Jobs & Money Detail
Preparing a Canadian CV
How do you go about transforming your British CV into a Canadian resumé? Employment counsellor Shadi Norman offers her advice.
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Your contact information should be listed at the top of your resumé. Include your name, full address, telephone number with area code – this saves the employer time looking for the code – and email address. The correct way of writing your home telephone number would therefore be 01144 1845579622, while for your mobile 01144 7803442955 would be correct.
Objective
After the heading your resumé should then include an Objective section. This is a very important part of your resumé as normally employers take only a few seconds to scan your resume. Writing an objective states the position that you are seeking within the company. This way employers can put your resumé in a 'to be interviewed pile' if necessary. Your Objective should include the following:
What do I want to do?
For whom or with whom do I want to do it?
Where do I want to do it?
At what level of responsibility?
An example Objective could therefore be: 'Seeking Employment as a Merchandiser or an Auditor in a retail environment.' Note: You should always tailor your objective and change it according to the job posting. Your Objective should also feature a Highlights of Qualifications section. Think of this as a paragraph to showcase your skills and experience and your track record.
It should clearly include your number of years of experience, your skills and your relevant education. Bear in mind that employers like this as it is easy to read, straightforward and they can quickly decide whether to interview you or not. Any accomplishments should be stated in bullet points. For example, your particular highlights could be grouped as follows:
Over five years of progressive Merchandising experience;
Diploma in Communications & Numeracy (City and Guilds);
Certificate in Computer Applications in Art and Design (BTEC) – explaining what a BTEC is;
Strong garment and fabric (both woven and knit) technical and quality expertise gained from the experience as Quality Controller;
Solid experience as a merchandiser dealing with customers from Spain, Germany and USA;
Familiar with apparel vendors in Europe;
Well coordinated in interpersonal communication and negotiation, especially in price bargaining;
Excellent communication skills, team player and able to work independently; and
Excellent knowledge of Photoshop, Freehand and Quark Express for Digital Manipulation, Aided Illustration and Graphic Design, Microsoft Office, Outlook spreadsheets and databases.
Note: You may wish to consider including these points in a separate box.
Employment
After the Objectives section comes your employment history. For each entry include your employer's full name (this is the name of the company), your job title, the range of dates you worked for each employer, and a brief description of your responsibilities and achievements. Note: always highlight the job title and dates for the employer to notice quickly, but do not use exact dates – months and years are sufficient. When describing your responsibilities avoid using abbreviations as you have on a few occasions, for example 'POS placement'. Also use action verbs and past tense for previous jobs. This is a common mistake when people are describing their past jobs, they still write their job duties in the present tense. Instead, use bullet points, action verbs, nouns and past tense for previous jobs. So, instead of writing 'Merchandising in the music and video department for Tesco stores performing range and chart changes', write:
Worked as a merchandiser in the music and video department store;
Performed range and chart changes.
Similarly, 'Merchandising Pick and Mix and cosmetics in a major food retailer, also as a supervisor assisting area manager in day to day running of a team of 20+ merchandisers in 11 stores in my area, performing re-briefs, audits, refits, POS placement, interviewing and training of staff,' would become:
'Responsible for Merchandising Pick and Mix and cosmetics in a major food retailer;
Supervised and assisted area manager in day to day running of a team of 20+ merchandisers in 11 stores;
Performed re-briefs, audits and refits; and
Responsible for POS [spelt out in full] placement. Interviewed and trained staff.'
The jobs you have listed from your days as a student, prior to July 2001, can be deleted as they do not relate to the job you are applying for. They can be added in your qualifications section (see below) if you wish. Remember your resumé should be short, precise and targeted!
Qualifications
With regards to your qualifications, employers in Canada would need to know what qualifications such as City and Guilds, CSE or BTEC actually mean. Writing Diploma and then in brackets 'City and Guilds' would make much more sense to a Canadian employer. There is also no requirement to put down your courses from high (secondary) school or your grades. You do not need to list your high school or grammar school if you're a college graduate. Therefore, your education qualifications could be listed as such:
Diploma (City and Guilds) Communications and Numeracy;
Art and Design Certificate in Computer Applications;
Certificate in Computing.
Leisure interests
In this section try to avoid using the word 'I'. Instead, use action verbs or nouns, and keep it short and to the point. Never take more than two lines to list hobbies, sports and social activities. When in doubt, leave them out. In this section writing the following would suffice:
Photography and gardening;
Member of local Women's Institute.
There is also no need to include the additional information you have included regarding the driving licence. This is not applicable to the job you are applying for, so is therefore not needed.
Shadi Norman is a certified Employment and Immigration Consultant for Tri- Continental Global Services Inc. and can be contacted by email.
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