How to Write a CV for a Student

Video Transcript

"Hi! My name is Deborah Linville. I'm employer liaison with EASTBAY Works Career Centers in Contra Costa County. Today, I'm going to talk about how to write a CV for a student. A CV is just a fancy name for a resume and you may think as being a student with no real job experience that you don't have enough information to write a CV or resume, but in fact you do. I'm going to give you a few tips and tricks right now and show you how. First of all, if you're a student in high school or college, you probably have a career center on campus. That is a great place to start and you can go there and get a lot of information including resume samples, information on how to write a resume, you can certainly visit one-stop career centers like EASTBAY Works where I work, they're all over the United States, and the library also has information and there's tons of information on the Internet, so be sure to use that as well. We're going to look at a format that's real particular to writing a resume for students, this is a real basic format where you'd have your name and contact information on top and then you have a job objective. You're a college student, a job objective is rather simple. It's the major that you are in college. So, for example, if you're studying to be an RN, you would put your objective is to obtain RN position in a major hospital or in a small clinic depending upon where you'd like to work. And then I'd like to put down highlights of qualifications, these highlights are what I call a power punch statement. These qualifications really show what you have done in school, in volunteering that go back to your job objective. Things such as I graduated with a bachelor of science in the top 10% of my class at what's this state university. Things like, I volunteered at Sutter Solano Hospital in their ER unit for 6 months. Those are the kinds of qualifying statements that you want to show you're a real doer and go above and beyond what just basic college students do. If you're high school student, you may want to put down things such as volunteers any kinds of clubs or organization, sport teams are really great because it shows that you can work individually or as a team player, and employers really like to see that, those activities. Also, think about things that you've had to do with class projects such as organizational skills, if you've had to beat a lead on a particular project, you had to delegate work, you had to work on a computer, maybe you had to complete a spreadsheet or a Power point presentation. Those are all skills that you can put under your highlights, don't forget computer skills. I think that most students these days are just very computer literate and companies need that information. Also, soft skills are important for your resume such as being on time, being able to learn quickly, being flexible. Those are all types of things that employers are looking for. Then you can put down your work experience, if you have a part time job, definitely list that, if maybe you had a full time job and had to go to college, that's great too! However, if you don't have any outside work experience, use internships, practicum, credits, those type of things or even odd jobs that you've done such as baby sitting or mawing in lawn, you can use those jobs and use the people that you worked for as references and one question about references, you may think you don't have any work references but indeed you do, your, you can use your professors, your teachers, your counselors and also people that you've just helped, helped out with your church, this kind of thing. But please ask them first before you put them down as a reference and don't put them on the spot. Okay! I've talked a little bit about writing a resume for college students or high school students and I hope you learned something today. Thank you."