, as long as you project a positive attitude and a spirit that wants to learn, you’ll always have the last laugh against someone who’s showcased himself or herself through an interview with false facts. Eventually, the truth, will really win over everything that is false. In essence, it’s almost like you’ve set yourself free—free from guilt, from your conscience nagging you all the time and from trouble in the future.

Being A Pregnant Mother At Work

If you’ve recently gotten news that you’re pregnant, then you’ll need to accommodate certain changes in your lifestyle—more specifically at your workplace. While there are no legalities regarding the requirements of employees to inform their employers about their being pregnant, the mother to be should remember that any employer is not forced to take any particular action until there is a written notification that has been given. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that the employee and her child’s health and safety are monitored. Because of this, the employers must be able to know the pregnancy of a mother as soon as possible so that proper adjustments could be made. Because of this, as a mother, you might need to provide a certificate from your midwife stating that you are indeed pregnant.
There are a few types of actions that an employer should take. One of which is that the employer should look for any potential hazards or risks in the day-to-day activities of the expectant mother. If there are any activities that the employer deems to be unsafe for the mother and the child then the employer will then be responsible for informing the specified employee of any potential risks.  Should the employees have any safety representatives, they might want to inform them of any particular risks that will be identified by the representatives of employers.
After the risks have been identified and the employee notified, it is important that the employers allow a thorough risk assessment investigation on receipt of an employee’s written letter informing the company that she is pregnant. It is also important to know if the employee has given birth in the last six months or is breastfeeding. Specific actions such as less strenuous work or lighter workload is proper given that any untoward incidents or heightened stress levels may adversely affect the baby and the mother.
Should there be any particular risks identified, the employer must take it upon themselves to either remove, reduce or control the said risk. If a risk cannot be eliminated, the employer must be able to adjust the working conditions of the employer so that a manageable level of stress would be reached. The employer should also offer an alternative work with the same rate of pay if there is an available option for that. If there is no other option, then the mother to be should be cordially suspended from work with pay while being on leave for as long as necessary in order to look after the health of both the mother and baby.