How to write a graduate CV in the UK, with examples

A UK graduate CV should be no longer than two A4 pages and should not include a photo, your date of birth or your marital status. Start with your contact details and an optional short profile, then your education, experience, skills and interests, listing the most recent items first in each section. Describe what you achieved rather than what you were responsible for, using numbers where you honestly can, and tailor the CV to each job advert.

What should a UK graduate CV look like?#

Keep it short, clear and easy to scan:

• Length. Prospects recommends no more than two A4 pages. Oxford University’s careers service says one or two full pages.
• Font. The National Careers Service suggests a clear font such as Arial, Times New Roman or Calibri, in size 11 or bigger, with the same style throughout.
• Layout. Use headings and bullet points so a recruiter can find what they need quickly.
• No title. Prospects advises against heading the page “Curriculum vitae” or “CV”. Your name is the heading.

Prospects’ example CVs show the main formats, including chronological, skills-based and technical CVs. Prospects says the chronological CV is the most commonly used type. Your university careers service may have its own templates too.

What should you leave off a UK CV?#

Leave these out of a UK CV:

• A photo. Prospects says you don’t need one unless you are applying for acting or modelling work.
• Your age, date of birth, marital status and nationality. The National Careers Service says you should not include them. Oxford’s list also includes children, partner, disability, sex, religion and racial background.
• Your full home address, if you post your CV online. Prospects warns that fraudsters could target you.
• Referees’ names and contact details. Prospects says employers assume references are available, so leave the line out if you are short of space.
• Filler. Oxford suggests cutting basic IT skills and generic interests such as socialising, cooking or reading.

If you are used to including a photo or personal details on a CV, take them out for UK applications. If you need to explain your right to work in the UK, our guide for international students covers the options.

What order should the sections go in?#

For most graduates, this order works:

1. Name and contact details. Phone number, a professional email address and your LinkedIn link, which the National Careers Service suggests including. If you add it, make sure your profile matches your CV. The free LinkedIn Check can help you review it.
2. Profile (optional). In the National Careers Service’s words, “a few short lines that sum up who you are and what you hope to do”. Make it specific to the job.
3. Education. Most recent first, with the qualification, grade (or expected grade) and dates. Prospects advises mentioning modules only where they are relevant. A relevant dissertation or project can go here.
4. Experience. Most recent first. Include part-time jobs, internships, volunteering and society roles. Prospects says this section should come before education if you have plenty of relevant work experience.
5. Skills. Languages, software and technical skills, with enough detail to be useful. “Excel: pivot tables, XLOOKUP, charts” tells an employer more than “Microsoft Office”.
6. Interests (optional). Only include ones that show something about you, such as running a club, competing or creating something.
7. References. “Available on request”, or leave it out.

How do you write a CV with no experience?#

You almost certainly have more to offer than you think. The National Careers Service says that for a first job “you can focus on skills you’ve learned through projects, work experience or volunteering”. The Civil Service gives the example of organising a school trip or a charity event and highlighting the skills you used.

Useful material includes:

• part-time work in retail, hospitality, tutoring or call centres
• volunteering and charity fundraising
• society committee roles, sports teams and student ambassador work
• your dissertation, group projects and anything you built or researched in your own time

If only some of your experience is relevant, split it into two headings, such as “Relevant experience” and “Other experience”, so the strongest examples come first. Our guide to getting a graduate job with no experience covers ways to build more.

How do you turn duties into achievements?#

A duty says what you were supposed to do. An achievement shows what you actually did and what changed as a result. Oxford’s careers service suggests using “numbers, percentages, and values to quantify your impact”, and starting bullet points with action verbs such as analysed, created, recommended, managed or led. Prospects adds that you should back up every claim with evidence and avoid empty phrases like “team player” and “hardworking”.

A simple pattern is: action verb + what you did + the result, with a number if you have one.

The examples below are made up to show the idea. Use your own real details.

If you don’t have an exact figure, describe the scale honestly instead: how often, how many people, how large a budget. Only include numbers you can explain at interview. Prospects is clear that you should never lie or exaggerate, and warns that lying on a CV can be a criminal offence.

How do you tailor a CV to a job advert?#

Tailoring matters because employers compare your CV with what the job needs. In the Civil Service, for example, “your skills and experience will be scored against the essential criteria in the job advert”. The National Careers Service puts it simply: write your CV to match the job and company you are applying for.

For each application:

• Highlight the essential criteria in the advert and person specification.
• Check each one appears in your CV, backed by an example.
• Reorder your bullet points so the most relevant come first.
• Use the employer’s words where they genuinely describe what you did, for example “stakeholder management” or “data visualisation”.
• Rewrite your profile so it names the role and the two or three strengths that matter most for it.

Keep a longer master CV with everything in it, then cut it down for each job. If an advert is vague or full of jargon, the free Job Ad Decoder can help you pick out the skills it is really asking for.

Do applicant tracking systems read your CV?#

Often, yes, especially at large employers. Prospects explains that applicant tracking systems (ATS) have been used for many years, usually by high-volume recruiters, to screen CVs for keywords from the job description and sort them for shortlisting. Here is what careers services say about how they work:

• They extract your details into fields. The University of Bristol’s careers service explains that an ATS parses your CV, pulling out text such as job titles, dates and skills, so recruiters can search and review applications.
• Systems differ in what they do next. LSE Careers describes platforms that score and rank applications before a recruiter reviews the top-ranked ones. Bristol says the systems it describes mainly organise information, and that automatic rejection based on CV content alone is very unlikely.
• Screening questions can rule you out automatically. LSE notes that many systems ask set screening questions, and a wrong answer can knock you out. Read those questions carefully.
• Complex layouts can confuse them. Prospects says an ATS can’t read images, logos or graphics. Bristol adds that columns, icons and text boxes can disrupt parsing, and that a simple one-column layout is usually safest. LSE also advises avoiding tables, headers and footers.
• Spell out abbreviations. LSE suggests writing a term in full the first time, with the abbreviation in brackets.

Bristol advises using keywords “once or twice where they genuinely describe what you did”, rather than stuffing them in. Write for a human reader first: a clear, simple CV suits both.

What file format and name should you use?#

Follow the advert first. Prospects says to check the job advert or application instructions, or to ask the recruiter. If there is no instruction, careers services differ: Oxford suggests a PDF so your formatting stays intact, while Bristol says a Word document is generally the most reliable choice unless the employer asks for a PDF. LSE says either can work, but that a Word document is the safer option when in doubt.

Give the file a professional name that identifies you. Prospects’ example is “Joe-Smith-CV”, not “Document 1”. Before you send it, open the saved file to check the layout, run a spell check and ask someone to proofread it. Your university careers service can give feedback.

Do you still need a cover letter?#

Usually, yes. Prospects says applications should always include a cover letter unless the advert says otherwise. Keep it to three to five short paragraphs and no more than one A4 page, address it to a named person where you can, and rewrite it for every application.

Some large graduate schemes don’t ask for either. Lloyds Banking Group, for example, says a CV or covering letter is not required for its graduate schemes, which start with an application form and an online assessment instead. For many schemes, the next hurdle after your application is a set of online tests.