Can someone look at the "work experience" section of my CV?

Vitor68

I have a year gap of solid straight employment so I put everything I did over the year in one section under Work Experience. for the last year I did two on line courses, English language tutoring and the odd 'on call' work I did with an Audio Visual company. I put everything I did in the year in once section just to explain to employers what I have been doing. The section can be found below. Any Advice would be great ...

WORK EXPERIENCE

Audio Visual Work, English Language Tutoring, ECDL Course, TEFL Course (September 2013 – July 2014)
+Worked as an Audio and Visual assistant for the company ****.
+Currently giving English language tutoring to internationals based in Cork.
+Completed the ECDL course and a 120 Hour Combined TEFL Course.

****, **** St., Cork. (January 2013 – August 2013)
+Worked in customer service and sales at a furniture store.
+Assisted customers and dealt with their enquiries, in order to meet their needs.
+The work also included stock management and cleaning and maintenance of the premises.
+Customer service skills and team work skills improved considerably.

****, ****, Co. Cork. (September 2007 – October 2009)
+Worked as a waiter in a Coffee Shop/Restaurant for two years.
+Thrived in a busy atmosphere in which I worked within a team, usually between 3 to 10 people.
+The work included customer service, working on the till, food and beverage preparation, +cleaning and maintenance of the premises, and closing up of the premises.
+Developed strong communication and customer service skills as well as team work skills. +Gained experience in working under pressure and multi-tasking.

Vitor68

By the way, I censored the names of businesses and places with '****'s for their own protection.. Cheers.

Stheno

What's with the plus signs? Are they meant to be bullets?

Vitor68

Yes, cause I wasnt sure how to use bullets in the forum. I copied and pasted it from my Cv and the bullets didn't come up.

Fluxfan

One thing that stands out to me is a lack of "action" words.

+Currently giving English language tutoring to internationals based in Cork.

should be:

Tutoring internationals in English....etc etc.

Start all your bullet points with an action word.

Vitor68

Cheers FluxFan,
Do you think it's a good idea to mention I did two online courses in the Work Experience section of my CV?

I know it's not related, but my friend says I need to mention what I've been doing for the last year in terms of work. Both the tutoring and audio visual work have both been part time work, on and off.

JustAThought

You could seperate the roles and have two different titles for the different jobs & be specific about the skill sets underneath.

After reading it I really have no clearer idea what an audio visual assistant is!

Company x, Job Title Y, year dates,
Part time / job share

List roles..,
Same for next company & roles.
E.g.

(+ 1 for action words : very important. )

Responsible for ...
Developed....
Assisted...
Lead team of 3 ...,
Created communications programmes ...
Developed learning pathways in conjunction with department heads...
Analysed AV needs using reports ... Etc

( still don't know what AV assistant does !)

Mrs OBumble

I would call it "Employment history" not "Work experience" - the latter sounds like you're only playing at working, rather than being an on-going employee.

Is the "Currently giving English language tutoring to internationals based in Cork." - paid work or voluntary? If the latter, then I would split the two our into different sections, one for employment history and one for volunteer work.


Also - don't call 'em (us!) internationals. Say "international students" if that's what you mean. Or "foreign nationals" if you mean people living here who aren't students.