Jobs. Education. Opportunities.
CV ยท 5 min
How to prepare a professional CV
A practical order of work for a CV that a recruiter can scan in a minute.
Start from the role, not from your life story. Read the opportunity and underline the skills it actually names. Those words should appear in your CV only where they are true.
Use one page for early-career applications unless you have more than about eight years of relevant work. Put your name, city, email and phone at the top. A professional headline is one line: the role you can do, not a slogan.
Lead with the strongest proof. For a graduate that may be a degree, a project or national service. For an experienced person it is recent work. Each role gets the organisation, your title, the dates and three lines on what changed because of your work. Numbers help when you have them. Do not invent them.
Keep the design plain. One column. A standard font. No photo unless the employer asks. No text inside images. Save a PDF from a real document, and name the file with your name and the role.
Before you send it, check the email address, the dates and every claim. If you cannot talk about a line in an interview, delete the line.
Use one page for early-career applications unless you have more than about eight years of relevant work. Put your name, city, email and phone at the top. A professional headline is one line: the role you can do, not a slogan.
Lead with the strongest proof. For a graduate that may be a degree, a project or national service. For an experienced person it is recent work. Each role gets the organisation, your title, the dates and three lines on what changed because of your work. Numbers help when you have them. Do not invent them.
Keep the design plain. One column. A standard font. No photo unless the employer asks. No text inside images. Save a PDF from a real document, and name the file with your name and the role.
Before you send it, check the email address, the dates and every claim. If you cannot talk about a line in an interview, delete the line.