One page for early-career candidates, two pages for most experienced professionals. Recruiters skim first and read later, so make the important things findable at a glance.

• Short bullet points (one or two lines) instead of paragraphs.
• The most recent and most relevant information first.
• Leave out roles older than 10–15 years unless they matter for this job.
• White space is not wasted space — it guides the eye.

A generic CV competes with tailored ones and loses. Read the job ad, note the skills and results it asks for, and make sure those are visible — in the title, the summary and the first bullet points.

• Use the same job title the ad uses, if it honestly fits you.
• Mirror the ad’s keywords (“stakeholder management”, “Spring Boot”) where they are true for you.
• Reorder bullets so the most relevant achievement comes first in each role.
• Keep a master CV with everything, and trim a copy for each application.

Three or four sentences at the top that answer: who are you, what are you best at, and what do you bring to this role? It is the part most likely to be read in full.

A list of duties tells the reader what the job was. Achievements tell them what you did with it. A useful pattern: action verb + what you did + the result.

Numbers make claims believable and memorable. Think in terms of money, time, volume, quality and people. If you lack exact figures, a careful estimate (“around 30%”) is still better than nothing — as long as you can explain it in an interview.

• Money: revenue gained, cost saved, budget managed.
• Time: faster processes, deadlines met, hours saved per week.
• Volume: users, clients, transactions, tickets, projects.
• People: team size led, people trained or mentored.

Not everything you have done belongs on every CV. Give the most space to what matters for this role, and shrink or remove the rest.

• Experienced professionals: experience first, education short.
• Graduates and career changers: education, projects and transferable skills first.
• List the skills the job asks for before the ones it does not.
• Skip obvious or outdated skills (basic Word, Windows XP).

Standard headings (Experience, Education, Skills) let readers and software find information instantly. Consistency signals care: if one date says “03/2021”, every date should use the same format.

• One date format, one bullet style, one font family throughout.
• Reverse chronological order within each section.
• Same structure for every role: title, company, dates, achievements.
• Language levels on one scale — for example CEFR A1–C2.

Your CV should be about your professional value. Many details that were once standard are now unnecessary — and some can invite bias.

• Not needed: full street address, date of birth, marital status, children, ID numbers, religion.
• A city and country are enough for location.
• Photos: common in parts of Europe, discouraged in the UK and US — follow local practice.
• Use a professional email address — firstname.lastname works best.

A typo can be enough to put a CV on the “no” pile, especially for roles that require attention to detail. Proofread in more than one way.

• Run a spell checker, then read the CV out loud.
• Read it on paper or in the PDF — mistakes look different there.
• Check names of companies, tools and technologies (“JavaScript”, not “Javascript”).
• Ask someone else to read it; fresh eyes catch what yours skip.

Design should help the content, not compete with it. A clean layout with one accent colour looks more professional than graphics, icons and skill charts.

• Body text around 10–11 pt; headings clearly larger.
• One or two fonts, one accent colour.
• Avoid skill “bars” with no meaning — “Excel ●●●●○” says little; “Excel (pivot tables, Power Query)” says more.
• Always send a PDF so the layout looks the same everywhere.

Larger employers often use Applicant Tracking Systems that read your CV before a person does. They work best with simple, text-based layouts.

• Use standard section headings and a single column (the “ATS plain” layout).
• No text in images, headers or footers; no tables for layout.
• Include the keywords from the job ad in natural sentences.
• Save as a text-based PDF (as this tool does) or a .docx if the portal asks for it.