Your CV/resume is your first chance to make an impression on the recruiter. Don’t forget to tailor each application you submit to the opportunity you are applying for, using the job description to customise the content. In this guide, we will take you through the best ways to prepare a CV/resume: what you should include, what works and – most importantly – what doesn’t. Writing a CV/resume can be a daunting prospect, whether you’re experienced in an industry or looking for a career change, but it doesn’t have to be. Our definitive guide will show you how to write a CV/resume the right way.

CVs

Broadly speaking, a CV will be used when applying for jobs of a scientific nature. Perhaps you’re applying to be a research assistant or you want to work in medicine or academia. The term Curriculum Vitae is Latin for ‘course of life’. Therefore, it’s based on your credentials. If you are asked to submit a CV, you are being asked to demonstrate:

Your educational achievements Any certificates of recognition Professional memberships and affiliations, etc.

Your resume is more about your work history, so it’s an opportunity for you to showcase:

Where you have worked What experience you gained How you can use that experience to help you in a new role

A resume is shorter than a CV (typically one or two pages); this is because it needs to be a concise overview of your career history.

What Is a CV/Resume? An International Perspective

If you use Google to search for ‘What is a CV?’ or ‘How to write a successful CV’ you will find an array of information available at your fingertips. However, it’s important to consider the international perspective. As a terminology, the phrase ‘CV’ is used all around the world, but each country uses ‘CV’ differently, which could impact on what content you include. For example, in the UK, Ireland and New Zealand, CVs are used to encapsulate work history as well as academic achievements. They generally just use one document and don’t have specific resumes in the same way as the US. In countries such as Australia and South Africa, the words ‘CV’ or ‘resume’ can be used interchangeably to mean the same thing. In today’s global environment, if you are applying to work for an international firm, it’s wise to check what that company means when they ask for a CV or resume to ensure that you are providing the necessary documents.

What Do Employers Look for in a CV/Resume?

Your CV/resume should present a clear, concise and powerful summary of your skills, experience, knowledge and achievements, and be tailored to a specific employment opportunity. Recruiters are busy people, so convey your most important skills and competencies as succinctly as possible, and in no more than two pages. Three pages is acceptable if you have a long career history.

What an Employer Will Be Looking For

When a recruiter picks up your CV/resume they need to be immediately engaged. To make a strong first impression, your CV/resume will need to communicate several important pieces of information:

Achievements – Don’t just list your duties and responsibilities. Take the opportunity to highlight what you have achieved in the role. Use examples relevant to the job you are applying for that paint a picture of a competent and skilled professional. Experience – Recruiters will often scan CVs/resumes to select candidates with the right kind of experience. Communicate the value you can bring through your employment history and make your relevant experience stand out. Skills – Highlight relevant skills acquired throughout your career history. Your skills should underpin your experience and demonstrate your suitability for the job. Results – A recruiter loves to see results. If you have exceeded your targets in sales, achieved a huge performance increase on a campaign, or increased leads, performance or conversions, then be sure to include this on your CV/resume. Use statistics, percentages and numbers as much as possible to quanitfy your experience.

What to Avoid

Unfamiliar formatting – The last thing that a busy recruiter wants to see when they have hundreds of CVs/resumes to sift through is an unfamiliar format. It can take much longer to find the required information. Always follow traditional CV/resume formatting. More about formatting is explained in the next section. Too much information – Don’t include your school grades when you have a master’s degree and avoid listing every job you have ever held or every technology you have ever used. These will take up valuable space. Every piece of information on your CV/resume should add value. It is recommended that more experienced candidates cover their employment for the last 10 years. For graduates, be selective about the jobs that you include based on the opportunity you are applying for. Including details about a summer placement in retail, for example, isn’t going to add much value if you are applying for a graduate opportunity in IT. Writing in the first person – Always use the third person when writing a CV/resume. Using the first person comes across as unprofessional. Endless lists – Never simply add an endless list of duties (or, even worse, copy and paste your job description). Recruiters will find it much more interesting to learn what impact you had. So, instead of describing how you managed a filing system, say you ‘Increased efficiency by effective management of a paper-based/electronic filing system.’ This has much more impact. Using action verbs can also help highlight your direct impact within a role.

Your CV/resume is there to sell your skills and experience to potential employers and helps answer the question: “Why should I employ this person?”. It should provide a brief introduction to your key skills and experiences and highlight how you are suitable for the job you are applying for. 

