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eCV helpful hints

Helpful hints to ensure your CV gets seen by prospective employers when you apply online.

The e-cv or e-resume, short for electronic CV or Resume, is a vital tool for today's job-seeker.

But what exactly is an electronic cv or resume? Whilst opinions vary about what is or is not an electronic cv, it's a broadly used term that covers several types of cv's. What ties these cv types together is mode of delivery. Rather than traditional modes of cv delivery - snail-mail, faxing, and hand-delivery - e-cv's are delivered electronically -- via e-mail, submitted to Internet job boards, or residing on their own Web page. Then there are sort of middle-tech cousins of e-cv's, scannable cv's - used less and less frequently these days - that are in print format but are ready to become electronic cv's through optical scanning.

• 1. You absolutely MUST have one.
• 2. Your e-cv must be loaded with keywords.
• 3. Your e-cv must be achievements-driven .
• 4. An e-cv is not too difficult to create.
• 5. Text-based e-cv's are pretty ugly, but you can dress them up a bit.
• 6. E-Cv's are highly versatile.
• 7. You must tailor the use of your e-cv to each employer's or job board's instructions.
• 8. Take advantage of job-board features to protect yourself and get the most out of posting your e-cv on the boards.
• 9. A few finishing touches can increase your e-cv's effectiveness.
• 10. Use your common sense

(Please select your question above and the answer will be displayed below.)

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3. Your e-cv must be achievements-driven .

Again, this advice applies to all cv's. Achievements are the points that really help sell you to an employer - much more so than everyday job duties. In fact, there's a direct relationship between keywords and achievements in that keywords can be tied to achievements rather than job duties, so a good way to make the leap from keyword to a nice, contextual bullet point is to take each keyword you've identified as critical to the job and list an achievement that tells how you've used the skill represented by that keyword.