Fresh Graduate CV Format in Nigeria (2024)

Curriculum Vitae (CV) Format in Nigeria: Curriculum Vitae – known as CV for short – is an all-inclusive statement or highlight of the professional and academic history of an individual. Such history includes the person’s core personal information, educational background, work experience, hobbies, skills, achievements, awards, scholarships, grants, research projects, and publications.

It is quite different from a resume in that it emphasizes academic credentials while a resume emphasizes one’s experience and skills. An individual uses a CV when applying for an academic position, a science and research position, a fellowship, jobs, or grants outside the country. A CV is also longer than a resume and it always begins with the education section.

Now that you know the difference between a resume and a CV, if you are still looking to write a CV then read on. However, if you are looking to write a resume then click HERE.

How To Write a Curriculum Vitae (CV)

Writing a CV should be an easy thing to do if you know the simple format to write one. Below is the list of things that must appear in your CV for it to be accepted.

Your contact details.
Academic history and achievements.
Professional or work experience.
Qualifications, hard skills and soft skills.
Honors and Awards.
Certificates and licenses.
Volunteer works.
Professional Associations.
Publications.
Personal Information (not necessary).
Hobbies and Interests (not necessary).

Your Contact Information

When writing your CV, you should include your full name (that is your last and your first name), an active phone number and a functional email address. It is not necessary that you include your residential address. If you must, then you should only write the city, state and zip code.

Academic History and Achievements

You can write this section in reverse-chronological order. Writing in reverse-chronological order means putting the most recent academic history and achievements first while the oldest appear last.

Thus, you could start by including only your two most recent educational experiences. These experiences could be your post-doctoral programs, graduate schools, undergraduate schools, and the high schools you attended. You do not need to include the date except if you have graduated in the past five years.

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Professional or Work Experience

You can also write this section in reverse-chronological order. Write the companies and/or organizations you’ve worked for and the dates you were employed. Start each experience with an action word and write in figures how much positive impact the organization have experienced as a result of your presence.

By figures we mean, the exact amount of revenue you bring into the company (whether in Naira N or Dollars $) and the time duration you brought it in (whether monthly or yearly). It also means by what percentage did you increase efficiency or reduce losses or mistakes. If you were ever in a leadership position, it could also mean how many employees were under your control.

A good example is instead of writing, “Wrote proposals on blog topics and search engine optimization tools”, you could write, “Wrote proposals on hot blog topics that brought 70% more traffic on the page within a space of three (3) months and worked with a three-man team to create SEO tools that blog writers can use and bring traffic to their page.”

Qualifications, hard skills and soft skills.

This section should be tailored to the job description. The idea is to highlight the essential skills that employers are searching for. Hard skills are specific skills that can be taught or learned through physical training, work or school experiences. These are skills you picked up or learnt from your previous work or school that will be beneficial to the current job you are seeking to get. Some examples of hard skills are editing, accounting, analysis, coding, translation, optimization, etc.

Soft skills are behavioural and interpersonal skills. They are not technical and are not industry-specific skills. They include some personal attributes like critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, leadership qualities, communication abilities, etc.

Honors and Awards.

In this section, write out all the honors and awards you’ve received in the field related to what you are applying for. Begin with the name of the award, followed by the year you received the award, the organization that gave you the award and other details about the award.

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Certificates and licenses.

All the certificates and licenses you’ve ever been awarded should be included here.

Volunteer works.

Most organizations value selfless candidates who volunteer for work they are not been paid for. So if you have ever volunteered before and you have evidence, then you can include those too.

Professional Associations.

This section should highlight the name of the professional organization you belong to, the geographic location where it is located and the date (s) of active membership.

Publications

If you have ever published a paper or done a presentation, you can include it in this section. For Publications, include your name, the date you published it, a summary, page and DOI number. For the presentation, write the title of the presentation, the date and the location where you did the presentation. Also, if you have ever published a book and you are an author, you can write the name of the book, the year it was published and a summary of the book.

With the above-written outlines, you can create your CV.

Do not forget that a CV differs from Resume. The differences have been highlighted above but you can also read on how to properly write a Resume HERE.

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Chinaza

This post is originally written by Chinaza C. Ifeanyichukwu, a Professional blog writer and Editor. She boasts of over a decade of expertise in the recruitment sector, Chinaza provides up-to-date information on jobs and recruitment topics, career opportunities, and breaking news. Ensure you visit the website constantly so as not to miss any new updates!!

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