WRITING A CV

Your CV is crucial to your job applications, but how do you actually need to structure it?

One of the hardest parts of getting a job is writing a CV. That's why we've produced our guide to help you produce a CV that will really help you stand out!

SO, WHAT EXACTLY DOES YOUR CV NEED TO DO?

A CV should tell the employer why you are the best candidate for the job advertised. This means your CV needs to be tailored to the job you are applying to! If you can't tell roughly what job you're applying to when reading the CV alone, then it needs to be more specific.

You also need to remember the hiring manager is likely TIME POOR. They probably have many applications to get through, and so you need to quickly show why you are the best fit for the role, getting straight to the point.

BEFORE WE GO THROUGH CV WRITING SECTION BY SECTION, HERE ARE OUR GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS:

THINGS TO DO:

Use a professional and consistent tone and formatting.
Tailor your CV to the job you are applying for.
Put education, work experience, and jobs in reverse chronological order (as a rule of thumb).
Include your full name, and contact information.
Keep to 1-2 pages for your CV.
If applying outside of the UK, look up the CV conventions for that country.
Quantify your skills (give examples).

THINGS TO AVOID:

Never include a photo of yourself - this can be tempting as so many templates include a space for this, but it is not professional.
Avoid using personal pronouns.
Don't include your birthdate.
Don't be too narrative based in your writing - rather than simply listing achievements or things you have done, list what skills you learnt from them. Show the employer why they make you competent.
Don't use an unsual font.
Don't just state things about yourself (e.g. I am hardworking).

OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS:

We recommend you use a clean professional font - for example Calibri, Arial, Times New Roman. Do not put text smaller than 10-12pt, and make sure you use the same size text and font throughout, except for in headers where you may want to increase the text size to help them stand out.
We recommend you do not include your address - whilst this can be useful for some jobs (for example demonstrating to a part-time job you may live close by to pick up last minute shifts) we generally do not recommend including your address. Especially for jobs where you may be required to relocate, employers may be put for example if they think you live too far away. Given you can be contacted by an email and phone number you would include, there is no need to put your address.
We recommend you do not use columns when formatting - whilst having columns of text can look nice on your cv, we don't recommend them in most circumstances. Some companies look for creative CVs, so for that they may be great, but a massive number of companies now use AI to scan CVs. As AI reads left to right, if you have multiple columns of text on a page it will not read your document correctly, and may cost you the job.

SECTION BY SECTION ADVICE:

1. TITLE

As a title, we recommend just putting your name (first name and last name).

Many online templates include headers like "curriculum vitae" but this is unneccesary.

2. CONTACT INFORMATION

Include a phone number, and an email that you are contactable by.

Make sure your email is professional!

You may want to include a LinkedIn profile too.

3. PERSONAL STATEMENT

You may want to include a personal statement.

This is a 2-3 sentence paragraph briefly summarising your key strengths or aspirations.

Don't be too descriptive here.

4. EDUCATION

You may want to then lead with your work experience, or your education, depending on which is most relevant to the job. The more recent the education, the more detailed your description should be.

You must include the dates you were studying, and the institution you studied at.

GCSEs do not need to be included in detail, but we would recommend quickly detailing how many you have, and clarify that it includes Maths and English.

When writing about A-Level or adjacent qualifications, but slightly more detail of what you studied and the grades. You can potentially include a key project or piece of work you did, and write what you gained from it.

University education (or whatever is your most recent education) should be the most detailed part. Use bullet points to emphasise key assignments and projects you completed that are relevant to the job, and how they built your skills. You might also want to include the grades achieved. Be selective with what information you highlight here!

5. WORK EXPERIENCE

Work experience can include jobs, internships, placements, volunteering, and more. If you have a significant amount of experience, you may want to split this section into employment history, and work experience, or include a featured relevant experience section.

You must include the date ranges in which the work experience took place, and the name of the company.

For this, either bullet point or include a brief summary of the things you achieved in each role.

Make sure you are using action verbs - employers don't want to hear that you 'completed' a project or 'finished' some work, they want you to be specific. For example, "Lead an event planning team, delegating responsibilities to different members and overseeing the project completion, in the end raising £2000."

Use specific examples of what you did in that role. Don't be vague. Even for a customer service role like a cashier, rather than saying "worked the tills" say "assisted customers at checkout, resolving issues, ensuring customer satisfaction".

OTHER THINGS YOU MAY WANT TO INCLUDE:

CERTIFICATIONS - these can be included in a similar format to work experience. Write the dates you completed certifications, and the skills you gained.
SKILLS - some people include a skills section and this can be helpful, however, we generally recommend trying to weave your skills into the other sections of your CV instead. This section may still be useful for telling an employer what softwares you are comfortable with though if this applies to the job, or language skills.
REFERENCES - although it used to be popular to put the details of referees, this is no longer recommended. Instead, if you would like to write "References available upon request" to conclude the CV this is ok.

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