Your Living C.V.

Once you qualify you should have a living C.V. regardless of whether you are actively looking for a job or not as it can help in your current job – not just for job seeking…

What is a living C.V.?

A living C.V. is a record of your job that you keep up to date on a regular basis. Your C.V. should not just be for when you are actively looking for a job, but it can also be a useful career development tool. You can use your living CV to keep a note of the work you do, and your responsibilites and achievements. With no word or page limit.

What are the advantages of having a living C.V.?

• It remembers so you don’t have to. By having a master living C.V. you can keep a fully comprehensive record of what you have done which you will then be able to refer to and extract information from as and when you need it.
• It can keep track of changes in your role while you have been in one job or at one company. For example this might include changes in role (formally and informally), promotions, extra credit projects, extracurricular activitise, client changes, volunteering, pro-bono work and CSR activities. 
• It can keep a record of your most interesting work and key information about that work, such as key clients, key legal issues, value of cases or transactions etc.
• You have an up-to-date C.V. to hand when an opportunity comes knocking – you just need to extract the relevan tinformation. This doesn’t just apply for external jobs, it can also apply for when you are asked to put your CV or application forward for a panel submission, a secondment or promotion internally.
• You can use your living CV as part of your annual personal/career development, to help you identify learning objectives and areas for developement as well as recording your achievements.

What are the alternatives to a living C.V.?

a living C.V. works best for when you just want to keep track of achievements and your job with a few simple updates. If you are actively looking for a new job, an internal promotion or have a other career development goals on your agenda, you might wish to complement your living CV and add a career development notebook or meeting notebook to your ‘toolkit’.