How to Write a Strong CV/Résumé: A Practical Guide
Your CV or résumé may be only one or two pages long, but those pages can determine whether you move to the next stage of a job application or receive another rejection email.
Many people prepare their CV as if they are writing a record of their working life. They list where they have worked, the positions they have held, their qualifications and the duties they performed. Then they send essentially the same document to different employers and hope that something in it catches someone’s attention.
That misses the main purpose of a CV/résumé.
A good CV/résumé is not simply a record of where you have been. It is a carefully selected presentation of the experience, skills and achievements that make you relevant to a particular opportunity. Canada’s Job Bank describes the résumé as a document that should present your qualifications clearly, concisely and strategically, while the UK’s National Careers Service similarly advises applicants to tailor their CV to the particular job and employer.
Therefore, the first question you should ask yourself is not, “What have I done in my career?” Rather, it is, “What does this employer need to know about me?”
CV or Résumé: Which Is Correct?
Both words are correct, but their use differs from country to country.
In Nigeria, the UK and many other countries influenced by British English, CV, short for curriculum vitae, is the familiar term for the document submitted when applying for most jobs. In Canada and the United States, résumé is more commonly used for the concise document submitted for most non-academic jobs.
There is another important distinction. In North America, a CV can also refer to a much longer academic or professional document containing research, publications, conferences, teaching experience, grants and other scholarly achievements. Someone applying for an academic position may therefore be asked for a CV rather than a résumé.
If you are applying internationally, don’t insist on the terminology you are accustomed to. Use the language and format expected in the country, industry and organization to which you are applying.
For simplicity, this guide uses CV/résumé to refer to the document used for ordinary job applications.
What Is the Real Job of Your CV/Résumé?
Your CV/résumé does not have to get you the job.
Its immediate job is usually to get you to the next stage.
That may be a telephone screening, an assessment, an interview or another stage of the recruitment process.
This distinction is important because many applicants try to put everything about themselves into their CV. They fear that leaving something out means losing an opportunity to impress the employer. Most times, the result is a crowded document in which the most important information is buried beneath information that the employer does not need.
Think of your CV/résumé as an argument.
The employer has a problem: a position needs to be filled.
Your document should present evidence that says:
I have relevant experience. I have relevant skills. I have produced results. I understand what this position requires. I deserve serious consideration.
Everything you include should help make that argument.
Your CV/Résumé Is Not Your Biography
Don’t make this common mistake of treating a CV as your complete professional history.
Suppose you have worked for 25 years and held nine positions. Must you describe every job in equal detail? No.
Suppose you have attended 15 short courses. Must all 15 appear? Not necessarily.
Suppose you performed 20 different functions in your present role. Must you list all 20? Certainly not.
Selection is part of good writing. It is also a management skill. You can call it prioritization.
Your CV/résumé should give prominence to what is relevant, recent and impressive. Older or less relevant information can be shortened or, where appropriate, omitted.
The European Union’s Europass guidance makes the same point: applicants should not provide a full detailed history but should concentrate on the facts and main points that match the particular job.
Should You Have One CV/Résumé for Every Job?
You should have a master CV/résumé, but you don’t need to send the master version to every employer.
Your master document can contain your full employment history, achievements, projects, qualifications, certifications, volunteer activities and other useful information. Think of it as your private professional database.
For each serious application, create a tailored version from it.
Read the job advertisement carefully. What qualifications are essential? What skills appear repeatedly? What problems does the role seem designed to solve? Which parts of your experience provide the strongest evidence that you can do that work?
Then adjust your CV/résumé accordingly.
This does not mean changing facts or exaggerating your experience. Rather, it means changing emphasis.
If a position places great importance on project management, for example, the project-management achievements in your career should not be hidden beneath less relevant responsibilities.
Canada’s Job Bank explicitly advises applicants to tailor their résumé to the job and company and incorporate relevant terms from the job description.
What Should Appear at the Top?
