CV Tips

Is your CV working hard for you?

Your CV has its work cut out. Because we recruit candidates from all over the world and face-to-face interviews are rarely possible, we rely heavily on a succinct and accurate CV—with no gaps in training or experience—as part of our rigorous credentialing process. To increase your chances of landing your dream locum position, we suggest you follow these CV guidelines:

• Reverse chronological order is the best format; it should be apparent to potential employers immediately where you are now.
• Highlight, don’t elaborate. A CV is designed to emphasize professional experience, not to explain it in gory detail. Keep your language brief and succinct. An ideal CV is two pages or less; if yours is twenty pages, edit, edit, edit.
• When applicable, use bullets instead of paragraphs. Bulleted sections create an easier to read CV and enable your information to be quickly scanned.
• Keep formatting in mind and don’t use a funky font; the most common (and readable) fonts are Arial and Times New Roman and your font size should be 11 - 12 points. You can make important dates, titles, or accomplishments stand out by using stylistic devices such as bolding or italicizing.
• Edit your CV for each position you apply for. While your basic information won’t change, rearranging your CV to highlight the experience or background requested for a specific position will increase your chances of landing it.

Before you begin drafting (or rewriting) your CV, think about your background as it relates to each of the following topics – it’ll make assembling your CV much easier, whether you’re do it from scratch or use our online CV Builder.

• Education: school name, school location, degree earned, graduation dates
• Academic honors, activities, leadership positions
• Research
• Internships, clinics, residencies, fellowships: Employer name, and location, specialty area, and dates
• Practice experience: name of practice or hospital, location, your title, type of practice and brief description of practice
• Specialty area
• Publications
• Presentations
• Professional memberships
• Licensure/Board Certification
• Other work experience: employer name and location, your title, dates of employment and a brief job description
• Professional awards/honors
• Language skills