Layout: a good layout is not only a matter of appearance; it’s also a sign of a clear mind. If I lay out my text in an elegant, accurate way, I convey an impression of neatness and mental clarity.

Spelling: writing correctly in your own language should be a given. Unfortunately, however, this is not always the case: little mistakes can always find their way through, whether they’re due to ignorance, being in a rush, your word processors’ autocorrect function or simple neglectfulness. What good is your grammar school or your degree if you’re misspelling words? Similarly, you’d cut a really poor figure if you were an accountant and miscalculated the years you were at university, don’t you think?

Capital letters: people often use - or rather abuse - capital letters to emphasise certain words. However, I wouldn’t recommend doing this: respecting traditional grammatical rules is by far the preferable course of action. My advice is to avoid all emphasis and tones in your CV, and reserve them for the interview, that is, a context in which a broader form of communication is possible.  

Bold and underlined fonts: some variation on the theme may be useful to the overall layout, but less is always more. In particular, underlining too many key words may be too distracting and lead to the reader overlooking other parts of the CV that may actually be more relevant. My advice is simply not to overdo it. Your CV is already a summary of what you’ve got to offer, so you should let it do the talking without trying to further summarise information.

Indentations: indentations help to express concepts in an orderly manner and show mental clarity, as I said before. However, a CV must be concise, so too many indentations are not advisable: the reader might take them as a sign that you tend to get lost into details, or that you’re too much of a perfectionist, insecure and so on. Would have you ever thought an indentation could say so much about you?!

Dates: providing the correct date is a matter of care, of course, but that’s not all. If you make a mistake in writing the dates of your studies, for instance, you expose yourself to the risk of being asked awkward questions about the time it took you to complete your education, or, even worse, you might not even make it to the interview, if this confusion raises doubts in your recruiter. I recommend the same care when it comes to providing the dates of your work experiences: first of all, they must respect a chronological or anti-chronological order; secondly, if your career is longer than 15 years, you should avoid giving the months along with the years, as this detail won’t add any useful information.

Laws: when applying for a job in Italy, you should always include the following release statement: “in compliance with the Italian legislative Decree no. 196 dated 30/06/2003, I hereby authorise you to use and process my personal details contained in this document.” Do check the dates and numbers of all decrees, as well as the day in which they entered into force.

Colours: black and blue, or an alternation of black and shades of grey, are the only acceptable colours when you’re applying for a traditional business. If you’re an artist, a model or a writer, on the other hand, other options are possible; in such cases, however, you should use tools other than a classic CV to present yourself, so we’re not going to deal with this on this occasion.

Personal or impersonal form: to this day, there are still people who write and speak about themselves in the third person. This is a definite no-no! Using the first person helps you to establish a relationship with the reader and thus helps your cause. Alternatively, if you feel really uncomfortable in using the first person, you may use the impersonal form. The one rule is to be consistent: do not use the first person when describing one role and then the impersonal form when describing another.

Sentences: they must be clear and easy to read; so it’s best to write short sentences without too many subordinate clauses and digressions, following what I would call an Anglo-Saxon style.

Verb tenses: they must be consistent throughout the CV. At most, you can use a past tense for your previous experiences and a present tense when talking about your current employment. If you’re going though a transition phase, you should be clear about whether you want to disclose that you’re currently out of employment or not: the tenses you use are revealing of that, both on your CV and during the interview.

Dates: not only do they talk about who you are, your precision, your accuracy, your attentiveness; they also give away how long it took you to complete your degree, whether you took a gap year before starting your job, whether you are in a transition phase or you’ve been stuck for a while. So, make sure you write the correct dates to avoid awkward questions you will have trouble answering. Giving explanations, in any case, is something that should be done during the interview, not in your CV.

If you’ve held a role for an especially short period of time, you might as well leave that out: it’s likely not to add any relevant information to the skills you need to show.

English (or other foreign languages) terms: using English words is becoming more and more common, especially in international or technological contexts. However, Italian is a beautiful language that needs to be preserved, and, moreover, not everyone understands English or is familiar with certain business terms that might only be used in a specific company. On top of that, if your goal is to be hired by a Small or Medium Enterprise (SME) in Italy, weaving too much English into your Italian might be an obstacle rather than an advantage, as it might make it difficult for you to blend in with the rest of the personnel… if you know what I mean.

In short, do use English terms IF, and only IF, they’re absolutely necessary and appropriate, but even in this case, make sure you use them in accordance with Italian grammar (i.e. do not pluralise words, like e.g. manager, by adding an “s” at the end as you would do in English).

Companies’ names: companies change name, merge with others, are acquired by competitors and so on. It’s possible, therefore, that the company you’ve worked for over the past 20 years has now changed its name; in this case, I would suggest you give the old name and put the new one in brackets.