Not sure what a UK CV should look like now? The advice can be confusing. One source recommends a distinctive design; another says to keep things simple for Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). Then there is the question of what recruiters actually want to see: skills, responsibilities, achievements or keywords?

A strong CV does not need elaborate design or inflated language. It needs to make your experience easy to understand, show what you have achieved and use terminology that fits the role. Once those basics are right, the layout becomes much easier to judge.

Build the CV Around What Recruiters Need

A recruiter should be able to scan the first page and understand what you do, where you have worked and how closely your background fits the vacancy. Dense paragraphs and unnecessary design elements only make that harder.

For most professional roles, the main sections are contact details, a personal statement, core competencies, career history and education. Depending on the profession, you may also need qualifications, certifications, memberships, technical skills or relevant projects. Requirements can differ between employers and professions, so a CV for a regulated or technical role may need a different emphasis from a general office CV.

Keep your contact details simple: name, telephone number, email address and general location. There is usually no need to include your date of birth, marital status or photograph.

Give the personal statement a clear purpose

Your personal statement should establish what you do, where your experience lies and what you offer the role.

Avoid phrases such as “hard-working individual” or “results-driven professional” unless the rest of the CV provides evidence for them. A marketing manager, for example, has more to gain from mentioning digital campaigns, content strategy or customer acquisition than simply calling themselves “results-driven”.

The statement should introduce the evidence that follows, not make claims the rest of the CV cannot support.

Choose Competencies You Can Actually Demonstrate

A core competencies section gives recruiters a quick view of your strongest skills. It can also help an ATS recognise relevant terminology, but only when those terms genuinely reflect your background.

Start with the job description. Identify skills, software, qualifications and responsibilities that matter to the role. Where they match your experience, use the employer's terminology naturally.

The evidence needs to follow. “Stakeholder management” means little on its own. It becomes more convincing when your career history shows who you worked with, what you handled and what you helped deliver.

A long list of keywords cannot compensate for weak evidence underneath it.

Turn Career History Into Evidence

Your employment history should do more than list routine responsibilities. It should show what you did and, where possible, what changed because of your work.

Replace routine duties with meaningful achievements

Compare:

“Responsible for managing customer accounts.”

with:

“Managed a portfolio of 40 business accounts and reorganised account-handling processes to improve response times.”

The second gives the reader something to judge. It shows scale, responsibility and an action taken to improve a process.

Not every role will produce impressive figures or dramatic achievements. Where exact results are unavailable, describe the scale, complexity or purpose of the work instead.

Use direct verbs such as managed, delivered, analysed, negotiated, developed or implemented where they accurately describe your contribution.

Use numbers when they are genuine

Numbers can provide useful context. Team size, client numbers, project value, workload or time saved can help a recruiter understand scale.

Do not invent percentages or financial results. An accurate description without a number is better than a precise figure you cannot support.

Use ATS Keywords Without Making the CV Robotic

ATS optimisation is not about repeating keywords as often as possible.

Read the vacancy and identify terminology that genuinely matters. It might include software, qualifications, technical skills or specific responsibilities. Where those areas match your experience, use the language naturally across the CV.

Context matters. If “project management” appears in your skills section but your career history contains no projects, deadlines, budgets or delivery responsibilities, the keyword has little weight.

Formatting matters too. Clear headings such as “Career History”, “Education” and “Skills” are easier for software and recruiters to interpret than elaborate layouts.

Before sending your CV, ask:

• Does the CV naturally include the important terms from the job description?
• Can I support each major skill with evidence?
• Can an ATS identify the main sections without relying on graphics?
• Would a recruiter understand my strongest experience after a quick scan?

If the evidence is missing, adding another keyword will not fix the problem.

Do Not Let Design Overshadow the Content

A CV can look polished and still be difficult to read. Multiple columns, decorative icons, text boxes and oversized headings may look modern, but they can reduce useful space and create problems for some ATS systems.

The same applies to wording. Candidates sometimes make sentences longer in an attempt to sound professional without adding useful information.

When looking at examples from the best CV writers UK, focus less on the visual template and more on how experience is presented. Strong examples usually make achievements, relevant skills and responsibilities easy to identify.

You also do not need to give every job equal space. Recent roles that relate closely to your target position usually deserve more detail than an early job with little relevance.

Make Every Section Support the Same Professional Story

Read the CV as one document. Does the personal statement reflect the experience shown later? Do the competencies appear in the employment history?

If you claim strong leadership skills but provide no evidence of managing people, projects or responsibilities, the claim feels unsupported. The same applies to technical expertise and specialist knowledge.

Then check the practical details. Employment dates, job titles, spelling, punctuation and formatting should remain consistent. Several small inconsistencies can make an otherwise strong CV look rushed.

Make Relevant Experience Easy to Find

You do not need to include everything you have ever done. You need to make the experience relevant to the target role easy to find.

Cut an old responsibility if it takes up several lines but contributes little to the application. Give that space instead to a recent project, achievement or responsibility that demonstrates what the employer needs.

Finally, review the CV twice. First, check whether an ATS can identify the relevant terminology and sections. Then read it as a recruiter would. Can they understand your strongest experience without having to piece it together?

If the right information is there and easy to find, the CV is doing its job.