The best CV format is the one that highlights your strengths and valuable experiences, showing recruiters why you’d be an ideal candidate for the job. Thus, it’s essential to focus on the format as much as the content and learn how each element can serve your application.
In this article, we will cover the best CV layouts for job applications, share some tips on writing excellent application documents, and show you the common mistakes you should avoid.
So, let’s get started!
Key Takeaways
Most CV formats contain the following sections: contact information, professional summary, work experience, education, skills, and certifications.
You should use different CV templates depending on whether you’re a professional, a fresh graduate, or someone looking to change their career.
When formatting your CV, pay attention to the font, consistency, paragraphs, relevance of information, and ATS requirements.
Many job seekers mistakenly use overcomplicated formats and long paragraphs, making their CVs seem too busy and cluttered.
What Is a CV Format?
A CV format is the way the information in your application document is organised and presented to maximise its effectiveness with a recruiter. That encompasses CV sections and headings, fonts, font sizes, margins, the use of white space, and many other details that shouldn’t be disregarded.
A well-formatted CV is readable and visually pleasing, presenting all the information so that it’s easy to find. Your goal is to create a professional profile that can be quickly read and understood at first glance.
This is especially important nowadays when CVs must pass Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) before a recruiter reads them. These systems pick out documents that follow a particular format, giving them a significant advantage over those that don’t.
CV Format Example
7 Sections of a Well-Formatted CV
The sections of a well-formatted CV include contact information, professional summary, work experience, education and qualifications, skills, certifications, and other optional segments.
Below, we will examine the typical CV structure and show you what each section should contain.
#1. Contact Information
The first section of every well-written CV should be contact information, including the information necessary for your potential employer to get in touch with you. Typically, that entails your full name, address, email address, and phone number.
Aside from this, you can add a link to your LinkedIn profile or professional website. This might help the recruiters get to know you better and give you an edge over the candidates who didn’t include either.
However, refrain from listing irrelevant or too personal information, such as your marriage status, street name, or house number. Such details aren’t necessary for the candidate selection process and may lead to discrimination or a breach of privacy.
#2. Professional Summary/Objective
In a typical CV layout, the professional summary goes right underneath the contact information at the very top of the document. As its name implies, it summarises you as an employee by presenting your experience, skills, and achievements concisely in 2-3 sentences.
A compelling summary can make a significant difference in whether a recruiter reads your CV or not. After all, hiring managers often have to go through hundreds of applications and are unlikely to read each carefully unless something catches their eye.
So, pay special attention to how you write your professional summary. Make sure it’s brief yet informative, meaning list the most important details but leave elaboration for your cover letter. Also, don’t forget to proofread this section carefully, as typos and grammar mistakes may make you seem unprofessional.
#3. Work Experience
The work experience section will likely make up the bulk of your CV, so you need to format it in the most effective way possible. Listing all your previously held job positions in reverse chronological order is generally considered the best approach because it highlights your career progression.
When writing down your job positions, include the title, company name, start and end dates, and bullet points briefly describing your responsibilities and achievements. You shouldn’t go into too much detail here, so limit yourself to 3–6 points and keep them short.
When possible, focus on your accomplishments instead of just listing responsibilities. For instance, mention how your contributions have impacted your previous company’s efficiency or how you’ve increased your team’s productivity.
#4. Education and Qualifications
Like the work experience section, education and qualifications should be formatted in reverse chronological order. In other words, your most recently obtained degree should go first, followed by the ones you’ve completed earlier.
Aside from the degree name, you should include the name of the educational institution and the graduation date. You may also add a few of your most important achievements and courses as bullet points, but this is typically not necessary unless you’re applying for an academic position.
Since a standard CV format places almost as much importance on education as work experience, these two sections can switch places, depending on what you want to emphasise. For instance, if you’re a recent graduate, you won’t have an extensive work history to write about, but your educational background can make up for that.
#5. Skills
The skills section should contain all the competencies that make you an ideal candidate for a specific job. It’s best to focus on particular skills required in your industry, but you can add anything that might benefit your application.
Though there are no strict rules about listing your skills, a good rule of thumb is to start with hard skills first. These include measurable and demonstrable abilities, such as programming languages, data analysis, editing, copywriting, and similar.
Then, you can also include a few soft skills, like team management, communication, problem-solving, and a good work ethic. However, since these skills aren’t easy to measure, they might not make much of a difference at this candidate selection stage.
#6. Certifications & Awards
The certifications and awards section should contain your most important professional and academic honours. Remember to list the title of the certificate, the reception year, and the name of the institution or company that has awarded it to you.