Your name should be prominent, followed by the contact information an employer needs to reach you.
Usually this means:
- telephone number
- professional email address
- city and province/state or location, where appropriate
- LinkedIn profile, if it is current and strengthens your application
- professional portfolio, website or GitHub link where relevant
You generally do not need to write “Curriculum Vitae” or “Résumé” in large letters at the top. The employer knows what the document is. Your name is more useful in that valuable space.
Check every contact detail carefully. A brilliant application with an incorrect telephone number or misspelled email address creates a completely avoidable problem. It is surprising how often applicants make this mistake.
Your email address should also look professional. An address based on your name is usually safer than the humorous nickname you created many years ago.
Do You Need a Professional Summary?
For many experienced applicants, a short professional summary near the top can be useful.
But avoid turning it into a collection of flattering adjectives:
Dynamic, results-oriented, passionate, innovative and highly motivated professional with excellent communication skills…
It is not that these qualities are undesirable. The problem is that almost anybody can claim them. They are generic.
A stronger summary identifies what you do, your level or breadth of experience, your areas of strength and perhaps one or two distinguishing features relevant to the position.
For example:
Communications professional with 10+ years of experience in corporate communications, media relations and executive writing across financial services and professional services. Experienced in developing leadership communications, managing high-stakes publications and translating complex information for diverse audiences.
The second version gives the employer something concrete to evaluate.
What About a Career Objective?
A career objective can still be useful in some circumstances, especially for a new graduate, someone entering the workforce, or someone making a significant career change. Indeed Canada describes it as an optional section and notes its usefulness for people with limited experience or those explaining their career direction.
For an experienced professional, however, a strong professional summary will often use the space more effectively.
Avoid objectives that focus entirely on what you want:
Seeking a challenging position in a progressive organization where I can develop my skills and advance my career.
The employer is recruiting because the organization has needs of its own. Your opening should help the employer see what you can contribute.
Work Experience: Duties or Achievements?
This is one of the most important differences between a weak CV/résumé and a strong one.
Many applicants simply reproduce their job descriptions:
Responsible for social media.
Responsible for preparing reports.
Responsible for managing staff.
Responsible for customer complaints.
Those statements tell us what the job required. However, they tell us very little about how well you performed it.
Compare:
Managed the company’s social media accounts.
with:
Developed and implemented a LinkedIn content program that increased average monthly engagement by 45% within eight months.
Or:
Responsible for supervising employees.
with:
Supervised a 12-member customer-service team, introduced weekly performance reviews and reduced average complaint-resolution time from three days to one.
The second version in each pair provides evidence.
Harvard career guidance recommends starting experience descriptions with action verbs, explaining the resulting outcomes and quantifying accomplishments where possible.
Do All Achievements Need Numbers?
No.
Numbers are powerful because they make scale and results easier to understand, but not every valuable contribution can honestly be reduced to a percentage or dollar figure.
Use numbers when you genuinely have them:
Managed a $1.2 million annual program budget.
Supervised 18 employees across three locations.
Increased newsletter subscriptions by 32%.
Delivered training to more than 250 employees.
But don’t manufacture numbers merely because someone told you that every résumé bullet must contain a metric.
Qualitative achievements also count:
Developed the organization’s first crisis-communication protocol.
Rewrote the employee handbook to make policies easier for staff to understand.
Introduced a standardized briefing-note template adopted across the department.
The test is whether the statement demonstrates contribution, improvement, responsibility, expertise or impact.
Use strong verbs, but don’t turn the CV into a thesaurus
Words such as led, developed, created, managed, negotiated, increased, reduced, designed, implemented, edited, trained, coordinated and launched can make experience descriptions more direct.
Harvard’s résumé resources recommend action verbs and provide extensive lists for different types of work.
But strong writing does not mean finding the most impressive-sounding verb.
If you helped, don’t write that you spearheaded.
If you participated in a project, don’t claim you led it.
Precision is more persuasive than exaggeration.
