Some people will tell you in no uncertain terms that CVs should be written a certain way. Strangely enough, if you listen to other people they will tell you equally forcefully that CVs should be written totally differently and include totally different things.
For example, some people will tell you that your CV needs to be 2, 3 or even 4 pages long, whereas others will say it should be 1 page maximum.
Obviously, everyone can't be right. And, therefore, the implication here is that most of the people who tell you your CV needs to be a certain fixed length are contradicted by others.
So who is wrong? After all, some people will tell you in all confidence that their one page CV worked wonders for them while others still advocate two or more pages.
That alone should tell you something, and it does: namely the fact that it is often a matter of horses for courses and you need to consider the applicant, their circumstances and the job in question and write flexibly rather than blindly adhere to rigid artificial rules (which are, in fact, myths).
Indeed, there are not as many hard and fast CV writing rules as people think, and you should follow commonsense more than artificial rules.
This article has been taken from excerpts from a book by Paul Hichens, senior consultant at www.CVconsultants.co.uk.
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