Using MS Word
to format your CV

Pre-formatting checklist

Before you start making your CV into a thing of beauty in Word, make sure that you can answer all these questions with a "yes":

• Have you gathered all the relevant information together, using whichever headings from the week 4 class are relevant to you?
• Have you typed it all into a Word document?
• Have you made sure your material is free of spelling mistakes and errors of grammar and punctuation?
• Have you checked that you have the correct names for educational establishments, companies, institutions, organizations, educational awards, etc.?

Make sure your Word document is A4 size!

When Microsoft Office, of which Microsoft Word is the word-processing component, is installed on a computer, it can be configured for the region in which you live. If Word has been configured for use in a European country, the default page size is A4. If it has not been properly configured, it will default to US settings, where the default page size is US Letter, which is shorter and wider than A4. Many of the versions of MS Word installed in the college were not properly configured at installation, so the US settings are in place, and you will have to configure your document manually.

If you lay out your CV in Letter format and then try to print it out on A4 paper, you will get an error message from the printer. If you succeed in printing it, it will not look right.

To make sure you are creating an A4 CV:

1. Create a new Word document.
2. From the File menu, choose Page Setup.
3. In the Page Setup dialog box, select the Paper Size tab.
4. Make sure that "A4" is selected from the drop-down list of paper sizes. Also ensure that the Apply to drop-down list has "Whole document" selected.
5. Click OK to close the Page Setup dialog box and apply these changes to your document
6. Save your document before you begin to lay out your CV.

Templates

Word provides a selection of templates for common types of document, including CVs. They are very easy to use: you simply replace the content they have provided with your own content, and the formatting they have set up remains. The style of these templates is a matter of taste. If you find one you like, it can be a very quick way to get your CV looking professional.

Unfortunately, many of the templates available on the college computers are the Letter size versions (see above), and will cause problems when printed onto A4 paper. However, it is worth taking a look at them to get ideas for your own CV.

Doing it yourself

If none of the Word templates appeals to you, you can format your CV yourself. The important things to bear in mind is that you want to produce a document that is

• concise,
• consistent,
• intelligent and
• easy to read.

You will probably need to make use of either a table or the Indents and Tabs feature of Word to structure your content properly.