CV Writing - Education

The amount of focus you put on the Education Section of your CV very much depends on where you are in your career.

For instance, if you are fresh out of college, your education constitutes the bulk of your experience. Since that is the case you should consider whether you might be better off using a functional CV format instead of the traditional chronological CV approach.

In a functional CV you present skills or competencies at the beginning of the CV, preceding or following this with a list of your educational qualifications. The skills you present can be ones mostly developed from your education rather than ones mostly acquired in the workplace. The important thing are the skills themselves and the good first impression they make, rather than where these skills were acquired.

For those with little work experience but considerable education this represents a distinct advantage over the chronological CV where your work experience - or rather lack of it - is presented prominently almost inevitably on the first page.

If you have considerable work experience, the educational Section of your CV usually becomes less important as time goes by. That is certainly the case if you haven't undertaken any formal education since your left college or university. In these circumstances your educational section should follow your employment section and not the other way round.

The layout of your CV section should follow the following format:

1. Dates Attended
2. Name and location of school, college, university
3. Level of study/Qualification
4. Subjects
5. Grade

We think it is a good idea to list any professional qualifications and training in a separate section to your academic education and schooling. Create an entry entitled 'Professional Qualifications & Training' and have this follow your Employment History section and precede your regular Education Section. (Alternatively, you could append these entries to the relevant job in the employment section of your CV)

For instance, a sample entry might look like this:


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Professional Qualifications and Training

2005 ABC Training, London
Prince 2 Practitioner Qualification (Passed)

2004 ABC Training Ltd, London
Course: Project Management Fundamentals

Education

2001-2004 University of Bath, England
BA (Hons) Business Administration, 2:1

1999-2001 St. Stephen's School, Sudbury, England
A Levels:
Business Studies (A)
Law (B)
German (C)

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For a full overview of CV writing check out www.cvteacher.com