You raise good points so let me address the first one. On my Canadian CV I never used my miss, ms, mrs etc title. It was first name, last name ... thats it unless the application was done online in which a drop down box for it was required.

It is probably not a big issue putting a Mr or Miss Soandso instead of just first name last name, but when dealing with large international organisations who's HR hiring practises are more rigid and pride themselves on equal opportunity, why take the chance on the first round in the ring when they probably read through hundreds of CV's a day?

You would be surprised how many cross gender names you'll find in Canada, I know a Jamie, a Bobby and a Billy who were all the female persuasion. And with the popularity of unusual and/or foreign names increasing in the Canadian population, it is very difficult to know for certain wether a name like say, Kitano or Tini, is refering to a man or woman.


As for work experience, I often dropped off work experience with no relevant bearing on my CV or 'shortened' it to one line, company name, my title and dates worked on one line, then on to next. 2 to 3 pages (in a stretch) for a resume is what is considered acceptable. Pick the work experience to put on that has the most relevance to the position/company you are applying for, after all, if they want to know the long in depth details of your work history, just bring your own personal (long & boring details) CV to the interview with you... your first mission though is to get your CV shortlisted for that interview, not bore the HR personelle to death reading through yet another long CV with useless information to the position.

Just thought of one last thing to add.. Under Education & qualifications (at the end of my CV) I always just listed "High School Diploma _____(fill in year you finished school/graduated)" (Which is basically equivalent to about 5 of your GCSE A-C level) which is usually the absolute minimum required for most white collar (office work) full time permanent jobs.

Can't believe you revived this thread, it went to my junk mail instead of my inbox for some strange readon *lol*

Well, my first names (have 3) are all very feminine so can't get away with that one unless I put initial only.

My other question is - how rigid are they with showing highscool diplomas? I'm asking as my ex threw ALL of my original references up until 1995 in the shredder instead of copying them, as he should have done. He thought it wasn't important. Basically I have lost everything up until then. I can get hold of a few people I worked with, who can write new but all school stuff is gone.

The smaller the company, the less likely they will ask for original documentation. Mind you, alot of the medium-large size businesses have their own literacy/numeracy tests they give interviewed candidates.

Educational documents are important though should you be asked to provide proof, more so since you will be in a foreign country and employers are unlikely to want to do international searches for your schools to verify you did graduate.

If you're still in the UK, I'd send a polite letter addressed to your old school's headmaster/mistress and ask them to send you a signed (attesting its an original copy) of your certificates/grades or whatever documents your absent minded BF decided to shred just to be on the safe side, you never know when you might need them.

You will probably (in most cases) get away without necessarily needing to provide original educational diplomas, but it will be much more difficult to get an employer interested in you if you don't have written proof (job reference or referal) as HR personel don't usually like the prospect of making international calls or sending stuff abroad by post, costs the company time & money so unless you absolutely glow in another area (CV, interview etc) you'd be best off using a couple of proffesional written references from past employers.

Employers aren't normally interested in your work history if it happened 10 years ago, generally the past 5-10 years of your work history are what they hold most relevant as it is nearer to what brought you to them in the present. So I wouldn't worry too much about the references you had pre boyfriend mishap

When I arrived in Canada, I followed all advice and was so worried about making my resume look Canadian. In the end though, all I needed to do was reduce it down from 3 pages to 2, reformat the education as they are not interested in GCSEs and A-Levels and remove date of birth and marital status. I also of course put it onto Letter size paper.

Now that I am an IT recruiter, I see thousands of resumes in all shapes and sizes - there is no standard though we see many from the same templates!

I get annoyed with spelling and grammar mistakes - they make me reduce my opinion of someone.

Keeping date of birth, etc. makes me think you can't be bothered to try and make it look Canadian.

I hate resumes with pictures and if it is a really hard read then you had better have a phenomenal skillset. I like bullet points and I like consistency - same font throughout, consistent font sizes and indentation - these things make you look professional - however I forgive the inconsistencies if the content is good.

Keep the font simple - I prefer Arial but Times New Roman is OK. Don't try and be clever with a font that you think stands out.

In IT in particular, make sure you add/keep the detail of what you have been doing - a friend of mine asked me to look through his IT Manager resume and he came across as a junior because he had taken out all the detail of what he had been doing. If this means you run onto 3 pages then that's OK!.

Ensure the month and year is in your employment history - I suspect you are hiding 1 and 2 month jobs if the month is not there and as Judy says REVERSE chronological order please!

Don't use humour on your resume. Don't lie on your resume.

I prefer an MS Word version of your resume so that the grammar and spelling mistakes are underlined. I also use it to see your formatting - if someone lines it all up with spaces, should they be in IT? If I get a PDF, I ask for a Word version. If you send it in any other word processing format, we cannot read it.

There's probably lots more but that's my twopenneth....

All about the grammer innit. The spellin an generul writin of Canadian yoof is like as bad as what is it in the UK. An not just ther yoof, ther adult is has bad.

Rich.

Allie

Thank you.

My problem is that last 5 years has been my own business with my own clients.

Anyway - Date of birth will be removed.

MS Word is not exactly the most reliable of grammar checkers.

I'd agree with everything else in your post though.

Goddamned piece of crap turns Canadian Eeengleesh into Amercian Eeengleesh. I say labour you say labor. It's another US cultural takeover/hegemonistic conspiracy.

Rich.

Click on "Tools" on the menu bar then select "Language" then "Select Language" scroll down to "English (Canada)" click on it, then click on default then OK.

Hope that works for you.

Cheers
Steve

Steve!

Its not great I admit but it helps to spot things...though I also need it in Word format so that I can add my company header and trailer to it when we represent the candidate.

Rich,

Change the setting to Canadian!

YYZ

List your clients and the work you have done for them

eg.
May 2001 - Present MyCompany, Web Developer

May 2001 - June 2002 Client1
* Created company website using php and static HTML, including a secure customer only section for order tracking. URL: www.xyx.com
* Provided support both onsite and remotely

Feb 2002 - Oct 2003 Client 2
* Updated intranet site from static pages to interactive pages using AJAX and Ruby on Rails.
* Updated corporate internet site, including complete redesign and graphics. Company URL:

etc. etc.

Yes I agree, it is better than nothing.

Rich,
Instructions above. Hope they work for you.

Cheers
Steve

Already done that bro and it still Americanizes everything and my regional settings are Canada also methinks the PC Nazi's are after me.

Rich.

Or perhaps your computer is compensating for your Cascadian location.

Have to agree with you Judy.

Who says computers aren't sentient beings?

Whoa! So by reverse order we are talking old to new?

I thought it was new to old.

If the latter is wrong, no wonder Canadian companies are not getting back to me.