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How to Format and Present Your CV/Resume

Employers see a lot of CVs/resumes and there are likely to be many suitably qualified candidates for any given role. Making your CV/resume stand out is key to securing the all-important interview, and it is really worth spending time on. Be sure to:

Keep it brief – Aim for a maximum of two sides of A4, unless you have a particularly long career history. A single page is perfectly acceptable for graduates. Use good formatting – Use a common font like Ariel or Times New Roman, and a font size of 11 or 12. Ensure that there is plenty of white space on your page, as it will be easier to skim the document for key information. You can achieve this with standard margins, line spacing at 1.15pt and gaps between paragraphs. Don’t be tempted to try to cram too much information into a single document, since if it’s hard to read then employers may not bother. Use clear and engaging language – This means being concise, avoiding jargon and using active words like ‘leading’, ‘achieving’ and ‘delivering’. Decide how best to order the information – You may choose to format your resume in chronological order (with your most recent first), or you could choose to list the most relevant experience at the top of the page. Consider what information is most important to the role you are applying for. If education is the key criteria, then open with your grades and academic accomplishments. If commercial experience is most important, lead with this and include education beneath. Choose the right software - Most CVs/resumes are created using Microsoft Word, but there is other software you can use to create a professional design, such as Adobe InDesign. Remember to publish your CV/resume in a document that can be widely opened by recruiters. If they can’t open your CV/resume because it’s in an unrecognisable file format they may move on to the next without reading yours. We recommend that you publish the CV/resume in a PDF or Word document. If in doubt, ask the recruiter what file format they prefer. 

Curriculum Vitae (CV) – What You Need to Know

A CV is used to describe your entire career history. It’s designed to showcase your credentials. For example:

Academic achievements Professional knowledge Details (if applicable) of any published work and/or teaching expertise

You should continually update your CV whenever you achieve anything professionally as it is a comprehensive record of your achievements. As your CV is a detailed academic document, there are a few things that should always be included within your CV. These include:

Academic qualifications (including details of your grades and your chosen major) Certificates of achievement Conferences and seminars that you’ve attended Languages Non-academic activities Professional memberships or affiliations Published work and/or dissertations (remember to cite them correctly) Research grants Research interests Research projects (including brief details of aims and outcomes) Training courses

As you can see, it’s a comprehensive list. It is no wonder that CVs tend to be considerably longer than your resume.

What to Include in Your CV/Resume

It is important that your CV/resume contains enough of the right information for the employer to feel that you are a good fit for the role. There are a number of key sections which most CVs/resumes contain, and we’ll explore these below.

Personal Details

You must display key personal details clearly on your CV/resume, so the employer can contact you. However, this is not information that the employer will be using to assess your suitability for the role, so don’t use too much space for it.

Name – Your name should be the title of your CV/resume and should be in bold letters at the top. If your CV/resume has more than one page, have your name on both, just in case they get separated. Address – Make sure that your CV/resume has your address on it, including your postcode. Think about how you want to present your address and how much space this takes. Consider the examples below – which demonstrates the best use of space?

Clearly explain how you meet the requirements of the role while demonstrating your enthusiasm for the opportunity. Avoid vague statements such as, “driven with great commercial skills”, as you are providing no evidence that this is the case. Instead, deliver factual information that illustrates your skills, for example: One or two sentences that convey a slice of your personality, the reasons for your career choices and why you are suitable for the position will separate your CV/resume from the pile of others that begin with the bland, “During my time at X I was responsible for…”

Work Experience

One of the most important jobs of a CV/resume is to summarise your previous relevant work experience. You should start with your most recent role and work backwards. For each role, include:

Dates to and from – This is important because it enables a potential employer to see how long you stayed with your previous employer, and also to spot any gaps in employment they might want to explore with you. If you have many short-term jobs (e.g. through temping), explain why or the employer may assume that you are not someone who sticks with things. If you have any breaks in your career history (e.g. a gap year), explain it and say what you learned from it. Name of the company (plus a brief explanation of what they do) – This plays two main roles: first, it can be used by the employer to check your references; second, it can help the employer understand more about the kind of organisation you worked for. For example, if you worked in a large multinational restaurant chain, your experience of the workplace is likely to be different than if you worked in a small local restaurant. Your role and a summary of your key responsibilities – This explains what you did. Keep it brief and assume that most people are broadly familiar with what most roles do. If you managed people, mention how many. If you had budgetary responsibility, mention the size of the budget. Key achievements and successes in the role – This is your opportunity to sell what you did in the role, especially if it was over and above what might be expected. Try to identify three or four achievements for each role and ensure they are relevant to the job you are applying for. Where possible, try to quantify the benefit to the organisation, for example, “Identified an opportunity for insulating pipework leading to energy savings of £23,000 per year.”