If the award is particularly relevant for your future job position, you can add a brief description under the title. This is also good practice when the certificate’s exact nature isn’t immediately apparent from the title.
However, make sure not to go overboard and list too many certificates. Focus on the most recent or relevant ones and consider what your employer might find interesting, too.
#7. Optional Sections
Finally, you can add more sections if you believe they might strengthen your CV further. For example, many applicants include languages spoken, publications, hobbies and interests, or volunteer experience to present a more complete professional picture.
Ultimately, you should list anything relevant to the position you’re applying for, but don’t overdo it. Remember to keep your CV up to two pages long, as recruiters don’t typically have time to read longer applications.
Best CV Formats for Different Career Stages
Different career stages require different CV formats that highlight your strengths while covering up your weaknesses. For instance, your application will look significantly different when you’re a fresh graduate and when you’re an expert with many years of experience.
Below, we will explore how to format your CV for a job depending on your career level.
CV Format for Fresh Graduates
The best CV design for fresh graduates prioritises educational background over work experience. Essentially, you’d format it similarly to a standard CV, but you’d focus on the degrees you obtained, the courses you attended, and your grades.
Furthermore, you can include projects, internships, and volunteer work to emphasise your skills and experience. In this case, you don’t have to worry about tailoring your CV to fit specific requirements. You may include all significant projects to showcase your diligence and willingness to learn.
CV Format for Professionals
Professionals should have an easier time formatting their CVs since they have plenty of relevant skills and experience in the field. So, all you need to do is follow the standard format and highlight your most important achievements and positions.
If you’re unsure how to do that, take a look at some of our CV examples and use them as a guide to craft a perfect, eye-catching document.
CV Format for Career Changes
When you switch from one career to a completely different one, you may find that most of your work experience is irrelevant to your new position. The same goes for education and skills. For instance, if you are a programmer and want to become a math teacher, your knowledge of coding languages won’t count for much.
Still, you must include something in your CV, so it’s best to focus on transferable skills that may contribute to both professions. Soft skills usually belong to this category, with problem-solving and communication being relevant in almost all occupations. However, try to come up with a few hard skills and highlight those as well.
5 CV Formatting Tips to Keep in Mind
The five CV formatting tips to keep in mind include picking your font wisely, being consistent, using white space, making your CV ATS-friendly, and removing irrelevant information.
Now, let’s take a closer look at how to implement these tips in the best way.
CV Formatting Tips
#1. Pick Your Font Wisely
When picking a font for your CV, remember that you want to make your document look polished, professional, and readable. In other words, script fonts and Comic Sans are completely unacceptable, as are more eye-catching, stylised fonts like Harrington.
In fact, the best fonts for CVs are those typically used in professional settings, such as Arial, Times New Roman, Cambria, or Helvetica. These may not be as exciting as the more creative fonts, but they also won’t make your employer think you’re not taking the application seriously.
Generally speaking, it’s best to take a safe approach when writing your CV, especially when it comes to fonts. Experimentation is likely to backfire, so express your creative side in other ways or save it for the later stages of the employment process.
#2. Be Consistent
Consistency is essential regardless of the type of text you write, but it is particularly important when crafting your CV. Pick a style and stick to it throughout by ensuring consistency. For instance, if you’re italicising the names of companies and institutions, you should do so in every section.
The same goes for the use of formal tone and professional language. These should be maintained from the beginning to the end, so remember to read your CV after you’re done to ensure the language is consistent and there are no mistakes.
#3. Use White Space
The content may be an essential part of your CV, but you shouldn’t underestimate the importance of white space. It can take your application from average to outstanding, so use it wisely.
That means breaking your content into chunks and organising it in a way that’s easy to read. No recruiter wants to be confronted by a large wall of text with little white space to break the monotony. Not only does this look unprofessional, but it also makes it more challenging to find the relevant information.
So, use paragraphs and headings to organise your CV and leave enough space in between to make the text visually appealing. Don’t overdo it, though, as too much white space can look just as unprofessional as a lack thereof.
#4. Make Your CV ATS-Friendly
Most hiring managers use ATS to streamline the recruitment process and avoid sifting through hundreds of CVs daily. These systems scan applications for keywords and give an advantage to those that follow ATS requirements.
So, to ensure your application isn’t rejected by software, you need to create an ATS-friendly CV. This means labelling sections with clear, standardised headings like “Work Experience”, “Professional Summary”, or “Skills” and applying keyword optimisation.
Furthermore, you should use an ATS-friendly CV template tailored to pass recruiters’ scans. Such templates are minimalistic and formatted to highlight the crucial details and keywords.
