Space Saver CV Template and Writing Guidelines

Understanding how to best put together a space saver CV means understanding what will grab an employer’s attention and how to place it to the best effect. That means understanding both the vocabulary and the visual style, something that this space saver CV template can help you with easily. Once you have a handle on the way it should look and feel, it is just a matter of finding a way to present your personal and professional information cleanly and clearly, so that it really pops out at a reader.

There are standard sections you will want to include in your CV, and both the space saver CV template and general CV writing guides highlight them as well:

• Contact and personal information
• Your professional summary
• Work experience
• Education and training
• Skills
• Relevant awards and scholarships
• Hobbies and interests

Contact and Personal Information

The contact and personal information section of the space saver CV template is designed to provide background about your life and level of professional accomplishment. That means items like marital status and languages spoken are typically included, as well as your home address, email, and other contact information.

It is perfectly acceptable to hold back your exact street address in favor of the city, state, country, and other identifying information, but it is not generally viewed as acceptable to skip the entry entirely. Remember, it is also important to make sure all the information in this section is accurate. You should use a personal email address as your main electronic contact, not your current work email if that includes your present employer’s company.

The professional summary is the section of the CV that takes the place of an objective on a resume. The difference is that instead of being a single and concise statement of the applicant’s goals, it should be a four- to six-line summary that includes your professional experience and credentials, as well as your major skill sets within the profession. The goal is to make this into a “hook” that attracts the reader’s attention and says who you are and what you have done. Here are a couple of examples that would fit well into a space saver CV template:

Nurse Midwife Summary:

I am a nurse midwife with five years of experience delivering babies in home and hospital settings, and my education includes both an RN credential and an independently earned BSN. Prior to becoming a nurse midwife, I worked for ten years as a floor nurse in a hospital setting, with experience in both maternity and the NICU. Through this work, I have become dedicated to helping women through the birthing process, and I am pursuing opportunities that challenge my organizational and supervisory skills.

English Professor Summary:

I have taught college writing classes for over ten years, after finishing my Master of Fine Arts in creative writing. Since then, I have also completed PhD work and added undergraduate literature courses in early American literature and postcolonial world literatures to my experience. I am currently pursuing opportunities that allow me to work more closely with undergraduate English majors, especially those looking to teach themselves.

As the space saver CV template demonstrates, the key to a well-written work experience section is to provide solid details presented in ways that let the reader know exactly what you did. Achieving that presentation is a matter of paying attention to a few stock rules that help govern CV writing generally, and following them as best practices every time you write or update this document:

• Choose active verbs as well as easily identified, actionable results, and present them clearly, without a lot of extra explanation.
• Begin with your most recent position and move backward, so that it is easy to identify which responsibilities and accomplishments are most recent and to understand the progression of your career.
• Look at the job description and use the same or similar vocabulary. Match your actionable results and active verbs to keywords from that description, so your word choices help you look like the candidate the employer wants.

  Here are a few examples that show how you can set up a work experience section (note: your CV should include at least 4 to 6 bullet points per past position):

  Store Manager, Big Ben’s Big Bend Pizza, Wilmington, DE. 2007-2009.

• Decreased store staffing and consolidated labor to increase specialization and experience in key workstations.

  English Teacher, Kalamazoo Public Schools, Kalamazoo, MI. 2003-2005.

• Engaged students and parents with learning strategies to encourage reading skills and the development of personal management habits at home and at school.

  Content Writer, Rapid Growth Media, Cedar Rapids, IA. 2011-2014.

• Created engaging, branded content that represented clients to customers, while providing the customers with informative, accurate, and actionable information.

  Customer Service Representative, Calltech, Detroit, MI. 2005-2009.

• Developed customer relationships through dispute resolution
• Provided information and help desk services for a variety of call center clients.

If you are putting together the education and training section, it is important to remember that the space saver CV template has a designated area for your education experience. At a minimum, this section should include all of the relevant credentials, coursework, and diplomas or degrees that you have achieved in the field. If you find yourself wondering how to present this information, follow these best practices to make this section easier to accomplish:

• Make sure you list your educational accomplishments in reverse order, with the highest level achieved first.
• Also include coursework that added skills to your repertoire, especially seminars and other extra learning opportunities.
• Mention any academic honors or other activities that demonstrate your accomplishments, especially involvement in academic fraternities and other similar accomplishments.

Examples:

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, Western Michigan University. Graduated with honors.

TOEFL Certification, Western Michigan University. Included teaching practicum.

Writing your skills section is one of the more personal and customizable sections of the space saver CV template, because it is one of the elements that can be adapted to fit a variety of goals and purposes. Since this section tends to include both formally assessed and informally assessed skills, it provides depth that your work experience and education alone may not. Follow these tips to get the most out of your skills section:

• Focus on formal skills, such as languages or written communication skills, and include your current level of proficiency.
• Whenever appropriate, include some context that shows how the skills were acquired.
• Emphasize your technical proficiency, whether or not particular job requires it.

Here’s an example skills section for a web designer:

Expert written communication skills
Proficiency with Dreamweaver, WordPress, Blogger, and Photoshop
Coding languages include Python, Ruby, and C#

Scholarships and awards are important any CV, because they show ways that you exceeded expectations and competitively demonstrated your excellence. They are especially crucial for students and academics, but depending on your career field, they can continue to play a prominent role in your career advancement even into your career’s middle and later years. When you write this section out, the key is to make sure you explain what the award was, its size, and how it was earned, as the space saver CV template shows. That way it is easier for a reader to identify exactly what you earned.

Here are a couple examples of scholarships and awards that could be included:

2011: Granted a $5,000 research award from the Gilmore Foundation to investigate the impact of the Civil War on home life in the Kalamazoo, MI area.

2006: Awarded a full fellowship for $25,000 annually as a research fellow at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum.

This last section is totally optional, and many first-time CV writers tend to overlook it in favor of revising and polishing one of the sections that is considered mandatory. Including your hobbies and interests can really help, though, and experienced writers recognize why it is still included in examples like the space saver CV template. Your hobbies do more than just reflect on your personality; they also demonstrate soft skills like organization or leadership that might not be fully visible in other sections. Here is how you can get the most out of your hobbies and interests:

Here’s a great example of one way to present an interest or hobby:

2012-Present: Wrote and self-published a science fiction serial on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Platform.