Complete Guide On How To Write A CV In 2024

Imagine you’ve found the best work opportunity. You create what you believe is an attractive CV and joyfully send it out, hoping for that all-important call-back. But it never arrives. Why? Your CV was not even read. It was simply not up to standard.

Do not lose hope. This horrific situation will not happen again. Whether you’re a seasoned candidate or creating your first CV, you’re about to learn how to build a CV that no one can resist reading.

What is a CV and How It Differs From a Resume?

A CV, or Curriculum Vitae, is a document that summarizes your education, professional experience, abilities, achievements, and other qualities. In the United States, Canada, and Australia, a CV is used to apply for academic posts, whereas in Europe, it is the name of the document that serves as the typical résumé. Remember:

• If you’re applying to a European company, you should create a CV. But if you’re trying to get a job in the US, you need to make a resume.
• If you’re making a CV for academic purposes in the US, Canada, or Australia, read our guide on the differences between a CV and a resume.

A curriculum vitae is not the same as a cover letter. A curriculum vitae includes your work experience, education, and talents, whereas a cover letter tells the recruiter why you’re the greatest fit for the position. These documents are entirely different, and you may learn more about them in this guide to Curriculum Vitae vs. Cover Letter.

What is the difference between a CV and a resume?

In the United States, a CV is a document intended to apply for a position in colleges and universities, therefore it focuses mostly on your educational background, whereas a resume emphasizes your professional experience. A CV is typically longer than a resume because it includes a complete record of publications, conferences, and other activities.

How to Write a CV

Writing a CV will be easy if you follow the 9 steps below:

Step 1: Start with the Right CV Format

Recruiters spend only about 6-7 seconds scanning each CV. So, the very first impression is key. If you submit a neat, properly organized document, you’ll convince the recruiters to spend more time on your CV.

Here’s how to make a CV format the right way.

Start with creating a CV outline divided into the following sections:

• CV Header with Contact Information
• Personal Profile: CV Objective or CV Summary
• Work Experience
• Education
• Skills
• Additional Sections

When filling in the sections, always keep in mind the gold CV formatting rules:

1. Choose clear, legible fonts.

Choose one of the basic CV typefaces: Arial, Tahoma, or Helvetica if you prefer sans-serif fonts; Times New Roman or Bookman Old Style if serif fonts are your preference. Use 11 to 12 point font size and single spacing. Choose a font size between 14 and 16 points for your name and section titles.

2. Be consistent with your CV layout.

Set a one-inch margin on all four sides. Make sure your CV headings are consistent—make them larger and bolder, but avoid styles and underlining. Use a single date format on your CV: 11-2024

3. Don’t cram your CV with gimmicky graphics.

Less is more. White space is your friend—recruiters need some breathing room! Plus, most of the time, after you send out your CV, it will be printed in black ink on white paper. Too many graphics might make it illegible.

4. Get photos off of your CV.

Unless you’re explicitly asked to include your photograph in the job ad, use a professional-looking picture, but not as official as an ID photo.

5. Make your CV brief and relevant.

Don’t include every single detail of your work experience and education. Stick only to the facts that are relevant to potential employers.

Step 2: Add Your Contact Information the Right Way

Step 2: Add Your Contact Information the Right Way

Build a CV header that includes the essential contact details. In the contact information section, enter your:

• Full name
• Professional title
• Email address
• Telephone number
• LinkedIn profile
• Home address

The contact information part is very basic, but here’s one reason it could be tricky:

Recruiters will use it to search for you online. If your social media profiles are unprofessional or your LinkedIn profile information does not correspond to your CV, you are automatically eliminated from the contest.

Step 3: Include a Personal Profile and Your Job Title

To create an eye-catching CV, emphasis on the personal profile statement—a brief, 100-word paragraph that tells recruiters why you are the ideal applicant for the job. Your profile will include either a CV objective or a CV summary.

What’s the difference?

• A CV objective shows what skills you’ve mastered and how you’d fit in. It’s a good choice if you’ve got little work experience relevant to the job you’re trying to land, for example, if you’re writing a CV for a student.
• A CV summary, in turn, highlights your career progress and achievements. Use it if you’re a seasoned professional with much experience in your field.

Let’s say there’s a posting for a nursing job. Here are sample nursing CV objectives and summaries.

Dependable licensed NMC Registered Nurse trained to work in high-stress environments and stay calm under pressure. Seeking to leverage meticulous record-keeping and analytical skills to help St Francis Hospital with your upcoming challenges.

