How to write a CV that gets you the interview

Your CV has one job: to get you an interview. And it has very little time to do it. In an eye-tracking study by the job site Ladders, recruiters spent an average of 7.4 seconds on their first look at a CV, up from about 6 seconds in 2012[1][2]. In that time they skim the layout, job titles, the flow of the text and keywords[2].

The good news: what works in those seconds is well known. Below we have gathered advice from university career services, the European Commission’s Europass, the UK government’s careers service and recruiter research into one practical guide.

1. Start with a clear structure

A recruiter should find what they are looking for without searching. Most good CVs follow the same order:

1. Contact details: name, phone number, email address and a link to a professional profile such as LinkedIn[3]. Use a simple, professional email address: in a CareerBuilder survey, 31% of employers named an inappropriate email address as a mistake that could cost a candidate the job[4].
2. A short profile: “a few short lines that sum up who you are and what you hope to do”[3]. In the Ladders study, a summary near the top of the first page helped hold recruiters’ attention[2].
3. Work experience, most recent first[3][5][6].
4. Education and training, also most recent first. With little work experience, put education before work history; once you have more experience, work history comes first[3].
5. Languages, skills, certificates and courses.

For each job give the position, the employer, and the start and end dates (month and year). 27% of employers in the CareerBuilder survey named missing exact employment dates as a mistake[4]. If you have a long gap in work or education, Europass advises a short explanation[6].

2. Show results, not just duties

The most common weakness of a CV is a list of duties that could describe anyone in the same job. Harvard’s career center advises language that is “active rather than passive” and “fact-based (quantify and qualify when possible)“[5]. Europass gives the same advice: “Use strong verbs (e.g. ‘managed’, ‘developed’, ‘increased’)“[6].

Laszlo Bock, who led hiring at Google, summed it up in a formula[7]:

Accomplished [X] as measured by [Y] by doing [Z].

In other words: start with an active verb, measure the result with a number, give a comparison, and say what you did to get there. Bock’s own example turns “Studied financial performance of companies and made investment recommendations” into “Improved portfolio performance by 12% ($1.2M) over one year by refining cost of capital calculations…”[7]. As he says: “Providing data helps. Making it meaningful with a comparison helps even more.”

This is not only for office jobs. Two examples:

Instead of	Write
Worked as a waiter.	Served up to 120 guests per shift in a 60-seat restaurant and trained three new waiters.
Responsible for the warehouse.	Cut order-picking errors by a third in six months by introducing a new shelf labelling system.

You don’t need a number for every line. Scale (how many people, customers, orders), frequency (daily, per shift) and comparisons (faster, fewer, more than before) all work. One rule has no exceptions: be honest. “Putting a lie on your resume is never, ever, ever, worth it”[8].

3. Tailor it to every job

Sending the same CV everywhere is one of the mistakes recruiters mention most often. Harvard lists “failing to tailor the resume to the position or industry” among the top mistakes[5], and in the CareerBuilder survey 36% of employers named a generic CV that is not personalised for the position[4]. The UK National Careers Service is just as direct: “You should tailor your CV to the job or opportunity you’re applying for”[3].

In practice:

• Read the job ad and mark the skills and experience it asks for.
• Update your profile so it says why you suit this job. Europass suggests the same for the “About me” section[6].
• Move the most relevant experience and skills higher.
• Use the words from the ad where they truly describe you, naturally, in your profile, skills and experience[9].

Don’t overdo it. 32% of employers named large amounts of wording copied from the job posting as a mistake[4], and keyword stuffing hurt CVs in the Ladders study as well[2].

4. Write for people and for software

Many employers first put CVs through an applicant tracking system (ATS), software that collects applications and makes them searchable. According to Jobscan, a company that sells CV optimisation tools, 97.4% of Fortune 500 companies used a detectable ATS in 2026[10]. Smaller local employers often read every CV themselves, but a format that software can read is also easier for people to read.

