STEP-BY-STEP CV WRITING ADVICE
Learn how to write a clear, professional CV from start to finish. This guide covers CV structure, personal profiles, work experience, education, skills, formatting and how to prepare your final document in Microsoft Word.
How to Write a CV
A CV should give an employer a clear summary of your relevant experience, qualifications and skills. The strongest CVs are not simply long lists of everything a candidate has done. They prioritise information that helps demonstrate suitability for a particular role.
Before writing, read the job description carefully and identify the experience, qualifications and skills the employer is looking for. You can then decide which parts of your background deserve the most attention.
1. Choose a Clear Structure
Organise your CV into predictable sections so recruiters can quickly find your profile, experience, education and skills.
2. Prioritise Relevant Information
Give more space to experience and achievements connected to the role rather than treating every previous position equally.
3. Keep It Easy to Read
Use clear headings, consistent dates, readable typography and enough spacing to prevent the document from feeling crowded.
What Should a CV Include?
The exact sections can vary by profession and career stage, but most job-seeking CVs contain the following core information.
Contact Details
Place your name and essential contact information near the top of the document. Normally this includes a telephone number, professional email address and, where useful, a LinkedIn profile or portfolio link.
You generally do not need to fill the top of your CV with unnecessary personal information. Include details because they help an employer contact or evaluate you, not simply because there is space available.
Personal Profile
A personal profile is a short introduction near the beginning of your CV. It should quickly explain who you are professionally, the experience or strengths you offer and the type of value you can bring to an employer.
Avoid filling the profile with unsupported phrases such as “hard-working”, “motivated” or “team player”. Specific experience, specialist knowledge or measurable strengths are more informative.
Work Experience
List relevant employment starting with your most recent position. For each role, include the job title, organisation, dates and concise information explaining your responsibilities and achievements.
Recent and relevant positions usually deserve more detail than older or unrelated jobs. This keeps the CV focused while still showing your employment history.
Education
Include qualifications that are relevant to your career and the position you are targeting. The amount of detail required will depend on your experience. A graduate may devote significant space to education, while an experienced professional may keep this section shorter.
Skills
Focus on skills that are relevant to the vacancy. These may include technical abilities, software knowledge, languages, specialist procedures or other job-specific capabilities.
Where possible, your work experience should also demonstrate these skills in practice rather than relying entirely on a separate list.
How to Write a Strong Personal Profile
Your profile is one of the first sections a recruiter may read, so it should be concise and specific. Rather than trying to describe your entire career, use it to establish your professional direction and strongest relevant qualities.
A useful approach is to answer three questions:
- Who are you professionally? State your profession, specialism or current career stage.
- What relevant experience or expertise do you have? Highlight the strongest evidence for the role.
- What can you contribute? Identify useful strengths, results or specialist capabilities.
Example CV Personal Profile
Detail-oriented management accountant with five years of experience supporting financial reporting, budgeting and month-end processes within multi-site organisations. Advanced Excel user with practical experience of improving reporting accuracy and reducing manual reconciliation work.
The example works because it provides a profession, level of experience, relevant responsibilities and specific strengths without relying on a long list of generic personality claims.
How to Write Work Experience on a CV
Your employment history should help a recruiter understand what you actually did and the level at which you worked. Job titles alone rarely provide enough information.
Start with the basic information
- Job title
- Employer or organisation
- Location where relevant
- Employment dates
Describe responsibilities selectively
Focus on responsibilities that show the scope of your role and relate to the type of work you want to do next. Routine duties can often be combined rather than filling the CV with repetitive bullet points.
Add achievements where possible
Specific results can make an experience section more convincing. Useful evidence may include revenue, cost savings, project completion, customer satisfaction, workload, efficiency improvements, targets or other outcomes relevant to your profession.
Do not invent numbers simply to make a statement look impressive. Use measurable results only when they genuinely reflect your work.
How Long Should a CV Be?