The candidate focused solely on what they could offer their future employer. They also mentioned the name of the specific hospital they’re applying to.

As we said before, if you’ve got some relevant job experience, begin your CV with a CV summary instead of an objective. Now, check out a CV summary sample.

Bilingual (English and Dutch) Pediatric Nurse with 15+ years of experience in a community hospital’s intensive and neonatal care units. Seeking to leverage management experience as Chief Pediatric Nurse at General Hospital, helping to implement new staff training programs.

The CV brief is extremely specific, providing a comprehensive overview of the candidate’s background and demonstrating how their skills will assist the hospital address specific difficulties.

Step 4: List Your Relevant Work Experience & Key Achievements

More often than not, your work experience section is the most essential part of your CV—the one that gets the most eye time.

Here’s how to make a job-winning CV work experience section:

• Focus on your measurable, relevant achievements, not just your duties.
• Use action verbs: “created,” “analyzed,” and “implemented,” not “responsible for creating, analysis, and implementation.”
• Tailor your CV to the job posting—read the job description carefully and check what tasks will be expected of you. If you’ve done them before—put them on your CV, even if those weren’t your primary responsibilities.

Here’s a sample job description for a junior product marketing specialist position.

Responsibilities:

• Filling product placement requests from the media
• Creating and maintaining media lists as needed (1)
• Writing product pitches (2)
• Researching new media opportunities (3)
• Support creating media materials and press kits (4)
• Lead a small project (5) from start to finish
• Help in the organization of events (6)
• Respond to media inquiries (7)

Now, take a look at this example of a CV work experience entry.

Product Marketer

Nike, 10-2015–present

London

• Created and maintained lists of media contacts (1)
• Researched opportunities (3) across online media channels
• Produced product pitches (2) and press kits (4)
• Supported event organization (6)
• Responded to media inquiries (7)
• Key achievement: Led a project team (5) in designing and implementing a comprehensive social media
• relations strategy for a new line of lifestyle products, grew Facebook fan base from 0 to 12,000 in 4
• months[LINK to the Facebook fanpage], gained 35,000 Instagram followers[LINK to the Instagram account] in 3 months.

The example above is perfectly tailored to the job ad. The candidate showed they can manage their most important future tasks because they’ve done them before.

Secondly, it’s action-verb-packed. “Created and maintained” instead of “responsible for creating and maintaining,” etc.

Last but not least, it focuses on the candidate’s achievements. Add a “key achievement” subsection for an impressive CV, just like the candidate above did. Then, include numbers. Don’t say you “significantly increased sales.” Say how much precisely. Numbers pop!

To ensure your key achievements shine, follow the PAR (Problem Action Result) formula to describe them.

• Problem: Lack of sufficient social media promotion for a new line of lifestyle products
• Action: New social media strategy
• Result: 12,000 Facebook fans in 4 months and 35,000 Instagram followers in 3 months.

Step 5: Build Your CV Education Section Correctly

Good news is, creating a CV education section is usually simple.

If you’ve got any post-secondary education, include only that on your CV. Don’t mention your high school unless it’s your highest education degree. List:

• Graduation year (if you’re still studying, enter your expected graduation date)
• Your degree
• Institution name
• Honors (if applicable)

Including your honors is optional. If you don’t want them to do you more harm than good, add them only if they’re 2:1 or higher for the undergrad degrees and “merit” or “distinction” for postgrads.

2014 B.A. in French

University of Southampton

2:1

Secondly, elaborate a bit more on your academic experience. Include, for instance:

• Your dissertation title
• Favorite fields of study
• Relevant coursework
• Your best achievements
• Extracurricular academic activities

Step 6: Highlight Your Relevant Soft and Hard Skills

Would a list of twelve and a half skills look decent on a resume? When it comes to CV skills, prioritize relevance above quantity. Include a balanced mix of hard skills, soft skills, and everything in between.

Skills for CV—Example

• Communication skills
• People skills
• Active listening skills
• Leadership skills
• Management skills
• Critical thinking skills
• Analytical skills
• Decision-making skills
• Problem-solving skills
• Organizational skills
• Computer skills

Step 7: Include Additional CV Sections to Impress the Recruiter

Include an additional part where you highlight your unquestionable accomplishments: items that demonstrate your worth as a candidate. Examples include the following:

• Industry awards
• Professional certifications
• Relevant publications
• Professional Affiliations
• Conferences attended
• Additional training

Don’t worry if you’re still studying and can showcase none of the above. A good student CV will still benefit from an additional section. Here are some ideas:

• Volunteer experience
• Hobbies and interests
• Projects
• Freelance work
• Academic achievements
• Personal blog

Step 8: Organize Everything on a Professional CV Template

No one likes to mess around with formatting a CV in MS Word. Luckily, there are hundreds of ready, fill-in-the-blanks CV templates available online. And we offer some genuinely cracking ones.