You can have a distinct section on a CV for volunteering which is laid out similar to the work experience section with, organisation name, role, dates and description of responsibilities.

Qualifications and Education

It is important to include a section in your CV/resume which illustrates your key skills and qualifications; the more relevant they are to the role, the better. List qualifications or courses undertaken with the name of the training provider and the dates. Be honest as these may be checked. The qualifications section does not have to be exhaustive. Ask yourself if the qualification is relevant to the role. If it isn’t, you probably don’t need to include it. If you are a member of any (relevant) professional bodies, then include them here. It will demonstrate a deeper level of credibility and engagement with your career. If you speak other languages, have particular IT or project management skills, or have achieved any particular levels of professional recognition, such as chartership, then mention it in this section.

Extra Curricular

Your CV/resume should paint a picture of you as a person and your hobbies and interests can provide an insight into your personality. Your hobbies can demonstrate additional skills and differentiate your CV/resume from other candidates. It can also show ways you are actively involved in the community or in voluntary projects, which you can talk about further during the interview. That being said, hobbies are often subjective; some recruiters love them and others feel they are unimportant. Generally, an employer would only be interested in your hobbies if they are relevant to the role. If you do decide to include them, place them at the end of your CV/resume. There are lots of CV/resume examples and CV/resume templates online, so use these for inspiration.

What Not to Include in Your CV/Resume

Give the employer all the information they need to make an informed decision but don’t waste space with information they don’t need. There is no need to include the following information on a CV/resume:

Date of birth/age – It is now illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of their age. Marital status – Employers don’t need to know this. Photo – Unless this is relevant for the role (for example, you are applying to be a model). Religion or ethnicity – A potential employer does not need to know about your religion and/or ethnicity. 

10 Tips for a Great CV/Resume

The following tips are worth keeping front of mind:

Double-check spelling and grammar – It’s important that there are no spelling or grammatical mistakes in your CV/resume. Mistakes like this suggest you have poor language skills or pay little attention to detail, neither of which are desirable from an employer’s perspective. Double-check your CV/resume, use the spell check and then proofread it. If you’re concerned, get someone else to take a look at it too. You may even wish to hire a professional resume writer if you want more in-depth assistance. Keep it positive – Sometimes work arrangements end badly but avoid mentioning this on your CV/resume. Instead, focus on opportunities for the future and what you learned. Never criticise or disparage a previous employer. References – It is no longer appropriate to include references within your CV/resume. You should assume that references will only be required should you be successful in the interview, and you can provide them at that point. Try to provide evidence – Where possible, provide facts and figures to illustrate your achievements. Think of this as a way to demonstrate that the benefits you deliver are greater than what it costs the employer to employ you. Use bullet points and lists – They are easy to scan and can help condense large volumes of information, though don’t overuse them. Send your CV/resume as a PDF – Most computers can open PDFs, while other file types may need to be translated for PCs or Macs. Any additional effort the employer needs to take makes them less likely to look at your CV/resume. Tailor it to the opportunity – Even though it will save time, don’t email 10 identical CVs/resumes to various employers. Tailor your CV/resume to suit each role that you apply for. Use the information from the job description and person specification to identify the skills and expertise you need to focus on to create a strong CV/resume. Tell the truth – Lies on your CV/resume will catch up with you. If you claim to have a skill you don’t have, you will be found out. The best policy is always to be honest. Focus on achievements – A CV/resume built around your achievements is much more powerful than one that simply lists your duties. Explain what you have achieved, such as assisting with a product launch, marketing a new solution, increasing sales or achieving a promotion. Include a professional summary – Right at the start of your CV/resume include a short paragraph, no more than five or six lines, that really captures the attention of the recruiter and encourages them to read more. What can you bring to the role, what skills do you have and how can you help their business?

It’s key to remember when writing a CV/resume that you are essentially writing a sales document. Keep it brief, punchy and positive. Hold back on some details to leave the reader wanting more and give yourself a chance to expand at the interview. Focus on the details. Keep formatting clean and appropriate to the role and make sure your contact details are correct. Once you have finished writing, check through and make sure that the CV/resume is specifically tailored to the job that you are applying for. Try to weave into your CV/resume specific keywords, power words or well-considered buzzwords that the employer uses in their job description and person specification. In today’s technical age, your resume doesn’t just need to impress a recruiter, it also needs to get through any Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) which may use an algorithm to filter successful resumes. Finally, ensure that you have listed your notable achievements, your most relevant skills and experience and personal qualities that you can bring to the role. Make sure you demonstrate that you understand the requirements of the job and that you meet those requirements.