Open Office : making document stand out.

Patrick20

I've just finished writing my CV and I've checked spelling etc. Now I want to make it stand out as much as possible. I've put a bit of colour in the heading(my name) but what else can I do?

I've also underlined each section(Experience,Education,Interests) but not just under the text the line goes from end to end. Any ideas how I did this? It was that long ago I forgot how to do it.

Lokolo

If you do underscore a few times and press enter it usually does it for you.

MX5huggy

Change the font from TNR and Arial.

Patrick20

MX5huggy wrote: »

Change the font from TNR and Arial.

Thanks I thought cambria looked nice and respectable.

Patrick20

Lokolo wrote: »

If you do underscore a few times and press enter it usually does it for you.

This is open office your talking about? I can't seem to do it. :huh:

penrhyn

Colour is not a good idea as CVs tend to be xeroxed.
Make sure you have all the essential information on the front sheet.

purplerose

I have my name and personal details up in the top header with a line underneath the section. Within that section: name is in bold and 1 font size bigger than the rest of the text, Telephone:, Mobile: and E-mail: are in bold.
After that each section title is in bold and 1 font size bigger than the rest of the text.
Dates and organisation names are in bold.
I have a bulleted skills section.
There is another line at the bottom of each page in the footer.

Folk usually advise using a sans serif font such as Arial, Helvetica, Tahoma, Calibri as they are supposed to be easier to read or something like that.

Personally I wouldn't use colours but it's up to you.

Make sure you have enough white space on the CV, too much info can be off putting.
If you've got lists of things then try using tabs to draw the information out along the page or just put the info all in one line. One example of this is a lot of people have their personal details centred at the top taking up a lot of space. I've got name and address on one side of the page and email, telephone and mobile at the other. This takes up 5 lines instead of 8. Another one is school subjects, instead of a big list you can put it in one line, for example: Maths (A), English (B), French (C).

Print it on good quality paper, a lightly textured kind of paper can be nice to the touch and shows you've made an effort.

Quiet_Life

Trebuchet MS font is supposed to be the best for CVs... as per a Radio 4 programme about fonts I heard a couple of years ago.


[I know, sad , I don't get out much]

System

Also keep the CV to a maximum 2 pages, any longer and it probably won't be read.

Also if you are sending it as a file, check it out in MS Word first if possible. Not everything that you do in OO comes out as expected in Word. Agencies/ companies will be using MS office.
Even better since you are using OO is to save it as a PDF unless the job app stipulates Word..

Patrick20

Many good suggestions thank you all. I will still be putting a bit of colour in my cv though as I think the benefit of it standing out will outweight any negatives. And I've done it in a stylish way that shouldn't be difficult to copy. And I will also be disregarding any suggestion to make it a particular font for the same reasons above. Heres what it looks like

[FONT=Cambria, serif]MY NAME[/FONT]
[FONT=Cambria, serif]10 A Street [/FONT]
[FONT=Cambria, serif]In A Village,Near a Town,Postcode[/FONT]
[FONT=Cambria, serif]A Phone Number[/FONT]
[FONT=Cambria, serif]anemail@address.com[/FONT]

[FONT=Cambria, serif]PROFILE[/FONT]
REMOVED

[FONT=Cambria, serif]EXPERIENCE[/FONT]
(Removed Employers Name)

[FONT=Cambria, serif]Petrol Station Cashier/Attendant[/FONT]

• [FONT=Cambria, serif]Customer Service [/FONT]
• [FONT=Cambria, serif]Good Telephone Manner[/FONT]
• [FONT=Cambria, serif]Cash Handling[/FONT]
• [FONT=Cambria, serif]Operating Payment Devices[/FONT]
• [FONT=Cambria, serif]Stocking Shelves[/FONT]
• [FONT=Cambria, serif]Cleaning [/FONT]
• [FONT=Cambria, serif]Food Handling and Hygiene[/FONT]

[FONT=Cambria, serif]EDUCATION[/FONT]
(Removed School Name)

• [FONT=Cambria, serif]Higher History[/FONT]

• [FONT=Cambria, serif]Higher Modern Studies[/FONT]
• [FONT=Cambria, serif]Higher Tech Studies[/FONT]
• [FONT=Cambria, serif]Higher Product Design[/FONT]
• [FONT=Cambria, serif]Int. 2 English [/FONT]
• [FONT=Cambria, serif]Int. 2 Maths[/FONT]
• [FONT=Cambria, serif]Int. 2 Art and Design[/FONT]

[FONT=Cambria, serif]INTERESTS[/FONT]
REMOVED-avoiding getting too personal on the tinternet.


[FONT=Cambria, serif]REFERENCES[/FONT]
REMOVED


This is just an idea on the layout. It looks better on the CV and i'm not spending the same time fixing and formatting for a wee example on a forum. I hope you all get the idea of how it would look.

gilligansyle

Personally I would avoid colour for the reasons already stated, and although not saying which font is better or not, you should avoid using too many different fonts in a document, and instead use different sizes of the same font, with bold or underline for effect.

Remember when using Open Office to save as Word (.doc). Word 2007 can deal with OO files, but previous versions can't.