Formal Qualifications: This section of your CV is headed as Education sometimes, however we think putting it under qualifications sounds more relevant.

List your qualifications in a reverse chronological order, just like you did with your work history. Here you can mention the apprenticeships and traineeships you would have undertaken, also mention if you have undergone any work based training during your career.

If you have achieved a high level of formal qualifications you need not include all your GCSE's or equivalent, a mention of when and where you did them would suffice. If you hold a degree, you may want to list your subjects and your dissertation title.

Follow this format, put the date first, followed by the qualification and then the name of the institute you got them from.

Other Achievements

You can list down your other qualifications and training you might have, not necessarily relevant to the job, but still it shows how eclectic and active you have been otherwise. Some examples would be:

- Life saving diplomas
- Coaching qualifications
- First Aid courses
- Piano levels
- Etc.

Be as brief as possible here, make sure it is in bulleted form and you can include dates too. Make a very concise and short list, putting down only some of the relevant achievements. You may add your linguistic skills here, if you posses any. However, if you speak more than two languages you can put them under a different heading, as it language skills add value your CV.

Personal Profile

In your personal profile you may want to include some or all of the following details:

- Date of Birth
- Gender
- Vehicle Mobility - i.e. full current clean UK drivers license
- Marital Status
- Number of Children/dependants and their ages

Put them as per your preference.

Interests & Hobbies

This is of the crucial sections of your CV. Most of us shrug this one off as unimportant; on the contrary, this is one of the sections employers really give quite a lofty weightage on.

Most people who apply for the jobs have similar qualifications and broadly similar work history. However, this is the section that differs and can act as the deciding factor for many positions.

This section tells a lot about the person, his interests and his attitude; giving the employer a sense of the soft skills, the person might posses.

So state your hobbies and interest, because this is where you can be different. Most people like music, films, socializing, and some form of exercise/sports. But it isn't enough to just list these things. Expand it. Make a little story out of it. You can use phrases like:

'I work out regularly, although this is not a hobby to me, I consider it an important part of a healthy lifestyle.'

This gives the reader the information that you are a healthy person but not too obsessed with sports. Also, instead of writing that you like socializing you can pad it out by saying:

'After a full week's work I know nothing better than gather my friends around my dinner table and share my culinary arts with them'

'After an hour of a hard workout down the gym, I relax to Mozart or spend an hour with my butterfly collection'

Try to make it flow and write about 5-6 sentences. However, there are certain things you should keep in mind while putting down your hobbies and interests. Don't write something down that you don't do on a regular basis. If you love hiking but only do it in the summer, say so.

If you have done only one bungee-jump, it isn't a hobby and you shouldn't include it in your CV at all. Apart from that, it is a dangerous past time and a prospective employer may get the impression that you will pose a health risk with too many days off work if you regularly undertake dangerous sports, etc.

If you do like dangerous sports, we would say steer clear it from your CV.

Spend a good amount of time to get this section right, it will definitely pay off.

References

This is and should be the last section on your CV. Don't put your references down.

They can come back to you and ask for them. They won't need them until after your interview anyway so they don't need them. And you don't want them contacting your current, which could prove to be fatal if they are not aware about your job switching plan.

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