What to avoid:

• Several columns, tables and text boxes. Multi-column layouts “often scramble the reading order”[11], and systems “may not always understand how to interpret text boxes, columns, headers or images”[9].
• Contact details in the page header or footer. Many ATS parsers ignore them, so keep them in the body of the page[11].
• Skill bars, icons and unusual fonts[11].

What helps:

• Standard section headings such as “Work experience”, “Education” and “Skills”[11].
• A standard font such as Arial, Calibri or Times New Roman, 10 to 12 points[9].
• The file format the ad asks for. If it doesn’t say, a PDF with real, selectable text is the safe choice: Bock and Jobscan recommend PDF[8][11], while Indeed notes that some systems handle .docx better[9].

5. Keep it short and easy to scan

In the Ladders study, the CVs that held recruiters’ attention had simple layouts, clear section headings, job titles in bold and achievements in bullet points. Cluttered layouts with long sentences, multiple columns and little white space did worse[1][2].

How long should a CV be? Bock’s rule of thumb is “one page of resume for every ten years of work experience”, because “a three or four or ten page resume simply won’t get read closely”[8]. Europass says the same: “Do not include a full detailed history”[6]. For most people that means one to two pages. Keep the format consistent and leave enough white space[5].

6. Personal details and a photo: follow the local norm

The sources disagree here, because norms differ from country to country. The UK National Careers Service advises leaving out age, date of birth, marital status and nationality[3]. Harvard advises against a photo, age and gender[5], and 13% of US employers in the CareerBuilder survey counted a photo as a mistake[4]. The European Europass CV, on the other hand, has room for a professional photo[6]. Cambridge’s careers service notes that the style and content of a CV “may need to be very different for use in other countries”[12].

Our advice: when you apply to a local employer used to the Europass format, a photo is fine, as long as it is recent, professional and neutral. When you apply abroad or to an international company, check the norm for that country. And when in doubt, leave out anything that has nothing to do with the job: marital status, ID numbers and religion don’t belong on a CV.

7. Languages, skills and references

• Languages: instead of “good” or “fluent”, use the levels of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), from A1 to C2. The Europass self-assessment grid covers understanding (listening and reading), speaking and writing[13]. If you have a certificate, such as IELTS or Goethe, add it.
• Skills: 35% of employers named a missing list of skills as a mistake[4]. List the skills that matter for the job: tools, software, machines, licences, driving licence categories.
• References: you don’t need to list them. “Available on request” is enough[3][5].

8. Proofread, then proofread again

Typos were the mistake employers named most often in the CareerBuilder survey: 58% said a CV with typos could make them automatically dismiss a candidate[4]. Harvard also lists spelling and grammar errors among the top mistakes[5].

Two tricks: read your CV from the bottom up, line by line, so you see the words and not what you meant to write[8]. And ask someone else to check your spelling and grammar[3]. If you use AI tools to help with the text, check every claim yourself. Harvard advises that AI “should not be the primary author”[5].

A quick checklist before you send it

• Contact details are correct and in the body of the page, not the header.
• The profile at the top says in two or three sentences who you are and what you are looking for.
• Experience and education are listed most recent first, with month and year.
• Every job has at least one result, not just duties.
• The CV is tailored to this job and uses the words from the ad, without copying it.
• One or two pages, one column, standard headings and font.
• Languages have CEFR levels.
• Someone else has read it.
• It is saved in the format the ad asks for, or as a PDF.

Build your CV the easy way

To make all of this simpler, we built a free CV builder. It takes you through six short steps: personal details, work experience, education, languages and skills, additional information and a preview. It suggests a profile text for the position you want, reminds you to add numbers to your experience, and lets you rate your languages from A1 to C2. At the end you get a clean PDF, with real text that screening software can read.

What you enter stays in your browser. When the CV is ready, you can download it and, if you want, attach it to your sign-up to our talent network, so employers can find you.