 Hi everyone! Welcome back to another vlog, thanks for tuning in. My name is Claire Carmichael. Today's vlog is going to be all about writing your CV and I felt like I needed to do this because I always write about personal statements, uni applications, things like that, but there are still some places out there that expect you to hand in a CV. A lot of general practice places actually still require a CV and a cover letter, so I wanted to do one all about getting that CV perfected, but I just wanted to help you out a little bit and yeah, hopefully bag you that interview so that you can shine and get the job. I've also done a blog version of this, which I'll post a link below if you can't be bothered to watch this video, at least you could go there in writing, so have a look below that it's going to cover everything on this vlog. So your cover letter has to introduce you but also compliment your CV. It's also a great opportunity to show the trust or the company that you're applying to, that you understand the role but also that they want to read your CV and that's why it's important that you completely personalise each cover letter and each CV to each trust or company. Just exactly like a personal statement, it should be individualised to the person that's reading it so that they know that you've taken the time and effort to write this for them. It kind of just shows what sort of a person you are as well, someone that's dedicated and someone that takes an interest in other things rather than, you know, being lazy and just doing one fits all kind of thing. It shows a lot about you as well if you're going to individualise and personalise it. So you want to introduce yourself, who you are and why you're applying for this role, what knowledge you have about the trust or company, use any selling points or anything interesting about yourself, throw that in the bag, make yourself stand out and then lastly explain any little bits from your CV that you might need to explain a bit or expand a bit further. It needs to go into a bit more detail if that makes sense so use that space for that as well. But obviously don't overcomplicate it, keep it as simple, as brief as possible because you don't want them to get bored reading your cover letter because that's going to throw them all off. Your cover letter wants to be a little bit like a letter so on an A4 sheet of paper or on Word document, you want your name, address, contact details up in the corner, you want good spacing, easy to read, easy to understand and also avoid putting in things that you've already wrote in your CV so you want to completely avoid copying yourself or anything that's in your CV you do not want to put in your cover letter and always lastly, always always always get someone to proofread and check your spelling and grammar for you. And now let's get to the CV. So how to write a CV, some of you may never have written a CV before, there's loads of templates online for free that you can use, have a look at that. Also make sure you go by the person specification and the job description for each trust or company that you're applying to use that to sort of structure your CV because you want to put in there all of the information that they're looking for so that you meet their essential criteria. So at the top of your CV you want your personal information so you want your name, never put CV or curriculum, vitae, whatever it's called at the top, don't put that, you don't need to put that, people know what it is, put that as your name so your title that wants to be your name and then your address, email address, phone numbers, if you've got a website put on a website or a blog site put that on, if you've got a LinkedIn put in the link to the LinkedIn, that's what I've done with mine, I've literally put my name, address, phone number, email address and my LinkedIn so they can look at that as well and see everything I post. On the next section you want a personal profile so this is just a brief intro about you, literally a couple of sentences, right what you're doing now your particular skills and interests and what you're now seeking so for example, I'm a new to qualified nurse or a third year student nurse ready to qualify in September, November, wherever with experience as a GP ambassador which I was and I also previously had a placement in GP and then I fell in love with general practice nursing and now I'm seeking a long full-time career as a general practice nurse. Then a new section you want as a skills section so this is your just a brief space very briefly just give a brief example of each skill that you possess and you can do this by reading their specifications so that essential criteria and use those as little sub-pedants and then just give a brief explanation of how you meet them and that's a really good way of showing that actually you are for this job. Next new section you want to put education so for example you want to do whatever GCSEs you've got access course all the way up to university just a little brief section again nothing too overwhelming. Next is your experience so I broke this down into two sections which I was advised by by our careers team by RCN all that jazz so this is my advice to you break it down into two sections one is your nursing experience because that's what they really want they don't want to know if you worked in a coffee shop down the road so as a student nurse you need to put here your placement experience this is what I was advised to do and luckily it works this is because post grad CV writing is very very different to a regular CV if you've had a load of jobs that's very very different so because you are a student nurse you're writing it in a slightly different way so you do include your placements on there and show what experience you learn just a brief section of each placement what you learn what skills you can bring I literally just listed my placements and what skills I learn on each placement including clinical skills not just communication and six C's and all of that but actually what other skills I brought with each placement and then the next experience you want to put is the work experience so any paid work experience that you've got so I worked in care homes I've worked in orthopedic theatres those sort of things that relate back to nursing if you haven't got that sort of work experience don't worry about it you could always put as well like any volunteering bits that you've put you've done so if you volunteered at a care home put that in if it's relevant to the role just add it again without making your CV a million pages long like mine was to start with you have to really narrow it down so only put the most important and relevant information on there just to help you narrow it down and also in the work experience section so once I put I only named the bits the nursing related work experience and then I literally had a small sentence below just saying I also worked in hospitality and as a sales assistant between the years of blah blah blah done because I obviously haven't just had care experience I've got other experience that can be transferable so I just wanted a sentence to explain that actually I did leave school in 2000 2001 and these are the jobs that I had around about that time before getting into care just to show what sort of other things that I've done so after the experience section you could put an achievement section so any achievements that you've got that you're really proud of put on there to show off so there's a few things that I put on there some things that I've done so just put that if you've won any awards if you've had any certificates from uni that's completely outside the box and show that put it on there because it really does make you stand out as well from the crowd because everyone will have the same experience if that makes sense so anything extra you've got put on there to stand out and you don't actually have to write your references on your CV next and last tip just literally put a little thing at the bottom saying references on request that's it you don't need to put your references on a CV you only need to give them if they ask for them so just a quick summary of what we've spoke about the best tip I can give is always follow the person's spec and the job description of everywhere you're applying to have it up in the background you can copy and paste it to use a subheadings to structure your cover letter and CV and if you hit all of those points there's no reason why they shouldn't be calling you in for an interview and if you don't get an interview please make sure that you call the trust and just ask for a bit of feedback why they haven't proceeded with your CV and also you make use of your careers team at university they are brilliant send them your CV also the RCN if just the RCN then they have a whole careers team have a google and you can send them your CV as well and they'll completely revamp make it look amazing this is what they've done for me it was fantastic and a massive massive help so make sure you use and abuse all of these places to help you bag the job and good luck