You’ve found the perfect job opportunity. You send your CV and you breathlessly wait for the call-back… but it never happens. Sound familiar? Yeah, it does for most of us. But how’s that possible?
Your CV has never been read. It wasn’t good enough.
Take heart, this nightmare scenario isn’t unfolding ever again. You’re about to learn how to write a CV no one will be able to resist reading.
Read this guide and you’ll see:
Want to save time and have your CV ready in 5 minutes? Try our CV builder. It’s fast and easy to use. Plus, you’ll get ready-made content to add with one click. See 20+ CV templates and create your CV here.
Sample CV made with our builder—See more CV samples here.
Here’s how to write a CV:
This is the most effective CV structure: the top of the document should contain important contact information, the summary is a great way to introduce yourself, and show your experience and achievements, while the rest of the curriculum vitae is there to provide as many relevant details as necessary to convince the reader that you're the perfect fit for the position.
Have a job title or position in sight already? Here are CV examples for specific situations: 100+ CV Examples for All Careers.
We'll explain how to successfuly go through each of the above mentioned steps in the following chapters of our guide.
1
In its full form, CV stands for Curriculum Vitae (latin for: course of life). In the US, Canada, and Australia, a CV is a document you use for academic purposes. The US academic CV outlines every detail of your scholarly career. In other countries, CV is an equivalent of an American resume and is used to apply for a job.
A CV is therefore a curriculum vitae, and other than its length and purpose in a few English-speaking countries, a CV is a synonym for a resume. Confused? Read our full guide on what a CV is.
Let’s get this straight, once and for all:
In the hiring industry, nowadays there’s almost no formal difference between a CV and a resume. It’s the same thing that Brits call a CV and Americans—a resume.
Just like they do with chips and french fries, football and soccer, or Queen Elizabeth and Queen Bey.
So, if you're applying to a European company, you should create a CV. But if you're applying to a US-based employer, you should make a resume. If you're making a CV for academic purposes in the US, Canada or Australia, read our guide on the differences between a CV and a resume.
And no, a CV is not a cover letter. A curriculum vitae contains your work history, education and skills, while a cover letter is a full-blown marketing campaign. These documents are completely different, and you can learn more about those differences in this guide on Curriculum Vitae VS Cover Letter.
If you're confident now that you need a curriculum vitae, let's get this writing guide started.
2
Here’s a disturbing thought:
Every time you’re looking for a job, you compete against 250 other candidates on average.
Yes, you read that right.
Imagine you are the recruiter and you have to review 250 job applications. Do you thoroughly read all of them? Nah, of course you don’t.
Recruiters spend only 6 seconds scanning each CV. So the very first impression is key. If you submit a neat, properly organised document, you’ll convince the recruiters to spend more time on your CV.
A poorly formatted CV, on the other hand, will get you discarded in the first-round review.
Here’s how to format a CV the right way.
Start with creating a CV outline divided into the following sections:
Pro Tip: If you’re fresh out of uni and need to write a student CV with no experience, or if you've graduated from a very prestigious institution within the last 5 years, put your education section above your work experience.
When filling in the sections, always keep in mind the gold CV formatting rules:
Go for one of the standard CV typefaces: Arial, Tahoma, or Helvetica if you prefer sans-serif fonts, and Times New Roman or Bookman Old Style if serif fonts are your usual pick.
Use 11 to 12 pt font size and single spacing. For your name and section titles, pick 14 to 16 pt font size.
Set one-inch margins for all four sides.
Make sure your CV headings are uniform—make them larger and in bold but go easy on italics and underlining.
Stick to a single dates format on your CV: for example 11-2017, or November 2017.
Less is more.
White space is your friend—recruiters need some breathing room!
Plus, most of the time, after you send out your CV, it’s going to be printed in black ink on white paper. Too many graphics might make it illegible.
Unless you’re explicitly asked to include your photograph in the job ad.
If so—make sure to use a professional looking picture, but not as stiff as an ID photo.
Don’t be one of those candidates stuck in the nineties who think they have to include every single detail about their lives on their CVs.
Hiring, nowadays, is one hell of a hectic business. Nobody’s got the time to care for what high school you’ve attended or to read 10+ bullet point descriptions of past jobs. We’ll get to that later on.
Pro Tip: Once you’ve finished writing, save your CV in PDF to make sure your CV layout stays intact. But pay close attention to the job description. Some employers won’t accept a PDF CV. If such is the case, send your CV in Word.
