Exaggerate to make what you do sound intellectual:

Use the internet? "I run and maintain my own website about..." I picked Sagat from SFII because he's my favourite character so I knew that if asked I could reel off lots of facts to make it sound like I was serious.

Play Games? "I make maps and mods for...." I picked UT, which I do map for so I was only half lying but even if I was not a mapper I could still blag it because I play it obsessively and know what I like in a map (And therefore what makes a good map).

Get the picture?

glad thats over with... for now...

thanks to all you 30+ people who read this thread but didnt want to help

thanks to deci & fokker :)

/buys a pint for deci & fokker and makes them share it cos my lousy dont pay enough for me to buy two

well they came up with the best advice, the others didnt dare putting in their less usefull stuff:P

so how do you americans get jobs? do you just have applications and not CVs?

not sure on the spellin but its a curriculum vitae, its like a pre-writen application for, you write things down that sell yourself to employers

Curriculum Vitae...

I've made tons of CV's.

About me should conclude things such as: Experience with Microsoft Office, Controll Freak, Fast Handler, Shy, etc. Put that in a story so the reader has some text to read. CV's are boring to read, so make something exciting out of it.

What a CV should look like,
(in this order)

Personalia (name, adres, age etc...)
Studies, Courses, Skills (Name of instutution, name of course followede and begin/end date of that course)
Working Experience (Name of company, short description of the work you did, begin/end date of time worked there)
Interests, hobby's and social involvement (Don't go too deep, but follow deci's tips. Don't make it too short either, it shows you're social skills )
Open sollicitation: "I'm qualified to work here because, .... "
References (Old employers saying good things about you (inlcude mail, tel. numbers) )

Edit: Like Joor said, don't forget to list under Courses all you're 'skills', ppl over 30 count 'working with powerpoint and word, excel etc.. ' as skills too

best way to get a job in the us is to come up with a television so so ridiculous and stupid that no-one would ever watch it....then submit it to either mtv, fox, cbs, abc...etc.

examples.
big brother, real world, the oc, ozzy's old show on mtv, the geico caveman show, etc. and so forth

and some of the best advice u will ever get
DONT REFERENCE PPL WHO DIDNT LIKE YOU!!!!!

if u didnt get along with the management of a job, if u got fired, if u did not perform well at the job, etc. do not reference it. i was once working over the summer, and my manager got a call about an old employee i had worked with for a summer very closely. he was terrible, and about as smart as a box of rocks. apparently the person on the other line picked up and said, "hello im from .....and i am about to interview [insert name here] and was wondering if there is anyone there who can tell me what kind of work ethic he has...blah blah blah."

my manager talked for about 2 minutes then said here actually one of our employees was basically partnered with him last summer. ill let u talk to nick... i picked up the phone, said sumthing along the lines of "for the love of god do yourself a huge favor. take the resume in front of u, and burn it and if he asks tell him his information got lost and u found a better candidate..." then proceeded to hang up..... so much fun(he didnt get hired, and had to move to another state due to lack of employment)

ps. sorry folks...im all jacked up on mountain dew and am trying to find a good means of procrastinating on my paper for one of my classes, sorry for the lengthy rant rofl

US has resumes

Work experience, date and position and summary of duties in reverse chronological order
Education, dates attended, degrees, in reverse chronological order

hobbies and personal interests, there's a difference of opinion among authorities.  some say don't bother because it just gives them a reason to dismiss you "rockclimber, must be crazy, takes too many risks, living a fantasy"

I need to write my new CV too

SpringyThingy boing boing boing
The Fairy Lemming

there is not much point in lying on your cv, it's not worth it a) you don't know how how advantageous your lie will be and b) getting caught lying is a good way to ruin your career - and people usually have far better memory than one assumes

embellishing stuff like fokkers says is a good idea, flat out lying is not; the difference between the two is really less subtle than people tend to think; for example if you only know a couple of russian sounding words like "da", "vintovka", "tovaritsj", "kalashnikov" and "politroek",... you still have no notion whatsoever of the russian language and telling your employers you do is a lie, yet I've seen people seriously suggest this