An Appealing Layout For Your Curriculum Vitae
Having an appropriate layout for your curriculum vitae is as important as the contents of your document. If an employer is having a hard time reading or is unable to locate the information he or she is looking for in your presentation, it is most likely that they would just place your document in the nearest stack of unwanted documents no matter how good and qualified you are as a candidate.
One should not devote so much time in creating a visually appealing resume or curriculum vitae. Not unless of course if you are aiming for a position in a field that has something to do with design or anything similar that requires you to display your creativity. In reality, a simple layout that is easy on the eyes and at the same time easy to navigate is what makes a layout successful.
As you choose the font for your curriculum vitae, it is best that you stick to standard fonts such as Arial, Times New Roman or Verdana. There is no restriction about the choice of fonts that you could use for your document. However, keep in mind that you should not give your future employer a hard time reading your presentation by the use of fancy fonts. As for the font size, you may have to experiment on this one for each font style has a different size. Ideally, the recommended size of fonts is around 10 to 12 points for normal texts and at around 12 to 14 points for the subheaders.
Now for the Subheadings. These words or titles are normally put in bold text and is a bit larger than the font size you tend to use for the body of your resume. Also, it doesn’t matter if you wanted them to be written normally or in all caps as long as you place emphasis on these words.
Here is a list of subheadings that you would normally find in resumes and curriculum vitaes:
Career Objective
Educational Background
Qualifications
Work Experience or Employment History
Special Courses or Special Trainings
Special Skills or Applicable Skills
Positions Handled or Responsibilities
There are also other information that you can include such as affiliations, specialty or interests but be sure that if ever you include these things, make sure that they are relevant to the position that you are aiming for. Otherwise, just exclude them in your document.
With regards to the length of your curriculum vitae, this depends to the position that you are currently aiming for. Normally it could be similar to a resume consisting of one to two pages but sometimes, in order to impress employers (especially if you are going for an academic position for example.) A candidate should present a document that may go over four to five pages in length contrary to the usual one to two page presentation.
Visual presentation of your document should also have consistency especially when it comes to the style and format. The font style, font sizes, bullet styles used, etc., should all be uniform from the first page to the last. Refrain from using multiple styles of visual elements in one document for it would prevent your presentation keeping that professional look that one should be aiming for when creating a curriculum vitae or resume.
When using bullets in your document, be sure that you also use additional emphasis on the important parts of your sentences or phrases so that your reader can easily find the information that they are looking for. Again, be mindful about the tabs and alignment of the bullets if you are using them to concisely divide the important information that you are giving emphasis to.
Lastly, always use plain white paper with good quality when printing out your document. Never use colored paper when printing out your curriculum vitae or resume because it would only make your document look immature and obviously craving for attention.