How to Write a CV That Gets Interviews: A Practical Guide

A CV has one job: to get you an interview. It does not need to tell your whole life story. People who read CVs for a living often have dozens or hundreds to go through, so a first look can be very quick. If yours is clear and easy to scan, it has a much better chance of being read properly.

Here is a practical way to build a CV that works, whether you are a student looking for a first job, someone changing careers or an experienced professional.

Keep the layout simple

Use a clean layout, a readable font and plenty of white space. Fancy graphics, many colours and photos in odd shapes usually make a CV harder to read. Many employers also use software to scan CVs, and simple layouts work better with it.

For most people one page is right, and two pages is the maximum. If you have a lot of experience, put the most relevant things first and cut the rest.

Save the file as a PDF so your formatting does not change on someone else's computer, and give it a clear name, such as "Firstname-Lastname-CV".

What to include

Contact details. Your full name, phone number, a professional email address and your town or city. An email like "firstname.lastname" looks better than a nickname. Add a link to your portfolio or LinkedIn profile if it is up to date.

A short profile. Two or three lines at the top saying who you are, what you do well and what you are looking for. Make it specific. "Final-year accounting student with strong spreadsheet skills, seeking an internship in a finance team" tells a reader far more than "hard-working person looking for opportunities".

Experience. List your jobs, internships and volunteer roles, newest first. For each one give the job title, the organisation, the dates and three to five bullet points about what you did and achieved.

Education and training. Name the qualification, the school and the year. Include short courses and certificates that fit the job.

Skills. Keep this honest and relevant: tools you can really use, languages you speak and skills the job asks for.

Write about results, not just duties

"Responsible for customer service" says little. Compare it with "Handled about 40 customer enquiries a day by phone and WhatsApp and kept the response time under ten minutes". Start each bullet with an action word such as led, built, organised, reduced, trained or improved, and add a number whenever you honestly can: how many people, how much money, how much time saved.

If you do not have work experience yet, use school projects, volunteering, club leadership, community work and personal projects. Employers know that everyone has to begin somewhere, and they like to see initiative.

Tailor it to every job

The most effective change you can make is also the one people skip. Read the job advert carefully and note the skills and words it uses. Then adjust your profile and your bullet points so the most relevant parts of your experience come first, using the same terms where they are true. A CV that mirrors the advert is much easier for a reader to say yes to.

Things to leave out

A photo, unless the country or employer specifically asks for one. Your age, religion, marital status and ID numbers, which are usually not needed. Long paragraphs of text. Vague claims such as "excellent communicator" with no proof. And never lie. Dates, titles and qualifications can be checked, and being caught costs you far more than a gap in your history.

Gaps and career changes

If you have a gap, do not hide it or panic. Use plain, short wording, such as "Career break to care for family" or "Full-time study", and focus on skills you kept building. If you are changing field, lead with a profile that explains the move and a skills section that connects your past experience to the new role.

Check it twice, then ask someone else

Spelling and grammar mistakes make a reader doubt your attention to detail. Read your CV out loud, check names and dates, and then ask a friend or mentor to read it. Fresh eyes catch mistakes you stopped seeing long ago.

A simple final checklist

Is it one or two pages, saved as a PDF? Are your contact details correct? Does the top third show why you fit this job? Does every bullet show what you achieved? Is it free of errors? If you can answer yes to all five, you are ready to apply.

You can also use the free CV builder on this site, under Learn then Free tools. It runs in your browser, so the details you type stay on your device, and you can print or save the result as a PDF.