The single most important document you will ever write is your Résumé or Curriculum Vitae (C.V.) . That bears saying twice. The single most important document you will ever write.

Ok, maybe your Will seems more important to you as a family person. But I’m not convinced. Your CV gets you the next job. The next step up. It enables you to be in a position to write a better will.

There will always be people who never ever need to write a CV. That just network from role to role. But that’s an edge case.

I’m talking about applying for software engineering jobs. So hopefully you reading this are a software engineer. I’m sure you therefore understand the importance of accurate, complete and up-to-date documentation for any software you are working on.

And if you don’t, go away and find out and don’t look for a job until you do.

Your CV is the same, only the accuracy and attention to detail of your CV is far more important to you. Forget to update the entry for your previous role so the “to date” says “present” and things like “My current job is” in a job 4 jobs back, then you look like a Muppet and won’t get an interview for any role that needs attention to detail on documentation or otherwise. i.e. a job as a software engineer.

Get a collegue, ex-colleague or friend who is a software engineer to read it through and make sure you’ve not messed anything up. I’ve seen CVs where people are proud of working on three tire systems (that would be tier then), sequel server and various other blatantly stupid things.

Your CV is the only tool you have to get you through the door. Sometimes there is a covering letter, an email to send it in, an online application form to attach it to. Make sure that what you write there has the same level of attention as the main document. Don’t let your CV down with a poor submission of the CV.

Pay attention to detail.

Pay attention to detail.

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This is version 1 of this entry and was posted 1 year, 1 month ago on Saturday, September 1st, 2007 at 6:00 pm and is filed under Career. It's popularity ranking is Popularity: 31% [?]. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. This is the first version of this post.