In this article, specialist CV writer and CV trainer Tracey Warren shares her expert guidance on creating a CV that stands out in the UK job market today. Drawing on more than 30 years of senior management experience across a range of sectors, she explains how to structure your CV effectively.
How to Structure a CV: From a CV Specialist
Recruiters spend seconds on a first read of your CV. Get the structure wrong, and a strong career history can be overlooked.
There’s also a second reader to think about: applicant tracking systems (ATS) and other automated tools are now used by many employers. A clear, logically structured CV, using recognisable headings and relevant terminology, is easier for both technology and human readers to interpret.
Applying for an academic role? This guide is for professional and professional services roles. Academic CVs follow different conventions. See the academic CV guidance instead.
I’ve read and written many CVs over the years, and the ones that get shortlisted nearly always share one thing: a structure that puts the right information in front of the reader exactly when they need it. There isn’t a single correct structure, though. A graduate, a lab manager and a chief operating officer shouldn’t produce identical documents, so build yours around relevance, making it easy for the reader to see what you’ve done and the value you’ve added. Let three questions shape every decision:
Relevance – what does this employer need to know?
Hierarchy – what do they need to see first?
Evidence – what proves I can do it?
Many people now use AI tools to help draft their CV. These can be useful for organising ideas and refining language, but they shouldn’t replace your own judgement. If you let an AI tool generate the substance without your context, evidence and voice, the result can sound generic, failing to distinguish you from other candidates.
What you need in a CV
Your name and what you do
Start with your full name as the heading, followed by a short line stating your job title or specialism(s), for example:
Programme Manager | Digital Transformation
This can lean towards the level you’re aiming for, provided it remains an accurate reflection of your experience – don’t claim a job or expertise you don’t yet have. Where relevant, add your sector, such as Higher Education, Healthcare or Technology. These help the reader quickly understand your professional focus and where your experience sits.
Follow with your email address and phone number, plus a broad location where the geography is relevant, such as East Midlands or London. A full postal address isn’t normally needed.
Don’t put “Curriculum Vitae” at the top, it’s obvious what the document is, and that space is better used telling the reader about you.
Profile statement
This is your opening pitch: it should draw the reader in and set up everything that follows. Five or six lines is usually plenty, introducing yourself (“A senior facilities manager, experienced in…” for example) and bringing together the background, strengths and experience most relevant to the role.
Close with an indication of the role or level you’re targeting, and focus on the contribution you could make rather than what you want from your employer. Tailor the profile statement every time you apply, as sending the same statement to every role is one of the fastest ways to get overlooked. Your profile statement should make clear why your background fits this opportunity.
How to format a CV
Key skills and expertise
Create a short, clear and focused list of the skills most relevant to the role; the evidence belongs elsewhere in your CV. Don’t worry if a skill reappears within your professional history. This section tells the reader what you can do, while your career history proves how and where you’ve applied it. Just avoid repeating the same claim without new evidence.
Consider adding context to distinguish yourself from other candidates, while still reflecting the language used in the job description where it genuinely matches your experience.
Instead of “good communicator”, try “explains complex information clearly to non-specialist audiences”.
Key achievements
Include three or four achievements that show the difference you’ve made. Choose relevant achievements over the most recent or most impressive, with specific results wherever possible.
If you’re earlier in your career, you don’t need years of experience to have achievements worth including. Think broadly:
- A university project
- A placement
- Part-time work
- Something from a gap year
Perhaps you improved a process in a weekend job or turned around a project that was failing.
If you’re applying for several types of role, identify more achievements than you need and select the strongest, most relevant ones for each application.
Professional history
List your work history in reverse chronological order, using bullet points. Bullets should be concise, ideally a single line each, but bear in mind that clarity and evidence matter more than line count. Always avoid long paragraphs and blocks of text in this section.
If your career is a long one, you don’t need to allocate equal space for every role. Consider relevance when deciding how much each deserves. Early positions can be compressed into an “Earlier Career” section with one to two lines each, so your career history overall tells a coherent story and shows why this role is a credible next step.
Avoid vague responsibilities. Give enough context to show the scope of each role, then focus the bullets on your contribution, and order them by relevance to the role you’re applying for.
“Responsible for managing the sales pipeline” says little; “Increased annual sales by 36% by introducing a new client retention process” shows the impact.
Education & training / professional qualifications
This is normally a single combined section, but depending on your background, you may prefer two separate headings: Education & Training, and Professional Qualifications. Show any current studies as “ongoing” and add grades where they strengthen your application.
Additional experience and achievements
The heading should reflect the content, for example Additional Leadership & Community Experience.
Don’t include generic hobbies. “Enjoys the cinema” tells a recruiter nothing that thousands of others couldn’t also claim. Genuine achievement outside work helps you stand out:
- Organising fundraising events
- Chairing a committee
- Community work
Candidates often leave these out as irrelevant, but they can demonstrate additional skills or experience.
Publications, public speaking or awards
Include a section like this only where it’s relevant, or where it supports the direction of your career. Examples include:
- Publications
- Conference presentations
- Awards
- Committee roles
A few final things
Match the language of the advert
Industries sometimes use different words for the same thing: a Project Manager in construction might be a Programme Manager in the public sector, or a Delivery Manager in tech. Using the employer’s terminology where it genuinely reflects what you’ve done makes your experience clearer. This isn’t about stuffing keywords into your CV to appease a robot; it’s about reducing the translation work required of the reader.
Explaining gaps in your career
A short, honest line covering any gap is usually enough: “Career break to care for a family member” or “Time out to travel”, for example.
What to leave out and how to lay it out
- Unless you’re applying for roles such as acting, don’t include a photo. It isn’t standard practice in the UK and risks introducing unconscious bias before anyone’s read a word of your experience.
- Complex formatting, text boxes and graphics can also make CVs harder for recruitment systems to interpret, so keep formatting simple.
- There’s normally no need to mention referees, or waste space with “References available upon request”.
Two pages is a useful guide for most professional CVs, though a longer or more senior career can justify three. Resist shrinking the font or cramming the margins if you’re struggling to fit everything in. Instead, be selective and rework the wording. White space makes a real difference to how easily a CV reads.
Choose a clear, professional font and consistent headings throughout.
One principle sits above the rest: relevance. Every section, bullet point and word should earn its place. If it doesn’t help answer what the employer needs to know, what they need to see first, and what proves you can do it, it doesn’t belong.
Get all of this right and you’ll have a CV that’s easy to read, easy to search, and unmistakably yours, giving the employer compelling evidence that you’re worth interviewing.
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