By SYCORAX TIYESA NDHLOVU-

FROM high unemployment levels, there is a growing competition on the labour market that forces many job seekers to change and improve on their job hunting strategies; including how to write an effective curriculum vitae (CV).
In a competitive labour market, your CV should facilitate your being shortlisted for interviews; and possible appointment to that vacant position.
However, little do many job seekers know that a CV is a sales letter. Therefore, the way a CV is designed and phrased determine your success or failure in your job hunting efforts.
The purpose of this article is to highlight critical issues that one should consider in designing and crafting a CV.
But before this, let’s consider the reactions of our esteemed readers from the past ‘Let’s Talk Careers’’ articles.
Benius Morgan Mweemba of Lusaka’s John Laing Sakala compound thanks this writer and Times of Zambia for informative and educative articles that appear in ‘Let’s Talk Careers’’ articles that come every Saturday. He said the article titled: ‘Building Capacities for a competitive advantage’ which appeared on 18/1/2014 opened his minds on what to do now for a better tomorrow.
Mr Mweemba said he appreciates Times of Zambia newspaper now as it brings highly informative,  educative and practical articles that make one understand how to manage one’s affairs if  one wants to progress in life.
And Emmanuel Mudenda in Livingstone district said thanks for ‘Building Capacities for a competitive advantage’ which appeared on 18/1/2014. He said the stated article was good in that it informed one about the importance of planning what you do for one to have a better future.
Mr Chanda Mwanakatwe in Chililabombwe district says: ‘Thanks Mr Ndhlovu for a very educative article on ‘Effective job hunting strategies’ which appeared in Times of Zambia on 9/2/2014.’ Mr Mwanakatwe said the article was very interesting to read as it revealed how some employers behave in recruiting workers which job seekers should know and follow.
However, Mr Mwanakatwe said the challenges that most job seekers and workers face is that most employers don’t consider competence of job applicants or workers before and after they have been recruited respectively. He said most employers’ top management officials recruit workers on nepotism and bribery basis. He argued that when workers are employed on nepotism and bribery basis, it is difficult for the same employers to conduct effective staff performance appraisals on such workers; thereby leaving those with hard work and high competences in frustration.
There are many factors to consider in writing an effective CV. You should make your CV so attractive that it catches the employers’ eyes.  A good CV well designed and has selling points that make an employers  to say: ‘Yes, I have found the right candidate to fill this vacant position who will add value to our organisation.‘
Job seekers should know that it is better to be tossed out of a recruitment race just because  potential employers shortlisted candidates on nepotism or bribery basis than because your CV is too clumsy and too dull to attract an employer’s attention and interest.
Like a job application letter, a good CV responds effectively to a job description of the advertised vacant position. One cannot craft a good CV without considering the contents of the advertised vacant position’s job description.
It is what the respective advertised job description states and the required attributes of potential candidates that firstly, you can decide whether to apply for that job or not; and secondly that you can craft a good CV.
In short, assess yourself if you really fit well in that advertised vacant position or not before you send your CV to that organisation for that vacant position.
Imagine that thousands  of applicants have applied for that vacant position you are also applying for. How does a potential employer sieve the best candidate from the rest of the applicants; and arrive at who is suitable  for that job? In effective CV writing, you need to find ways to demonstrate how unique you are in effectively and efficiently serving in that vacant position.
Let your CV stand out to be the best out of the rest. When your CV is seen, and it is well designed and properly crafted, even when potential employers want to use nepotism or bribery, you might still be shortlisted as one of the most impressive candidates who have applied for that vacant position.
It is also true that some recruiting officials might deliberately ignore; and put away your good CV just because they don’t want to expose you to possibilities of being selected; or avoiding your records to part of the job interviews for that vacant position.
Whatever the case may be, a well designed and crafted CV gives you a high opportunity to be shortlisted and be appointed to that vacant position in the eyes of God; The Creator of the universe and everything in it.
One of the factors to consider in designing an effective CV is the appearance of a CV. A CV should be presentable to the eye of the receiver. To add beauty to a CV, modern job hunting counselors advise job seekers to attach their respective passport size photographs to their CV.
Margins influence how a CV appears. Leave good margins in your CV. One can argue that one has seen someone who had a poorly designed CV; but such a person still got a job. Yes, this can happen because, firstly, a good design of a CV alone is not enough; and secondly, probably the employers concerned used nepotism or bribery to employ that person.
However, it is all necessary factors put together that determine the effectiveness of a CV.
A good CV should have personal details, work experience, academic or professional qualifications, and referees. The contents of each of these parts of a CV help  you to market yourself effectively to a potential employer.
Most CV counselor debate whether to start with academic or professional paper qualifications in CV writing or one should start with work experience. Since this article is not tailored to those with or without work experience, one can argue that potential employers don’t buy paper qualifications. They buy ability to effectively and efficiently deliver outputs on that vacant position. Therefore, start with what employers wants to ‘hear’ first. Employers want to ‘hear’ the value you will bring to the organisation through your capacities which other employers have benefited from before. Therefore, bring paper qualifications that support your ability to perform in that job later on.
Each position held before and currently should be spelt out clearly stating employer and time frame you spent in that position. Clearly spell out the outputs that your former or current employer benefited from you holding that position. Don’t just copy your job descriptions.
Each academic or professional paper qualification should also be stated clearly. State institution where you got those qualifications and when. Display the grades of subjects or courses you had outstanding results in that support that vacant position.
It is because each copy  of a CV is related to the job description of a vacant position you are applying for that makes photocopying of a CV that you prepared for a certain vacant position for a certain organisation some months or years ago redundant. Every vacant position you apply for demands a fresh well tailored CV.
Spellings in a CV should be correct. Each spelling of a word determines its meaning depending on the context in which that word is used.
Word selection in a CV is important. Use strong verbs that show effects or impact of what you did or do in your former or current job (s) respectively.
To have effective word selection, develop wide vocabulary in English language. In CVs, each word in a sentence enhances your selling points to the prospecting employers. The importance of effective word selection in crafting a CV sways us to the importance of effective sentence construction in CVs. Sentences should be written in official language. Sentences should written in active voice; and not in passive voice. Effective sentence construction in every sentence you make in a CV makes you fly above the crowd of applicants.
Command in English language is essential in job hunting strategies; especially when one considers job application letters, CV writing and job interviews.
Referees should be selected on merit. Referees should be people who know you better. This doesn’t mean that one should put one’s parents, friends and relatives as referees. Referees are officials who can represent you and the potential employers objectively, factually and fairly. One should choose officials in former schools, colleges or universities one attended before. You can also choose supervisors or organisational officials who closely worked with you. A combination of the two can do depending on t he nature of a job you are applying for.
Always consider what a potential employer wants to ‘hear’ in your CV for you to be shortlisted for a job interviews.  Be honest. Be factual. Never tell lies in a CV to win a job.
For your CVs to be always  impressive to potential employers, you must tireless work hard to do things that will add value to your CV.
(The author is Trainer and Career Coach. For comments and ideas, contact:  Cell: 0967/0977 450151 E-mail:sycoraxtndhlovu@yahoo.co.uk)