Microsoft CV / resume and free templates

When writing CVs, people often search online for ‘free CV templates’. In addition, popular word processing tool, Microsoft Office, includes free templates. Although this may seem ideal, the chances are you could be missing out on vital exposure purely because of your CVs visual appeal.

The trouble with so-called ‘free templates’ is that they’re often outdated and very basic (hence the reason they are being given away ‘free’). In addition, Microsoft templates in particular tend to be designed in a ‘resume’ style – more suitable to job seekers in the US, rather than UK.

Just some of the problems with Microsoft’s free CV templates include:

• Personal details being included at the top of the CV
• An objective section being included (this is not needed on UK CVs)
• Unnecessary section headers
• Formatted using tables (wastes a lot of space)