Should You Use “I” in a CV/Résumé?
Usually, no.
Instead of:
I managed a team of eight employees and I prepared monthly reports.
write:
Managed a team of eight employees and prepared monthly performance reports.
This convention keeps bullets shorter and more direct. Both Canada’s Job Bank and Harvard’s career guidance recommend avoiding personal pronouns in résumé experience statements.
What Tense Should You Use?
For your current position, use the present tense for responsibilities you still perform:
Manage media enquiries and prepare executive briefing materials.
Use the past tense for completed achievements:
Developed a new media-monitoring system that reduced weekly reporting time.
For previous jobs, use the past tense:
Managed, developed, wrote, coordinated, increased, reduced, launched.
Consistency makes the document easier to read.
How Much Work History Should You Include?
There is no universal number of years that works for every applicant.
Relevance should guide you.
An experienced professional does not necessarily need detailed bullet points for a junior position held 25 years ago. Older experience should usually be summarized briefly, particularly when recent positions provide stronger evidence for the job.
But don’t blindly delete older experience because of an arbitrary “10-year rule.” An older role may be highly relevant to the position you are seeking now.
Ask: Does this information strengthen my case for this specific job?
What if You Have Little Work Experience?
Don’t assume you have nothing to offer.
Students and new graduates can draw evidence from:
- internships
- co-op placements
- volunteer work
- university projects
- research
- student leadership
- community involvement
- relevant coursework
- part-time work
- extracurricular activities
The UK’s National Careers Service specifically recommends using projects, work experience and volunteering when someone has a short employment history.
The employer is still looking for evidence of skills: leadership, reliability, teamwork, writing, analysis, customer service, problem-solving, organization and initiative.
What Should Go in the Education Section?
Usually include the qualification, institution and relevant dates. Depending on your career stage and the job, you may also include relevant coursework, academic distinctions or particularly relevant projects.
An experienced professional generally does not need to list every school attended from childhood.
Your primary-school history is unlikely to help an employer decide whether you should become a communications manager, accountant, engineer or project officer.
Again, relevance matters.
What About Certifications and Professional Development?
Include certifications, licences and professional training that strengthen your candidacy. But distinguish between meaningful professional development and collecting certificates.
A two-hour webinar you attended six years ago may not deserve the same prominence as an industry certification required for the position.
If you have many courses and certificates, select those most relevant to the application or group them under a concise Professional Development section.
Should Skills Have Their Own Section?
Often, yes.
But avoid vague lists such as:
Communication | Leadership | Teamwork | Hardworking | Problem-solving
Anyone can write those words.
Technical skills are easier to demonstrate directly: software, languages, tools, methodologies and specialized systems.
For broader skills such as leadership or communication, your experience section should provide evidence that you actually possess them.
Don’t merely tell the employer:
Excellent leadership skills.
Show the employer:
Led a cross-functional team of 14 employees to deliver the project three weeks ahead of schedule.
Should Volunteer Experience Be Included?
Yes, when it strengthens your application.
Volunteer leadership can demonstrate management, budgeting, communication, fundraising, governance, event planning and many other valuable skills. Canada’s Job Bank specifically recommends including relevant unpaid work.
Don’t undervalue an experience simply because you were not paid for it.
The question is what you did, what you learned and what you achieved.
Should You Include Hobbies and Interests?
Sometimes.
If space is limited and the information adds nothing relevant, leave it out.
But interests can occasionally strengthen an application or provide useful evidence of skills. The UK’s National Careers Service notes that interests may help a first-time applicant demonstrate abilities such as leadership and organization.
“Watching television” probably adds little.
“Captain, community football team” may say considerably more.
Context determines usefulness.
Should You Include References?
Practices differ.
In Canada, you generally do not need to put references directly on your résumé unless the employer requests them. Canada’s Job Bank recommends keeping them on a separate sheet and providing them when requested, while current Indeed Canada guidance similarly recommends including them when specifically required or customary for the role.