There is no single page count that works for every candidate. CV length should be influenced by the amount of relevant information you need to communicate.
One-Page CV
A one-page CV may be sufficient for students, recent graduates, early-career candidates or applicants with a relatively short history of relevant experience.
Two-Page CV
Experienced professionals often need additional space to describe relevant roles, projects and achievements without reducing the text to an uncomfortable size.
Do not add irrelevant information simply to reach a particular length, and do not remove useful evidence simply to force a CV onto one page. Relevance and readability should guide the final document.
How to Format a CV in Microsoft Word
Good formatting should make your CV easier to read rather than drawing attention away from the content. Microsoft Word gives you enough control to create a structured document, but unnecessary formatting can quickly make a CV difficult to maintain.
- Use consistent heading sizes throughout the document.
- Keep body text comfortably readable.
- Use the same date format throughout your employment and education sections.
- Maintain consistent spacing between sections.
- Avoid squeezing too much information into a small area.
- Check that text boxes, columns and tables do not move unexpectedly after editing.
- Review every page after replacing template text with your own information.
If you prefer not to build the layout from scratch, start with an editable Word CV template and adapt the structure to your information.
Tailor Your CV to the Job
A CV should not remain completely unchanged for every application. You do not need to rewrite the entire document each time, but the emphasis should reflect the position you are targeting.
Read the job description
Identify repeated requirements, responsibilities, qualifications and technical skills. These help indicate what the employer considers important.
Compare the vacancy with your experience
Look for genuine connections between the employer’s requirements and your previous work, education, projects or skills.
Adjust the emphasis
Move the most relevant information into prominent positions and give stronger examples more detail. Older or less relevant experience can usually be shortened.
Use relevant terminology naturally
Where the terminology accurately describes your own experience, using language that appears in the vacancy can make your CV easier for both recruiters and recruitment systems to understand. Avoid adding keywords for skills you do not actually possess.
Common CV Mistakes to Avoid
- Using the same generic profile for every type of job.
- Listing responsibilities without showing the scope or results of your work.
- Including irrelevant information simply to make the CV longer.
- Using inconsistent fonts, dates, spacing or heading styles.
- Making the text too small to force the document onto fewer pages.
- Adding skills or achievements that cannot be supported.
- Failing to check spelling, grammar and contact information.
- Submitting the wrong version of the CV for the vacancy.
Before You Send Your CV
Give the finished document one final review before submitting an application.
- Confirm that your telephone number and email address are correct.
- Check employment and education dates.
- Correct spelling and grammar errors.
- Make sure headings and spacing are consistent.
- Check that no template placeholder text remains.
- Confirm that the most relevant experience is easy to find.
- Open the finished file again to check that formatting has not moved.
- Use a clear and professional filename.
If the employer requests a PDF, keep your editable Word version for future updates and export a separate PDF copy for submission.
CV Writing FAQs
What is the best way to start a CV?
Start with clear contact details followed by a concise professional profile. The profile should quickly establish your profession, relevant experience and strongest points for the type of role you are targeting.
Should a CV include every job I have had?
Not necessarily in equal detail. Recent and relevant roles usually deserve the most space. Older or less relevant positions can often be shortened while still preserving a clear career history.
Should I write my CV in first person?
CVs are commonly written in a concise style that avoids repeatedly using “I”. For example, a profile may begin “Experienced project manager with…” rather than “I am an experienced project manager…”. Consistency and readability are more important than rigidly following one grammatical formula.
How often should I update my CV?
Update your CV whenever your experience, responsibilities, qualifications or skills change. It is usually easier to record achievements while they are recent rather than trying to remember them months later.
Should I send my CV as Word or PDF?
Follow the employer’s instructions when a specific format is requested. Keeping an editable Word master copy makes future updates easier, while a PDF can preserve the final layout when that format is suitable for submission.
Ready to Create Your CV?
Choose an editable Microsoft Word template or browse completed CV examples for your profession before writing your own document.