When preparing a CV it helps to imagine how a prospective employer would view it, so when you have drafted your CV put it on one side and then read it the next day as if you were a prospective employer.

A CV should be clear and reasonably brief and on no account be misleading. It should be prepared neatly and carefully so as to give a prospective employer an indication of how you would be as an employee.

It should be typed properly with no spelling mistakes or errors in grammar but using conventional modern language. With modern computer systems there is no reason why a CV cannot be prepared in professional style.

If a CV is in any way untidy or badly typed or otherwise poorly prepared you cannot expect to clear even the first hurdle. An employer will not ask you to attend for an interview if your CV gives the impression that you are careless or cannot spell.

Occasionally we read in the papers of people who grossly exaggerate in their CV or even include qualifications and experience they do not have. A CV must never contain any details that are not true.

On reading your CV (and during an interview) you must help a prospective employer feel that you are just what he or she is looking for. This is sometimes difficult but you have to do your best to make it easy for an employer to want to employ you.

Your CV should be neatly set out with easily readable sections giving your full name address telephone number and e-mail address, education, professional society memberships, any honours awards or publications, employment experience and extracurricular activities.

Your employment history should cover the previous five years, in reverse time order with your present or last post first.

Give details of your experience. A prospective employer will wish to know what work you have dealt with in the past and how you would be able to cope with the work required in the post to be filled.

Include your achievements.

Details of hobbies and interests should be fairly brief. Generally your hobbies and interests will give a prospective employer an indication of the person you are, but an employer is chiefly concerned with your ability to do, and suitability for, the work required in the post vacant. As in all things use common sense.

Include enough to interest a prospective employer but do not add so much that he or she finds the CV tedious. A CV should not be more than two or three pages.

You should include at least two referees with their full names and titles, addresses and telephone numbers.

A CV should always have a covering letter emphasising your aptitude for the vacancy available.