Learn more about CV formatting from this quick dedicated guide I've written recently: CV Formatting—The Ideal Structure for a CV
Alright, so you’ve got the best CV template ready for ya and you know the basic CV writing rules. Time to dive in!
3
You want the recruiters to get back to you, so you need to let them know how they can reach you.
In the contact information section, enter your:
The contact information section seems fairly straightforward, but here’s the one reason it might be tricky:
Recruiters will use it to research you online. If your social media profiles are unprofessional, or if your LinkedIn profile information doesn’t match that on your CV, you’re immediately out of the race.
Want to avoid it? Read our guide: How to Check Your Online Presence Before Recruiters Look You Up.
4
After listing their contact information on a CV, most candidates jump right into their work experience or education.
But you’ll do better than that. You will actually get remembered by the employer.
So, how to make a CV pop?
All it takes is a CV personal profile statement—a short, snappy paragraph of 100 words tops that tells the recruiters why you are just the candidate they’ve been looking for.
Your personal profile will either be a CV objective or a CV summary.
What’s the difference?
A CV objective shows what skills you’ve mastered and how you’d fit in. It’s a good choice if you’ve got little work experience relevant to the job you’re trying to land, for example, if you’re writing a student CV.
A CV summary, in turn, highlights your career progress and achievements. Use it if you’re a seasoned professional and have a lot of experience in your field.
Now, have a look at some examples. Let’s say there’s a posting for a nursing job. Here are sample nursing CV objectives and summaries.
| wrong |
|---|
| Newly licensed Nurse looking for a challenging nursing role in a medical facility where I can put my skills to the test. |
Not awful, right? The problem is, in this CV objective, the bottom line is basically “I want a job because I learnt for the job.”
Have a look at another CV objective sample.
| right |
|---|
| Dependable licensed NMC Registered Nurse trained to work in high-stress environments and stay calm under pressure. Seeking to leverage meticulous record-keeping and analytical skills to help St Francis Hospital with your upcoming challenges. |
See the difference? The latter candidate focused solely on what she can offer her future employer. She also mentioned the name of the specific hospital to which she’s applying.
And yes, name-dropping is something you, too, should definitely do in your CV objective.
True, it means you won’t be able to spam your CV out to every company that’s currently hiring but, then again, when was the last time you replied to a “Dear User” email?
As we said before, if you’ve got some relevant job experience under your belt, begin your CV with a CV summary instead of an objective.
Check out these sample CV summaries.
| right |
|---|
| Bilingual (English and Dutch) Pediatric Nurse with 15+ years of experience in the intensive and neonatal care units of a community hospital. Seeking to leverage management experience as Chief Pediatric Nurse at General Hospital, helping to implement new staff training programmes. |
The General Hospital Director just picked up the phone to call this candidate.
What’s so great about this CV summary?
Above all, it’s super-specific. It gives a complete outline of the candidate’s background and shows how her experience will help her tackle particular problems the hospital is facing.
Here’s another example of a CV summary.
| wrong |
|---|
| Pediatric Nurse with years of experience supervising the medication and health records of newborns. |
This one, on the other hand, says little more than “I am a nurse.” It presents nothing but generic responsibilities all nurses have.
In your CV summary, don’t ever go for meaningless buzzwords.
When making a resume in our builder, drag & drop bullet points, skills, and auto-fill the boring stuff. Spell check? Check. Start building a professional resume template here for free.
When you’re done, Zety’s resume builder will score your resume and tell you exactly how to make it better.
Writing an objective or a summary for your professional CV is tricky and we know it. That's why we've put together a dedicated guide to crafting this section: 20+ CV Personal Statement/Personal Profile Examples (Writing Guide)
For more detailed examples of summaries or objectives, check out: How To Write A CV Summary: 21 Best Examples You Will See and 20+ CV Objective Examples—Use Them On Your CV (Tips)
5
More often than not, your work experience section is the most important part of your whole CV—the one that gets the most eyetime.
If you’re thinking “Easy, I just need to list my previous positions, the dates worked, and my responsibilities,” think again.
All of the above are must-haves in a basic CV. But “basic” won’t get you that dream job.
The thing is: recruiters know what you did. They want to know how well you did it and what you can offer your prospective employer.
Here’s how to make your work experience section illustrate that:
Let’s see a real-life CV example.
Here’s a sample job description for a position of a junior product marketing specialist.
Responsibilities:
Now, have a look at this example of a CV work experience entry.
