CV writing

A practical guide to how to write a CV for the UK job market, covering CV layout, the personal statement, achievements, tickets and licences, and the mistakes that get good candidates filtered out.

How to write a CV personal statement for UK applications, with worked examples for care, construction, admin, driving and career changers, plus the phrases to cut.

A CV with no experience still has plenty to say. Here is how school leavers, graduates and career changers fill two pages with evidence UK employers take seriously.

The difference between a regulated qualification and a CPD certificate, how to check which one you are holding in two minutes, and why a long list of them can work against you.

What an applicant tracking system does with your document, and the ATS CV format choices that keep your job titles, dates and tickets where a recruiter can find them.

A career change CV has to answer one question fast: why you, when other applicants already do this job. Here is the structure, the wording and the evidence that works in the UK.

How to write a CV after a career break, illness, caring, parenting or redundancy, with plain wording for the gap and a checklist of the tickets worth refreshing before you apply.

A CV for over 50s has the opposite problem to a first CV: too much material. Here is what to cut, what to date, what the law says about age, and how to answer the overqualified objection.

How long should a CV be in the UK, when one page beats two, when three pages are accepted, and exactly what to cut when you are over the limit.

The CV mistakes UK recruiters see every day, from unreachable phone numbers and unexplained dates to exaggerated qualifications, and the quick fixes for each one.

How to build a CV skills section that earns its space, which keywords are worth including for UK roles, and how to prove a skill instead of simply claiming it.

A driver CV is read for licence categories, Driver CPC, points and the work you have actually done. Here is how to lay one out for Class 1, Class 2, 7.5 tonne and van roles in the UK.

How to write a care assistant CV for residential, nursing and domiciliary roles, covering the Care Certificate, DBS, medication, safeguarding and the shift detail managers need.

How to write a construction CV for UK sites, with CSCS card colours, SSSTS and SMSTS, plant tickets, the projects to name, and how to handle CIS, umbrella and day rate work.

Whether to put a photo, date of birth, marital status or nationality on a UK CV, why employers would rather you did not, and the handful of jobs where a photograph is genuinely expected.

Fonts, margins, headings, file format and the two column question. What a UK employer's eye does in the first ten seconds, and how to lay a CV out so the important things land in that time.

Redundancy, illness, caring, prison, a failed business, or just looking for a while. What to write, where to write it, and why hiding a gap costs you more than the gap does.

The order a recruiter's eye moves in, what they are checking at each stop, and what to put in each place so the answer is there when they look.

Replace the twelve phrases that appear on nearly every CV with the sentences that get interviews, with before and after examples from real trades.

The four changes worth making for each application, in the order they pay off, and how to do it without rewriting the whole document every time.