How to Write a CV: A Complete, Step-by-Step Guide

1. Start with contact details and a clear headline

At the very top, put your name, a professional email address, a phone number, and your city. A link to a portfolio, LinkedIn profile, or — if you publish one — a public CV page is a strong addition. You do not need a full postal address, date of birth, or a photo for most markets; they take up space and can invite bias.

Directly under your name, add a one-line headline that states the role you are targeting, for example 'Frontend Engineer · React & TypeScript' or 'Registered Nurse · Critical Care'. This orients the reader in a single glance and signals that the document is tailored, not a generic broadcast.

Keep the contact block clean and scannable. A recruiter who cannot quickly find your email will not go looking for it.

2. Write a professional summary — with three worked examples

A summary is three to four lines that answer: who you are, what you are strong at, and what you are looking for. Most summaries fail because they are either too vague to mean anything, or simply repeat what is already obvious from the job title. The goal is to give a reader one specific, memorable reason to read the rest of the document.

Bad summary: 'A motivated and results-driven professional with excellent communication skills and a passion for delivering great outcomes.' This says nothing a recruiter has not read five hundred times today. There is no role, no specialism, and no evidence.

Good summary: 'Product manager with six years of experience shipping B2B SaaS features at companies between 50 and 500 people. Led the team that redesigned the onboarding flow at Flux — cut time-to-value from 14 days to 3. Now looking for a head of product role where I can own the full customer journey.' This has a specialism, a concrete result, and a clear direction.

Another example — good: 'Chartered accountant with eight years in audit, most recently at a Big Four firm managing engagements up to £50m. Strong background in financial services and regulated industries. Seeking a commercial finance role where I can move closer to operational decisions.' Again: context, evidence, direction.

Treat the summary as a trailer, not the whole film. If a recruiter only reads this paragraph, they should still understand your value and whether to carry on.

3. Make experience the centre of gravity

List your work history in reverse-chronological order — most recent first. For each role include the job title, organisation, location, and dates. Then, instead of describing duties, describe outcomes. Duties tell a reader what you were supposed to do; outcomes tell them what actually happened because you were there.

The strongest bullet points follow a simple shape: action verb, what you did, and the result. 'Rebuilt the checkout flow, cutting drop-off by 18% over one quarter' tells a recruiter far more than 'Responsible for the checkout flow.' Quantify wherever you honestly can — percentages, time saved, revenue, headcount, volume.

If you managed a team, say how large. If you had a budget, say the size. If you delivered a project, name the deadline and whether you met it. Specificity builds credibility; generality destroys it.

• Lead each bullet with a strong verb: built, led, reduced, launched, negotiated, automated.
• Keep bullets to one or two lines — readers skim, they do not study.
• Put the most impressive bullet first under each role.
• Aim for three to six bullets per role; fewer for older or shorter positions.
• Never start two consecutive bullets with the same verb.

4. Write bullet points with before-and-after rewrites

The single most common CV problem is bullets that describe responsibilities rather than results. Here is how to diagnose and fix them. Ask yourself: 'If I had done this job averagely, would this bullet still be true?' If the answer is yes, the bullet is describing a job description, not your contribution.

Before: 'Responsible for managing social media accounts for the brand.' After: 'Grew the brand's Instagram following from 4,200 to 31,000 in 18 months by switching to a video-first strategy, doubling average engagement rate.' The second version tells a reader exactly what changed because of the work.

Before: 'Involved in recruitment and onboarding of new staff.' After: 'Rebuilt the onboarding programme for the sales team, reducing average ramp time from 12 weeks to 7 and cutting 90-day attrition by a third.' The specifics do the work that the vague original cannot.

Before: 'Worked on client projects across multiple sectors.' After: 'Led discovery and delivery for six digital transformation projects in financial services and retail, ranging from £80k to £300k in scope, all delivered on time.' Each rewrite follows the same formula: who, what, how much, what changed.