In the UK, guidance can differ slightly; the National Careers Service suggests that applicants may indicate that references are available on request rather than publishing another person’s contact details.
The safest rule is simple: follow the instructions in the vacancy and the conventions of the country and sector.
Photograph or No Photograph?
This is another area where geography matters.
In Canada, the standard advice is no photograph. Canada’s Job Bank explicitly says that including a photograph is not the norm and advises applicants to leave it out.
But you should not turn that Canadian convention into a universal rule. Practices vary internationally. Europass, for example, allows a professional photograph in its European CV system.
If you are applying internationally, research the convention in the country and industry concerned.
What Personal Information Should You Leave Out?
For Canadian applications, leave out unnecessary personal information such as age, height, weight, marital status, religion and political views. Canada’s Job Bank specifically advises against including such details and warns never to put your Social Insurance Number on a résumé.
The University of Toronto similarly advises that information such as date of birth, nationality and religion should not form part of hiring decisions.
This can be an important adjustment for applicants moving between countries where CV conventions differ.
A CV/résumé is not a biodata form.
How Long Should Your CV/Résumé Be?
There is no magic length that applies to everyone.
In Canada, one or two pages is a common expectation. Canada’s Job Bank recommends limiting a résumé to two pages, while the University of Toronto advises one or two pages.
A new graduate may have a strong one-page résumé. An experienced professional may genuinely require two.
The better question is not:
“How can I force this onto one page?”
It is:
“Does every item on these pages earn its space?”
A two-page résumé full of relevant evidence is better than a one-page résumé that omits essential information. A one-page résumé is better than three pages padded with irrelevant history.
Academic CVs are a different matter and can legitimately be much longer.
What Format Should You Use?
Make the document easy to scan.
Use clear section headings, consistent spacing, readable fonts and enough white space to prevent the page from feeling crowded.
Fancy is not the same as professional.
For many conventional applications, elaborate graphics, skill bars, icons, text boxes and multiple columns can distract from the content and may also create problems with some applicant-tracking systems.
The University of Toronto recommends simple formatting and specifically warns that graphics, tables and columns can create problems for some ATS software and screen readers.
Your design should help the reader find information and not compete with the information.
What Is an ATS, and Should You Write for It?
ATS means Applicant Tracking System. Many organizations use such systems to manage and screen applications.
This has created an industry of advice about “beating the ATS.” Please, be careful.
You should certainly make your résumé easy for systems to process. Use clear headings, conventional formatting and relevant terminology from the job description where it accurately describes your experience.
If the employer asks for project management, for example, and you genuinely have project-management experience, don’t hide it behind an unusual phrase such as “initiative orchestration.”
Use the language employers use.
But don’t stuff your résumé with keywords, repeat terms unnaturally or insert invisible words in an attempt to trick the system. The University of Toronto explicitly warns against this and notes that recruiters still review the document after automated screening.
Write for the machine and the human being who will eventually read it.
Should You Use AI to Write Your CV/Résumé?
AI can help you brainstorm, reorganize information, identify unclear wording, compare your résumé with a job description and suggest stronger ways to describe genuine achievements.
But AI should not invent your career.
Never allow an AI tool to add qualifications you do not possess, inflate your responsibilities, manufacture percentages or claim achievements that never occurred.
Also be wary of generic AI language:
Results-driven professional with a proven track record of leveraging strategic initiatives to deliver impactful outcomes…
That may sound impressive until hundreds of applicants submit variations of the same sentence.
Use AI as an editor and thinking partner. The facts, achievements and professional identity must remain yours.
What About Employment Gaps?
A gap is not automatically a disaster.
People leave employment for education, caregiving, relocation, health, family responsibilities, redundancy, entrepreneurship and many other reasons.
Don’t distort dates to hide gaps.
The UK’s National Careers Service acknowledges that employment gaps are normal and recommends explaining them appropriately.
Where an explanation is necessary, keep it straightforward. If you developed relevant skills, studied, volunteered or completed projects during the period, those experiences may also be worth mentioning.
