How to write a CV, section by section

A CV is a summary of your skills, achievements and experience that you use to apply for jobs, in the words of the National Careers Service. It is not written in the order it is read: start from the job advert and finish with the personal statement at the top.

1. Read the job advert and the person specification, and note the skills and wording they use.
2. Gather your details: employers, job titles, dates (month and year), qualifications and grades.
3. Write your work history, most recent first.
4. Add education, skills and references.
5. Write your personal statement last, matched to the role.
6. Proofread, then save as a PDF unless the advert asks for Word.

1. Contact details: name, phone number, email address, town or city, LinkedIn profile if you have one.
2. Personal statement: a few lines on who you are and what you want to do.
3. Work history: paid jobs, placements and volunteering, most recent first.
4. Education and qualifications: degree and classification, A levels, GCSEs, vocational qualifications.
5. Skills: software, languages, a full driving licence if the job needs one.
6. References: a single line is enough.

Early in your career, or with little work experience, put education before work history. With a few years of relevant jobs, put work history first.

Use your name as the title of the page, not the word “CV”, as Prospects advises. Underneath: a mobile number, a sensible email address, your town or city, and a link to your LinkedIn profile. A full home address is not needed, especially on a CV posted online.

Three or four lines under your contact details: your role or course, two or three skills the advert asks for, one achievement, and the kind of job you want. Keep it specific to the sector.

Openings for every situation in the CV personal statement guide.

For each role, give the job title, the employer, the town and the dates. Then two or three lines or bullets: the National Careers Service suggests the STAR method (situation, task, action, result). Start each bullet with an active verb, such as “organised”, “analysed” or “trained”, and add a figure when you have one.

List qualifications most recent first, with the name of the school, college or university and the dates. Give your degree classification (2:1, First) and your A level grades; group GCSEs in one line (“9 GCSEs, grades 9 to 5, including English and Maths”) once you have higher qualifications.

For skills, use the exact names from the advert (“Xero”, “Microsoft Excel”, “Welsh, fluent”) and prove soft skills in your work history rather than listing them. The skills for your CV page gives lists by sector.

No more than two A4 pages, as Prospects recommends; one page is often enough for a student or a part-time job. Use a clear font such as Arial or Calibri, size 10 to 12, consistent headings, bullet points and margins of about 2.5 cm. Avoid two columns, tables and graphics: applicant tracking systems read them badly.

Large and high-volume employers often screen CVs with an applicant tracking system (ATS), which extracts your details and lets recruiters search for keywords from the job description. To get through:

• a PDF with real text, not a scan or an image;
• standard headings (“Work history”, “Education”, “Skills”);
• a single column;
• qualifications named in full;
• keywords from the advert and the person specification.

The ATS CV checker shows how software reads your file and what costs you points.

The National Careers Service and Prospects agree: write your CV to match the job and the employer. Change your personal statement, reorder your bullets and use the advert's wording where it describes what you have really done. In Kandiq, tailoring rewrites your headline, personal statement, bullets and skills in the advert's words; you untick what you don't want, and you can keep it as a second CV so the original stays as it was. It uses 5 AI credits.

Lead with education, then show what you have already done: a Saturday job, work experience at school, volunteering, Duke of Edinburgh, a sports team captaincy. The National Careers Service suggests interests that show a skill, such as leadership. One page is enough. See it applied in the student CV examples and the graduate CV.

• Ask someone to read it: spellcheck misses names and dates.
• Explain gaps in a line: travel, caring, study, redundancy.
• Don't exaggerate: grades and job titles are easy to check.
• Name the file “Firstname-Lastname-CV.pdf”.
• Add a cover letter unless the employer says otherwise, and keep a copy of both for the interview.

The Kandiq CV editor starts from a blank page, your current CV imported from PDF or Word, or your LinkedIn PDF export. Paste the job advert and the AI suggests each bullet from it, next to your own text; it never invents a figure and asks you for the real one. Creating, editing and checking your score cost nothing. PDF download is part of Kandiq Pro, at £2.99 for the first week, then £18.99 a month, or £29.97 every three months.