Product Marketer
Nike, 10-2015–present
London
Key achievement: Lead a project team (5) in designing and implementing a comprehensive social media relations strategy for a new line of lifestyle products, grew Facebook fan base from 0 to 12,000 in 4 months [LINK to the Facebook fanpage], gained 35,000 Instagram followers [LINK to the Instagram account] in 3 months.
“Wow, we need this one to work with us!”
This entry is sure to bring that sort of response from the hiring manager.
What makes it so great?
First, it’s perfectly tailored to the job ad (have another look at the numbered phrases in bold). The candidate showed she’ll be able to manage her most important future tasks because she’s done them before.
Secondly, it’s action-verbs-packed. “Created and maintained” instead of “responsible for creating and maintaining,” “produced product pitches,” not “product pitches production.”
Last but not least, its central focus is the candidate’s achievements. Like the candidate above, if you want your CV to impress, add a “key achievement” sub-section. Then, include hard numbers. Don’t say you “significantly increased sales.” Say how much exactly. Numbers pop!
To make sure your achievements on a CV shine as they’re supposed to, follow the PAR (Problem Action Result) formula to describe them.
Like in the CV example discussed:
Key achievement: Lead a project team in designing and implementing a comprehensive social media relations strategy for a new line of lifestyle products, grew Facebook fanbase from 0 to 12,000 in 4 months, gained 35,000 Instagram followers in 3 months.
Problem: Lack of sufficient social media promotion for a new line of lifestyle products
Action: New social media strategy
Result: 12,000 Facebook fans in 4 months, and 35,000 Instagram followers in 3 months.
If you learn how to list your achievements on a CV the right way, you’ll outperform 9 out of 10 other candidates. Have a read of our dedicated guide: Achievements to Put on a CV: Complete Guide (30+ Examples)
6
Good news is, putting your education on a CV is usually simple.
If you’ve got any post-secondary education, include only it on your CV. Don’t mention your high school, unless it’s your highest degree of education. List:
Pro Tip: Including your honours is optional. If you don’t want them to do you more harm than good, add them only if they’re 2:1 or higher for the undergrad degrees, and “merit” or “distinction” for postgrads.
Like this:
2014 B.A. in French
University of Southampton
2:1
Easy, right?
But what if you’re writing a CV with little or no work experience? What if you’ve just graduated and are looking for your first full-blown job?
If such is the case, you should do two things:
First of all, place your education section above your work experience.
Secondly, elaborate a bit more on your academic experience. Include, for instance:
A lot of fresh graduates don’t know how to make their CVs’ education section stand out. If you want to have an edge over them, read our comprehensive guide: How to Put Your Education on a CV [Tips & Examples]
7
Now, for your skills. You’ve probably got plenty of these. But would a list of a dozen and a half skills look good on a CV?
Anything but.
When it comes to skills for a CV, one issue is more important than any other: relevance. The skills you decide to include on your CV have to be relevant to the job you’re trying to land.
Remember when I mentioned tailoring your CV to the job description? Here it comes again.
How to do it?
Start with a spreadsheet. In it, list all your professional skills (that’s right, it means “eyebrow dancing” doesn’t count). Then check the job description for the skills desired by your prospective employer.
Do they match some of the skills from your spreadsheet? Presto! These are the ones to put in your CV skills section. Include an appropriate mix of hard skills, soft skills, and anything in between.
Pro Tip: When you list your skills, add a short description of each to indicate your level of proficiency. For example “Excellent,” “Advanced,” or “Basic.”
Want to find out which skills on a CV are most valued by employers? Check out this piece and impress every recruiter: 30+ Best Examples of What Skills to Put on a CV (Proven Tips)
8
Let us all confess to something.
We constantly lie about ourselves. We just can’t help it—those little white lies that help put us in a slightly better light.
Care to venture a guess what group of people excels in lying?
Job seekers.
They all lie on their CVs in frail hopes that recruiters won’t be bothered to verify, say, “full bilingual proficiency in French.”
Here’s the thing: recruiters are trained to spot liars, so don’t even entertain the thought of embellishing your past achievements or skills.
But what if you could help the recruiters avoid interviewing CV fabulists altogether? There’s a surefire way to do it:
On your CV, include an additional section in which you show off your unquestionable triumphs: things that prove your value as a candidate.
Such as?
