1. Read the role and collect your evidence
Save the job description and highlight the responsibilities and requirements that matter most. For each one, note an example from employment, study, a project or volunteering. Separate things you can demonstrate from things you would like to learn.
Gather accurate dates, job titles, course names and useful links before polishing sentences. This gives you a factual first draft. For example, if a vacancy asks for organisation and customer communication, a shift handover, an event booking or a resolved enquiry may be more useful than an unrelated award.
2. Add contact details and a focused introduction
Start with your name, a working email address and appropriate contact details. A city or general location can provide context without a full home address. Add a portfolio or professional profile only if it is current and relevant. Check the employer’s instructions for any specific information it needs.
An optional short profile can connect your experience to the role. Replace a broad claim such as “motivated professional seeking a challenge” with a concrete introduction: “Retail assistant with experience handling returns, maintaining stock records and helping customers compare products. Seeking a customer support role.” Keep every statement supportable.
3. Put the strongest relevant section first
Experience is a useful starting point when you have relevant employment. Education or projects may deserve the earlier position for a student or career starter. Within employment and education, listing the most recent entry first gives a clear timeline.
Use familiar headings such as “Experience,” “Education,” “Projects” and “Skills.” Include additional sections when they add relevant evidence, not merely to fill space. Oxford’s careers service also emphasises selecting relevant content and presenting it clearly in its CV guidance.
4. Turn duties into specific experience bullets
For each role, give the title, organisation and dates, then select a few relevant contributions. A useful bullet combines an action with its context and a result or scope you can explain. “Responsible for spreadsheets” could become “Maintained the weekly stock spreadsheet, checked missing entries with colleagues and flagged items needing a recount.”
Use numbers where they are known and useful; a deadline, team size or number of events can give context. Never invent a percentage to make a sentence sound stronger. Explain your own part in team results, and remove confidential information. Choose present tense for continuing responsibilities and past tense for completed work.
5. Make education and skills concrete
Give the qualification, institution and relevant dates. Mark an unfinished qualification or expected graduation clearly. Recent students can add a project, dissertation or a few relevant modules; experienced applicants can usually be more selective about older study.
List skills you could discuss or demonstrate. Instead of “advanced Excel,” name the tasks you can do, such as formulas, lookups or charts, if accurate. Use the employer’s terminology when it describes your actual experience. For ideas about presentation and section order, compare the complete CV examples.
6. Build and review the document in LizardCV
Open My CVs and create a new CV. Add your details through the sections on the left, checking the live document preview on the right. Use the design controls below the preview to choose among the 10 CV templates and adjust the document’s appearance.
Edit for relevance before making the text smaller. The interface is available in nine languages; changing its language does not translate the text you type. LizardCV stores drafts locally, so keep an editable JSON backup if you need to preserve or transfer your work. Local drafts do not automatically follow you to another device.
7. Check the file you will actually send
- Check spelling, dates, contact details and every link.
- Read the PDF at normal size and inspect page breaks, spacing and any clipped text.
- Confirm the strongest evidence appears early and that repeated or unrelated details have been removed.
- Check the employer’s file requirements. LizardCV downloads a free, selectable-text A4 PDF; it does not export Word documents.
- Give the file a clear name, such as Alex-Morgan-CV.pdf, and inspect any application fields populated from the upload.
For more detailed extraction checks, use the ATS-friendly CV guide. Keep the version you submitted so you can refer to the same examples when preparing for an interview.