What is a CV?

A CV, short for curriculum vitae, is your professional introduction on paper. When you apply for a job, the employer usually cannot meet you first, so your CV does the talking. Its job is to show, quickly and clearly, that you have the experience, education and skills the role needs, and to convince the recruiter to invite you for an interview.

In Tanzania and across Africa, almost every job application starts with a CV, whether you are applying to a bank, an NGO, a hospital, a school, a hotel or a government office. Getting it right is the single most useful thing you can do to improve your chances.

• Contact details: your name, phone number, a professional email and your city
• Professional summary: two or three lines about who you are and what you offer
• Work experience: your jobs in reverse order, each with achievement bullet points
• Education: your qualifications, school or university, and years
• Skills: the abilities that match the job, both technical and personal
• Extras where relevant: certifications, languages, references and useful links

For most jobs in Africa, keep your CV to one page if you are early in your career and up to two pages if you have several years of experience. Recruiters read many applications quickly, so a focused two page CV beats a padded four page one every time. Only academic and research roles use the long, multi-page academic CV.