The following:
A well crafted additional section can be the decisive factor in choosing you over another candidate with a seemingly similar background. Don’t ignore this chance to stand out from the crowd. Learn more from our handy guide: How to List Certifications on a CV: Guide (20+ Examples)
Don’t worry if you’re still studying and can yet showcase none of the above.
A good student CV will still benefit from an additional section. Here are some ideas:
For more, see: What to Include in a Curriculum Vitae Section by Section
Right, if you apply all the strategies we discussed, you’ll make a perfect CV. But hey—
Want to do it the easy way?
9
Let’s face it—
No one likes to mess around with formatting a CV in MS Word.
Luckily, there are hundreds of ready, fill-in-the-blanks CV templates available online. And we happen to offer some truly cracking ones.
Check out some of the CV templates available in our CV maker:
CV Templates UK—See 20+ CV templates and create your CV here
And for the final word, here’s what every job seeker ought to know:
10
“Stalk your prospective boss to show commitment.”
Sound like the worst career advice one can get?
Well… And probably is so. But guess what—
“You don’t need to write a cover letter” comes in a close second.
Why?
Because as many as 45 out of 100 recruiters won’t even get around to reviewing your CV if there’s no cover letter attached, according to our HR statistics report. True, the other 55 might think a cover letter for a CV is redundant. But here’s who does read cover letters:
Hiring managers. And, at the end of the day, it’s their decision whether or not you’re getting the job.
Most people hate writing cover letters for CVs because they are clueless about how to write them properly. And writing great cover letters is much easier than it seems.
Want to learn how to do it? Here’s the only guide you’ll need: How to Write a Cover Letter in 8 Simple Steps
Plus, a great cover letter that matches your resume will give you an advantage over other candidates. You can write it in our cover letter builder here. Here's what it may look like:
See more cover letter templates and start writing.
Hiring has changed drastically. It’s fast and furious. To get your foot in the door, you’ll need to go an extra mile with your CV. Here's how to make a CV:
Do you have any more questions on how to write a job-winning CV? Give us a shout in the comments and we’ll answer your queries!
A Curriculum Vitae (CV) is a job application document that summarizes your professional experience, skillset, and qualifications. In some circumstances, such as when applying for research placements, graduate school, or academia in general, a CV is a comprehensive description of both your professional and academic career.
The terms resume and CV are used interchangeably in Canada and Australia. So, a resume and CV are standard documents you apply for jobs with. However, in Europe and New Zealand, the term resume does not exist. To be considered for a position, you have to send through a Curriculum Vitae.
Hope you’ll never have any more doubts about what a CV is.
With Zety CV builder, you won’t have to remember all those points. It’ll remember it for you. Just pick a CV template you like the most from over 20+ designs, and let’s get you a job.
A perfect CV draws attention with a modern template design and clear sections allowing for enough whitespace. An eye-catching CV design combined with highly tailored content will create an invincible duo in 2023. You'll need to strike a balance between breaking the design standards and building your CV with the Applicant Tracking Software in mind if you hope to impress your recruiters.
See the CV templates Zety’s hiring pros have designed for you to get a head start. Pick one and go to the CV maker to complete it within minutes. Or, create a perfect CV all by yourself but with the help of one of our CV examples.
Et voilà!
Whether you’re writing a graduate CV or executive resume, there are universal rules to follow. So, don’t worry about having little or no experience. There’s a smart way to get you a job.
The reverse-chronological format is the best out of the three CV format musketeers. It’s simple to read by the Applicant Tracking Software, which makes it highly unlikely for your CV not to reach the recruiter. Ultimately, recruiters can make informed decisions about hiring in seconds by only skimming such a CV. What’s not to love?
The best resume templates for students you’ll ever see - all in one place! Writing a high school resume? A college resume for an internship? A grad resume for your first job? No matter. You’ll have a beautiful resume that grabs attention and gets you tons of interviews! Use our templates and write a resume fast and easy!
Applying for a job via email? You need a perfect email cover letter (No, copy-pasting your regular cover letter will NOT do.) Check out this guide to see an email cover letter sample that gets jobs. Plus, you’ll get an email cover letter template you can adjust and use, tons of expert advice, and actionable cover letter tips.
Are you ready to apply for graduate school? In this guide, we detail how to write a resume / CV for grad school admissions, with expert tips and examples to help you along.
![Resume for Graduate School Application [Template & Examples]](https://cdn-images.zety.com/pages/graduate_school_resume_example_2.jpg?fit=crop&h=250&dpr=2)