How to Write a Good CV

Prefer to have a go yourself?

You absolutely can.
The principles behind a good CV aren’t mysterious.
Your CV needs to make it easy for a recruiter to understand what you can do, what you have done, and why you are relevant to the job.

This guide covers the basic principles we use when writing CVs.
If it helps you produce a CV you’re happy with yourself, brilliant. And if you decide you’d rather hand the job over, BreezyCV is here.

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Keep it neat and logical

Your CV should be easy to understand, simple to scan and uncluttered.
Give the most important information priority. A typical structure might be:

Professional Profile
A short introduction explaining what you are, what you do and what you can offer.

Qualifications & Training
If your qualifications are particularly relevant to the job, put them near the top. If they aren’t, they can sit below your career history.

Career Summary
For each position:
Job Title — Company — Dates

• Main responsibilities
• Important contributions
• Relevant achievements

Key Skills
Describe your strongest transferable and professional skills point by point.

References
You normally don’t need to provide names and contact details on the CV itself.
Simply state that professional and personal references are available on request.

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Use bullet points

Make life easy for the person reading your CV.
Recruiters often need to scan information quickly, so avoid huge blocks of text.
For each job, use concise points to explain:

• what you were responsible for;
• what you actually did;
• what you improved, delivered or achieved;
• anything particularly relevant to the job you are now applying for.

Three to five strong points can often say more than a dense paragraph.

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Sell relevance

Your CV is not an inventory of everything you have ever done.
If particular experience or expertise has little relevance to the job you are applying for, don’t give it valuable space simply because you have it.

Read the job description carefully.
Look for the skills, experience, responsibilities and qualifications the employer repeatedly emphasises.
Then make sure the strongest relevant evidence from your own experience appears clearly in your CV.
Pay particular attention to the terminology used in the vacancy. Where it genuinely describes your experience, using similar language can help make the connection obvious.

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Show the skills employers are looking for

Depending on the job, these might include:

• Communication
• Planning
• Leadership
• Analysis
• Numeracy
• Organisation
• Problem-solving
• Creativity
• Teamwork
• Customer service
• Reliability
• Attention to detail

Don’t merely list impressive-sounding skills.
Where possible, show the evidence behind them.

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Remove the pronoun

A CV doesn’t normally need to say:
I did this…
I was responsible for…
I achieved…

And definitely don’t write about yourself in the third person:
Brian was responsible for…

Usually, you can simply remove the pronoun altogether.

Instead of:

I was responsible for organising the weekly production schedule.

Try:

Responsible for organising the weekly production schedule.

Or:

Organising the weekly production schedule and coordinating priorities across the team.

It makes the writing tighter and more professional.

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Keep the language current and active

Where it works naturally, active wording can make your current responsibilities feel immediate:

Managing…
Providing…
Delivering…
Coordinating…
Supporting…

For previous positions, however, don’t become obsessed with forcing every sentence into the same grammatical construction.
The important thing is that the wording is clear, active and easy to understand.

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Self-praise is no praise

Avoid filling your CV with claims such as:
passionate
dynamic
energetic
highly motivated
proactive
exceptional

Anybody can write those words.
Evidence is much more convincing.

Instead of telling the recruiter that you are an excellent organiser, show them something you successfully organised.
Instead of saying you have strong leadership skills, explain what you led.
Cut the fluff and keep the facts.

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Keep it truthful

Never claim qualifications, responsibilities or achievements that you don’t actually have.
An employer may check, (and no one wants to employ someone they can’t trust).

More importantly, a good CV shouldn’t need invention.
The job is to identify the strongest evidence that genuinely exists in your background and present it properly.

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How long should a CV be?

For most people, two pages is plenty.
Some specialists, academics or highly technical applicants may legitimately need more space, particularly where certifications, publications or specialist projects have to be listed.

As a rough guide, 700–800 words can be quite sufficient.

Remember:
Your CV is not your autobiography.
It’s a focused snapshot of the experience, skills and evidence that matter to the person considering you for a job.

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Don’t title it “Curriculum Vitae”

The recruiter already knows what the document is.
Use your name prominently at the top instead.

Generally include:
Your usual first name and surname
Town/location and postcode area
Personal email address
Mobile telephone number

There is normally no need to include every middle name you possess.
And use a sensible personal email address — not your employer’s email account.

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Put the punch line near the top

If something is particularly important to the job, don’t bury it on page two.
Suppose you are applying for an accountancy role and have highly relevant accountancy qualifications and professional memberships.
Make them easy to find.

If you are applying for an engineering position where offshore experience is an essential requirement, and you have extensive offshore experience, make sure the recruiter discovers that immediately.

Your most important qualifying evidence should be among the first things they see.

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References

You normally don’t need to put your referees’ names, telephone numbers and email addresses on the CV.

A simple line is enough:
Professional and personal references are available on request.

Take the full details with you to interview, or provide them when the employer asks.

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Photograph?

For a conventional UK CV, generally NO.

Unless your particular occupation or application specifically calls for one, your appearance isn’t relevant to whether you can do the job.
Use the space to show your experience, qualifications and skills instead.

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What about your age?

You shouldn’t state your age or date of birth.
And your CV doesn’t have to document every year of your life.
If you left school decades ago, detailed school examination results may no longer add anything useful.

Likewise, an experienced applicant doesn’t necessarily need to describe every job held since leaving school.
There is nothing wrong with concentrating on the period of your career that is relevant to the job you are applying for — provided you don’t deliberately mislead the reader.

The aim isn’t to hide who you are.
It is to keep the CV focused on what you can offer now.

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Hobbies and interests

Only give them space if they add something useful.
Nobody needs to know that you watch films or go out with friends.

But an interest can be worth including when it:

• demonstrates a useful skill;
• supports the type of role you’re seeking;
• shows responsibility or achievement;
• gives useful evidence that isn’t available elsewhere in the CV.

A keen amateur programmer applying for a technical role is relevant.
Someone applying for an outdoor-instruction job who climbs, kayaks and sails has useful evidence.

The question is always the same:
Does this information help your application?
If not, leave it out.

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The breezyCV rule

When you’re unsure whether something belongs in your CV, ask yourself three questions:

Is it true?
Is it relevant?
Does it help the recruiter understand what I can offer?

If the answer is yes, it probably deserves consideration.
If the answer is no, it probably doesn’t need to be there.

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Rather we did it for you?

If you’ve read this far and decided you’d rather not spend your evening wrestling with bullet points, profiles and job descriptions, that’s exactly why BreezyCV exists.

You provide the facts. We do the research, writing and formatting.

Choose your CV now