5. Add education, skills, and the supporting sections

Below experience, list education with the qualification, institution, and year. Early-career applicants can place education higher and include relevant coursework or projects; experienced professionals can keep it brief. A degree from fifteen years ago rarely needs more than one line.

A focused skills section helps both human readers and automated screening. Group skills meaningfully — for example languages, tools, and certifications — and only list what you can actually discuss in an interview. A skills section padded with 'Microsoft Word' and 'good communicator' wastes a reader's time and your own credibility.

Certifications, languages, and professional memberships each deserve their own short section if they are relevant. Publications, patents, and speaking engagements belong here too if they demonstrate expertise relevant to the role you are targeting.

6. Handle employment gaps honestly

Gaps in employment are far more common than recruiters pretend, and far less damaging than candidates fear — provided you address them directly. A gap left unexplained looks like something being hidden. A gap that is named and briefly contextualised looks like someone who has nothing to hide.

If you took time out to care for a family member, that is worth stating plainly: 'Career break: full-time carer for a parent, 2023–2024.' If you were made redundant and took time to search, say so. If you used the period to retrain, study, or freelance, absolutely include it as an entry in its own right.

What you should not do is try to obscure dates by listing only years and hoping no one notices. Recruiters notice. A gap addressed briefly and honestly becomes a non-issue; a gap that looks manipulated becomes a red flag.

7. Tailor your CV for different industries

The same career history reads very differently depending on what you emphasise. A project manager applying to a tech startup should lead with product delivery, speed, and cross-functional collaboration. The same person applying to a large infrastructure firm should lead with governance, risk management, and stakeholder sign-off.

For creative industries, a portfolio link in the header is often worth more than two pages of prose. For finance and professional services, precision and qualifications matter — imprecise language or missing accreditation details will raise doubts. For healthcare and education, safeguarding, regulatory compliance, and continuous professional development should be visible.

You do not need a completely different CV for each sector. You need one strong base document, then twenty minutes of targeted editing for each application: reorder bullets, adjust the summary, swap one or two skills for the ones the posting specifically mentions.

8. Get the length and format right

For most people, one to two pages is the right length. A single page is ideal early in your career; two pages is acceptable once you have a decade of relevant history. Three pages is rarely justified outside academia and senior research roles where a full publication list is expected.

Use consistent spacing, a readable font size (10–12pt for body text), and clear section headings. Avoid colour schemes that print badly. Avoid tables and text boxes in the main content — they can confuse automated parsing systems. A clean, well-structured template removes most of these choices, which is exactly what good CV builders are designed to do.

Margins should give the page breathing room — 1.5 to 2cm on each side is standard. White space is not wasted space; it makes a document faster to scan and projects more confidence than a page stuffed to the edges.

9. Proofread, then tailor

Typos signal carelessness, and a single spelling mistake can undermine an otherwise excellent CV. Read your CV aloud — your ear catches what your eye misses. Then ask one other person who will be honest with you to check it. Look specifically for: inconsistent tense (past for old roles, present for current), inconsistent punctuation, and dates that do not add up.

After proofreading, tailor the document to each role. Mirror the language of the job description where it honestly applies, and move the most relevant experience to the top. A recruiter should read the first half-page of your CV and think 'this person is describing exactly what we need.' That does not happen by accident.

A tailored, error-free two-page CV beats a generic five-page one every time.

10. Final CV checklist before you apply

Before you submit, run through this list. Each item takes less than a minute to check, and together they prevent the most common reasons CVs are discarded before a human reads them properly.

• Contact details are correct and the email address is professional.
• Headline names the specific role you are applying for.
• Summary is specific — no generic buzzwords, at least one concrete detail.
• Every bullet under experience leads with an action verb and includes a result.
• Dates are consistent in format and cover every role without unexplained gaps.
• Skills section matches the language of this specific job description.
• Document is one to two pages, saved as PDF, with a clear filename (e.g. YourName-CV-2026.pdf).
• Someone else has proofread it in the last 24 hours.