How to write a CV: structure, length and what to include

A good CV answers three questions in the order the reader asks them: who are you, can you do this job, and what is the evidence. Everything else on the page exists to support those answers.

The order that works

1. Contact block. Name, city, phone, email, and one professional link if it is relevant. As ordinary text at the top of the page — not in a header, where some systems cannot read it.

2. Summary. Three or four lines: your role, your level, your specialism, one proof, and what you are looking for now. Not an objective statement about what you want from an employer; a statement of what you are.

3. Work experience. Most recent first. Job title, employer, location, dates, then three to six bullet points of what you achieved.

4. Education. Qualification, institution, dates, grade if it is strong or recent.

5. Skills. Six to ten, specific ones — the tools, systems, languages and methods you would be comfortable being tested on.

6. Everything else, if it earns its place. Certifications, publications, volunteering, languages with a level, professional memberships, a portfolio link.

How long should a CV be?

One page if you have under about ten years of experience, two pages for most professional careers, three only if you are in academia, medicine, or a field where a publication list is expected.

The length is a symptom, not a target. A one-page CV that omits your best work is a mistake; a three-page CV with two pages of duties is a bigger one.

What to include, and what to leave off

Include: achievements with numbers, the scale you worked at, the systems and tools you used, the sectors you know, qualifications that are required or unusual.

Leave off: date of birth, marital status, nationality, a photograph (unless the country's convention expects one), your full postal address, "references available on request", hobbies that invite a question, salary expectations, a list of soft skills with no evidence, and any sentence that begins "responsible for".

The test every line has to pass

Read each line and ask: could a different person have written this about the same job?

"Responsible for customer service" — yes, anyone in that job could. "Handled 60–80 calls a day on a billing queue during a system migration, with a 94% first-contact resolution rate" — no. That is you.

Most CV writing advice is a version of this one test. The job title already tells the reader what you were supposed to do; your CV's job is to show how you did it differently.

Writing the bullet points

• Start with a verb, not with "Responsible for".
• Lead with the result, then say how.
• One idea per bullet, one or two lines long.
• Numbers wherever a real one exists: volume, value, percentage, headcount, timescale.
• Past tense for previous roles, present for the current one.

A short example

Before: Responsible for the social media accounts and helping with marketing campaigns.

After: Grew Instagram from 1,200 to 9,800 followers in eight months, owning the weekly content calendar and shooting all product photography for a launch that sold out in nine days.

Same job. One version tells a reader what the job was; the other tells them what you are like.

Then format it plainly

Single column, one clear font, standard section headings, generous margins, consistent dates. Nothing clever. If you want the detail on layout and file types, read the CV format guide.

If writing it yourself is the blocker

Knowing what to do and doing it to your own career are different problems. If you would rather have the rewrite done, upload your CV and read the refined version before paying anything — from £0.99, once, PDF and Word.