With so many South Africans looking for employment, or simply wanting to grow in their careers, an appealing curriculum vitae is vital.

Here is an easy guide to making your CV stand out from the rest.

1.  Where to start? Make use of one of the thousands of online template based CV building sites, most are free and simple to use.

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2.  Whether you are finishing university, traveling, currently working/unemployed or make sure that you always keep your CV up to date. It will encourage you to pick up new skills and prevent you from falling behind. You will have that mind set of “do it for the CV”.

3.  Make your CV interesting and fun to read, always remember that companies receive plenty of CV’s, always ask yourself “what will make mine stand out?”

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4. Keep it short and simple. If you want your CV to be long and elaborate, then try and pull all your relevant information together on the first two pages. If you work in a creative field, make use of online sites for your portfolio.

5. Be clear and to the point, elaborate only when necessary.

6. Tailor your CV for the particular job. Don’t just send a one-size-fits-all CV. Put emphasis on any experience (in life or work,) or any talents, that are relevant to the task the company wants you to fulfill.

7.  Work in chronological order. Whether you are writing about your experience or your education, the most recent information is the most important.

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8. Check your spelling and grammar (get a friend to also read it to be certain).

9. Make your CV eye-catching but avoid too much colour and bold fonts which can be distracting. Focus on a simple and clear format. The level of detail and design does however depend on the industry you wish to work in.

10. Finally, when applying for a job most companies and classifieds platforms have a maximum upload file size of around 2mb. There are free PDF compressing tools available online to help you get within this limit.

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Once you all set and ready to put forward your CV, you can find thousands of job opportunities on Gumtree. Hopefully you will be flooded with job offers in no time.