CV creator for job applications

A curriculum vitae for a job follows a familiar order: contact details, a short profile, work experience, education, skills, then certificates or languages. Employers expect each part in roughly the same place, so answer every prompt below and you'll have the content for a complete CV.

1. Name and contact details

Prompt: How should an employer reach you? Give your full name, a phone number, an email address, and your town or city with the country. Leave out your date of birth, marital status and street address unless the job ad asks for them.

Tip: give the name you go by at work. A middle name or initial belongs here only if you always sign with it.

2. Profile

Prompt: In two or three lines, who are you at work and what do you want next? For example: "Customer service lead with six years in retail banking, looking for a team manager role."

Tip: write this part last. Once the rest of your CV is done, it's easier to pick the two or three strengths your profile should name.

3. Work experience

Prompt: For each job, newest first, what was your title, who was the employer, when did you start and leave, and what did you achieve? Aim for three to five lines per recent role, each starting with a verb.

For example: "Trained 12 new starters in six months and cut the time they needed to work alone by a week." A number, a time frame and an outcome make a line easy to believe. To see more bullet points built this way, read a few CV examples from jobs like yours.

4. Education

Prompt: Which schools, colleges or universities did you attend, what did you earn and when did you finish? Recent graduates can put this above work experience and add a strong project, dissertation or award.

Tip: after your first few jobs, one line per qualification is usually enough.

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5. Skills

Prompt: Which tools, methods and strengths from the job ad can you prove? List the ones you could discuss in an interview, in the ad's own words where they fit.

Tip: when the list runs long, group it, for example software on one line and methods or techniques on another, so a recruiter can scan it quickly.

6. Certificates, awards and languages

Prompt: Which certificates, awards, memberships or languages strengthen your case for this job? Add only the ones that matter to the employer, and give a level for each language, such as fluent or conversational.

Tip: give each certificate the year you earned it, and an expiry date if the employer is likely to check that it is still valid.

7. Optional sections

Prompt: Is there volunteering, a project, a publication or a membership that shows something the rest of your CV leaves out? Give it one short section of its own, and skip this heading when nothing fits.

Turning your answers into a CV

Once every prompt has an answer, creating the CV is mostly typing. Pick a design from our CV templates, enter your answers step by step and use the suggestions to sharpen the wording. Before you finish, read the CV against the job ad once more and move the section that matches it best higher up. Writing a CV, section by section goes deeper on each part.