As someone that’s currently looking through CVs for potential hires, I have to emphasize your point of having it short and sweet. I have more important matters to tend to such as meeting deadlines so sifting through your CV isn’t my top priority.

CVs should show how great you are in the least amount of words. If you’re not great, just tell me exactly what you do and what you’ve done. Don’t try to pad it — after looking at so many CVs, I can sniff bullshit very quickly. Its much more beneficial for both parties when the hirer can quickly determine how to apply your skill-set. Sometimes your skill-set could match another position that isn’t advertised.

It all depends on the requirement how good must your English be for a certain job position:-)

Spelling and grammar should be close to perfect, but one typo in 2 pages of text wouldn’t matter much, I think. 10 typos will, though:)

So it all depends.

On the other hand, sending your text to a professional translator (in case you know the language very well but not perfectly) is maybe not so good an idea. Your letter will show how good are you with the language. No need to make it like an “icon” and pray on it:-) Double-check your spelling, but write everything with your own words… Even englishmen can make mistakes from time to time:)

If I am the employer, I would much more prefer to see an imperfect letter written by the job candidate than a letter, translated and optimized by a professional translator… :)

IMHO, of course:)

Michel

Still, every employer would like to see correctly written CV. Even if that means the applicant would send her CV to a professional translator.

What I have learned on webdesign, standards, CSS coding, etc., I have learned from books, and (I avow that, even much more) from reading blogs of other designers ( Doug Bowman, Dan Cederholm, Eric Meyer, others, no need to mention them all:) ) and experimenting myself, creating and modifying code and just continue reading and reading and reading! It’s how all has started long ago :-)

Times are changing, I do not have a diploma for what I do right now (XHTML/CSS coding) and I work in this field successfully for more than 2 years. Some time ago, a diploma would be required, but not anymore. The media is new, and developing very fast… What you do is more important now than a piece of paper:) And this is definitely a good thing!

I just never thought that mentioning books on design/code one may have read would be a good thing to include into a CV. Now you gave me an idea! :-)

Greets, Michel

I once have won a “battle” for a webdesigner’s position, by writing a rather standard CV and a motivation letter which defeated any standards in writing such letters, and was really motivating:)

BTW, you’re right, “books you have read” is a nice thing to add, never thought about it. Also, one may add any certificates from real tests/courses completed (example: Brainbench are not bad in assessing one’s proficiency in a specific field).

My $ 0,02 :)