What if You Are Changing Careers?
Then your task is to help the employer see the transferable value of your previous experience.
A banking professional moving into nonprofit management may have budgeting, stakeholder-management and leadership experience.
A journalist moving into corporate communications brings interviewing, research, writing, editing and deadline-management skills.
A teacher moving into corporate training brings presentation, facilitation, curriculum-development and assessment experience.
Don’t make the employer do all the translation. Show the connection.
Should Your LinkedIn Profile Match Your CV/Résumé?
They do not need to be identical, but they should not contradict each other.
LinkedIn can contain more detail because it serves a broader professional purpose. Your résumé is tailored to a particular opportunity.
Dates, job titles, employers and major qualifications, however, should be consistent.
If your résumé says you were Marketing Manager from 2021 to 2024 while LinkedIn says 2019 to 2023, the discrepancy can create unnecessary questions.
PDF or Word?
Follow the employer’s instructions.
If the application system requests a particular file format, use it.
Where no format is specified, PDF is often useful because it preserves your layout across devices. But some employers or recruitment systems may specifically request Word documents.
Never ignore an explicit instruction because someone on social media told you that one format is “always” best.
Also give the file a professional name:
Mary_Tallen_Resume.pdf
is much better than:
CV FINAL latest corrected 3.pdf
What Are the Biggest CV/Résumé Mistakes?
Some mistakes appear repeatedly:
- sending the same generic document to every employer
- listing duties without showing achievements
- including irrelevant personal information
- writing long paragraphs instead of scannable information
- using vague claims without evidence
- exaggerating responsibilities or achievements
- using inconsistent dates or formatting
- overloading the document with design elements
- failing to proofread
- using an unprofessional email address
- including outdated or irrelevant information
- burying the strongest evidence
- ignoring instructions in the job advertisement
- stuffing the document with keywords
- submitting a document that is unnecessarily long
A spelling error may appear small, but your CV/résumé is itself evidence of your attention to detail. Canada’s Job Bank specifically warns applicants to proofread carefully because even a simple error can create a negative impression.
Before You Send It: The 15-Question Test
Before submitting your CV/résumé, ask yourself:
- Is this version tailored to this particular position?
- Can the employer immediately identify what I do?
- Are my strongest qualifications easy to find?
- Have I demonstrated achievements rather than merely listed duties?
- Have I quantified results where numbers genuinely help?
- Have I removed information that does not strengthen my application?
- Does the language reflect relevant terminology in the job advertisement?
- Is the document easy to scan?
- Are my dates and job titles accurate and consistent?
- Are my contact details correct?
- Have I removed unnecessary personal information for the country where I am applying?
- Have I followed the employer’s instructions about format and supporting documents?
- Is my LinkedIn profile consistent with the important facts on my résumé?
- Have I checked spelling, punctuation and grammar carefully?
- If I were the employer, would this document give me a clear reason to invite this person for an interview?
If the answer to the last question is uncertain, the CV/résumé probably needs another round of editing.
One Final Principle
There is no single perfect CV/résumé format for every person, profession, country and job.
A graphic designer and an accountant will present themselves differently. A new graduate and a chief executive cannot tell their professional stories in the same way. An academic CV is different from a corporate résumé. Canadian conventions are not automatically Nigerian, Australian, American, Indian or European conventions.
But one principle runs through all of them:
Make it easy for the reader to see the connection between what the employer needs and what you can offer.
That requires selection, clarity and evidence.
Don’t try to impress an employer by putting everything you have ever done into your CV/résumé. Don’t bury your achievements beneath job descriptions. Don’t assume the employer will work out why your experience is relevant.
Do that work for the reader.
Essentially, a strong CV/résumé says:
This is what you need. This is what I have done. This is what I can bring.
If those three ideas are clear after someone reads your document, your CV/résumé has done its most important job: given the employer a reason to continue the conversation with you.
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