A strong cover letter that complements your CV will offer you an advantage over other applicants. You can write it using our cover letter builder. Here’s what it might look like:

Step 9: Complement Your CV with a Cover Letter

“You don’t need to write a cover letter.” —It’s a piece of horrible career advice.

Why?

Because as many as 45 out of 100 recruiters won’t even get around to reviewing your CV if there’s no cover letter attached, according to our HR statistics report. And writing great cover letters is much easier than it seems.

Key Takeaway

Hiring has changed drastically. It’s fast and furious. You’ll need to go an extra mile with your CV to get your foot in the door.

Here’s a short summary of how to write a CV:

• Start with a personal profile—a CV summary or objective.
• Follow with your work experience—focus on achievements instead of duties.
• Present your relevant skills.
• Add a section with your top wins: certifications, awards, publications, etc.
• Attach a cover letter to double your chances of getting hired.

Frequently Asked Questions about How to Write a CV

What are the 5 main things your CV should include?

The 5 main things your CV should include are:

• Your contact details
• A CV summary or objective
• Work experience
• Educational background
• Relevant skills

How to write a good CV for a job step by step?

• Create a stand-out CV design. After all, you have to stand out from hundreds of applications.
• Choose one of the three CV formats: reverse-chronological, skills-based, or combination.
• Divide your CV and organize the sections.
• Design a header with your personal information.
• Include a career summary or objective statement, depending on where you’re with your career.
• Write an experience section using bullet points with power words and achievements.
• Indicate your highest degree (together with academic accomplishments if you don’t have much relevant experience).
• List key skills that correspond to the selection criteria from the job description to match the keywords.
• Consider additional sections, such as certificates, hobbies and interests, or volunteering and internships.
• Attach a cover letter to your application, and you’re all set.

How should a perfect CV look in 2024?

A perfect CV stands out with a modern template design and clean sections that leave plenty of room. In 2024, an eye-catching CV design combined with carefully personalized content will form an invincible duo. If you want to impress your recruiters, you must strike a balance between deviating from design conventions and creating your CV with Applicant Tracking Software in mind.

How to start writing a simple Curriculum Vitae?

• Give yourself some time to get your head around writing a CV. You may read and learn about things you never heard about before, which are crucial in making a job-worthy application.
• Design an eye-catching CV template with proper formatting: 1-inch margins, 1–1.15 line spacing, and a sans-serif font, such as Verdana or Arial.
• Decide on the CV format that you’ll follow. Choose from the following three options: reverse-chronological (chronological), functional (skills-based), or combination (hybrid).
• Have a job posting right there open forever when you’re working on your CV. You’ll need it to make sure you covered all the correct CV keywords and responded to the needs of your potential employer.
• Make a list of your relevant experience and skills. Things you did and learned in the past but aren’t in line with the job profile should never make it on the list. And—
• Match them with the qualities and qualifications you found in the job ad.
  Et voilà!

How to write a CV for my first job if I have no experience?

Whether you’re writing a graduate CV or executive resume, there are universal rules to follow. So, don’t worry about having little or no experience. There’s a smart way to get you a job.

• Mark resume keywords in the job description. The keywords are words and phrases that repeat and describe a particular quality or qualification.
• Find such a quality or qualification in your arsenal. That can be anything from taking part-time jobs to doing an internship or taking up volunteer work. Or even from your academic years, such as running a student’s club, tutoring, or relevant hobbies and interests you picked up.
• List soft and hard skills that speak to your employability. In other words, think of any transferable skill you’ve gained throughout various stages of your life.
• Add additional sections that’ll give you the chance to score bonus points for engagement, curiosity, and communication.
• Write an objective statement to give your employer a sense of dedication and show your thought over the application.

What is the best CV format?

The reverse-chronological format is the best of the three CV format musketeers. The Applicant Tracking Software can read it easily, making it extremely improbable that your CV would not reach the recruiter. Ultimately, recruiters can make educated recruiting decisions in seconds by simply perusing such a CV. What is not to love?

Zety is one of the easiest resume/cv builders.