What Should You Actually Put on Your CV?

A CV isn’t a form you complete.

There isn’t one universal list of sections where, once you’ve filled every box, you’ve officially finished your CV.

It’s a document designed to help somebody decide whether they want to speak to you about a job.

That means the useful question isn’t really “What am I supposed to put on my CV?”

It’s:

“What does somebody need to know to decide whether I’m worth interviewing?”

That changes the way you think about the whole thing.

Start with the obvious contact information

Your name.

Phone number.

Email address.

Location, just your town or city.

LinkedIn profile, if it’s good and up to date.

You don’t need to turn this into an identity document.

For most UK CVs, I don’t need your date of birth, marital status, National Insurance number or a photograph.

Give me what I need to identify and contact you.

Then let’s get onto the information that might actually get you interviewed.

A useful professional profile

I like a short profile when it helps position somebody quickly.

I don’t like a profile that uses four lines to tell me you’re passionate, dynamic, results-driven and capable of working both independently and as part of a team.

That’s filler.

Your profile should help me understand what sort of professional you are.

A senior HR leader with international transformation experience?

A newly qualified accountant coming from a Big Four background?

A B2B salesperson specialising in SaaS?

A project manager with ten years of infrastructure experience?

Now I know something.

Your employment history

For most experienced candidates, this is the main event.

Include your job title, employer and dates.

Then give enough context to understand the role.

What were you responsible for?

What was the scale?

What did you achieve?

What changed because you were there?

If you’ve got a lot of experience, give the most space to the recent and relevant jobs.

You don’t need to describe a role from 2007 in the same detail as the job you’re doing now.

Achievements

I wouldn’t necessarily create a separate “Achievements” section.

I’d usually rather see achievements attached to the jobs where they happened because that gives them context.

But I absolutely want them somewhere.

One of the biggest problems I see with CVs is that they tell me somebody’s employment history without showing me why that person was particularly good.

If your CV is mostly responsibilities, this is one of the reasons it can look perfectly fine and still struggle to get interviews.

Show me some evidence.

Skills, where they’re useful

A skills section can be useful.

It can also be an enormous collection of words that tells me nothing.

“Leadership.”

“Communication.”

“Teamwork.”

“Problem solving.”

Almost everybody applying for a professional role is going to claim these.

Technical skills are often much more useful because they’re specific.

Systems. Software. Languages. Methodologies. Professional specialisms.

If a skill matters to the jobs you’re applying for, include it.

But remember that evidence beats a claim.

Saying “leadership” in a skills section is considerably less persuasive than showing me that you’ve led a team of 50 people through a major restructure.

Education and qualifications

Yes, include relevant qualifications.

How much detail you give them depends on where you are in your career.

If you graduated last year, your degree might be a significant part of your CV.

If you’ve spent 25 years working as a Finance Director, I probably don’t need a detailed breakdown of every GCSE.

Professional qualifications can obviously remain highly relevant throughout your career.

Use judgement.

Things that are relevant to this particular job

This is where generic CV templates can become unhelpful.

Some people need sections other people don’t.

Maybe publications matter in your field.

Maybe you need a portfolio.

Maybe professional memberships matter.

Maybe security clearance matters.

Maybe languages are incredibly important.

Maybe you’ve got major board experience that deserves its own section.

There isn’t a prize for using exactly the same CV structure as everybody else.

Include the information that helps make the case.

What I’d leave out

I’d generally leave out information that either isn’t relevant or introduces unnecessary personal information.

You don’t need “references available on request”. We all know references can be requested.

You don’t need your full home address in most situations.

You don’t need to tell me about every hobby you’ve ever had just because somebody once said employers like to see personality.

And you definitely don’t need to fill empty space for the sake of it.

Your CV isn’t better because it contains more sections.

Use one test for everything

For every section, every paragraph and every bullet, ask:

Does this help somebody understand why I might be right for the jobs I’m targeting?

Sometimes the answer will be indirectly yes.

Contact details don’t prove you’re a great candidate, but they’re obviously necessary.

Sometimes the answer will be a very clear yes.

A major achievement in your current job absolutely belongs there.

And sometimes you’ll realise you’ve kept something on the CV for ten years simply because it was on the first template you ever used.

Delete it.

A strong CV isn’t about including everything.

It’s about including the right things.

If you’re not sure whether your current CV does that, use my Free CV Score and get a diagnostic before you start adding another section because some bloke on TikTok told you to.

Score your CV free and find out what your CV actually needs.