Figuring out how to create an ATS-friendly CV can be challenging, so it’s usually better to rely on pre-made templates crafted by professionals. For instance, CV.co has a library of templates optimised for software scans, so you just need to download the one you prefer and enter your information.
#5. Remove Irrelevant Information
Considering that your CV should ideally be between one and two pages long, your space is limited and should be used to its maximum effect. In other words, any information that doesn’t serve the goal of landing an interview should be removed from the final draft.
So, when reviewing your CV, consider how each detail contributes to the image of an ideal candidate. If something doesn’t, feel free to delete it, even if it may somewhat shorten your application.
4 Common CV Formatting Mistakes You Should Avoid
Common CV formatting mistakes you should avoid include using an overcomplicated design, writing long paragraphs, adding too many references, and using improper grammar and spelling.
So, let’s examine these mistakes in more detail.
#1. Using Overcomplicated Design
Your CV should be simple and to the point, ideally divided into sections and containing a few bullet points that clarify your achievements and responsibilities when necessary. There’s no need to include complicated charts and graphs, even if they may appear professional and eye-catching.
The reason is simple—minimalist design performs better on ATS scans. Cluttering your CV with extra information may obscure the keywords and affect your application’s chances of reaching a real human.
Even if your CV does reach a recruiter, they likely won’t pay too much attention to anything too detailed or complicated. They aim to quickly find the information they need, so they prefer clean, fluff-free documents.
#2. Writing Long Paragraphs
Long paragraphs of information have no place on a CV, as they should be saved for a cover letter and used sparingly even there. Generally, it’s best to include basic details and use short bullet points for elaboration to ensure employers quickly get the necessary information.
Otherwise, if a recruiter takes a look at your CV and sees long paragraphs under each section, they might decide not to read it after all. Remember—it’s often the nuances that make all the difference between who gets the job and who doesn’t, so your application has to be tailored to perfection.
#3. Adding Too Many References
While it may be helpful to include a few references in your CV to show your potential employer that you’re a worthy candidate, you shouldn’t go overboard. No recruiter wants to see a whole page of references, so you should limit yourself to two or three.
You can also skip this section entirely by stating that references are available upon request. Some job hunting specialists recommend this approach because it shows that you do have references to offer, but doesn’t clutter the CV with information that might not be immediately interesting.
#4. Making Grammar and Spelling Mistakes
Correct grammar is vital for a job-winning CV, as glaring mistakes can affect the recruiter’s perception of you. If there are too many typos, you may come across as unprofessional and careless—two qualities no employer wants to see in their company.
So, read your application carefully or use a grammar checker once you’ve written it. You may even let someone else examine it for you and see what areas need improvement.
Build Your Job-Winning CV
If you want to ensure a recruiter notices your application, use our CV builder to make a professional document in less than 15 minutes. Browse our library of modern CV formats, pick a suitable one, and fill it with your details. Then, you can either download it as a PDF or share the link to your CV directly.
Final Thoughts
And that’s a wrap!
Now you know what a clean CV design for job seekers should look like, which should make your job-hunting experience far easier. Though it’s recommended to use a standard CV format whenever possible, don’t be afraid to add a personal touch to your document. Don’t go overboard, though—always keep professionalism in mind.
CV Format FAQ
#1. What is a simple CV format?
A simple CV format contains only the basic sections, such as contact information, professional summary, work experience, education, skills, and certifications. This layout is typically the most effective, too, as it minimises fluff and gives the recruiters exactly what they are looking for.
#2. What is the format for a European CV?
The format of a European CV is divided into sections encompassing the candidate’s skills, education, and work experience. These sections are clean, professional, and straightforward, using bullet points to elaborate on certain interesting aspects. Typically, this CV should be 1–2 pages long and tailored to a specific job description.
#3. Can I use a creative CV format for a design role?
You can use a creative CV format for a design role, as this might demonstrate that you possess the required skills. However, you should always prioritise the effectiveness of your application. If you believe a unique design might harm it, it’s best to stick to the basics.
#4. How do I format my CV for the UK job market?
To format your CV for the UK job market, follow the same steps you would when formatting it for any other European market. Divide the CV into the abovementioned sections, use standard fonts, and keep the font sizes between 11 and 13. Also, limit yourself to no more than two pages of content and stick to the most relevant information.
#5. How do I make my CV format ATS-friendly?
You can make your CV format ATS-friendly if you use familiar headings and keep the fluff to a minimum. Furthermore, make sure to include relevant keywords, such as your job title or skills that the company you’re applying for might be looking for.
