A strong CV personal profile is vital if you want to land the best jobs on the market.
Sitting at the very top of your CV, your profile is the very first thing a recruiter will see, so it needs to hold their attention and encourage them to read on.
Get your it wrong, and your CV will be constantly skipped over – get it right, and you will get plenty of responses and interviews.
To help you create your own powerful CV personal profile, I’ve included 25 examples of really good CV profiles from a range of industries and experience levels, along with notes explaining why each one is effective.
Accounts & finance CV profile
What makes this CV profile effective?
In an accountant or finance-based role, employers need to know that they can trust a candidate to look after one of their most valuable assets… Money.
This profile instantly shows readers that the candidate has a recognised accounting qualification and explains the industries they have gained their experience across, along with a short summary of their best accounting skills such as forecasting and risk management.
It also explains the core benefits as to why someone would employ this person; to manage a business’s financial compliance obligations and minimise business-wide risk.
Quick tip: To get a head start on creating your own interview-winning CV, use one of our professional CV templates.
Administrator CV profile
What makes this personal profile effective?
In summary, this profile shows recruiters all of the essential skills and knowledge that a good administrator should have– and it gets the message across very quickly with no clichés. It contains a good overview of the environments this candidate has worked in, and shows how their administration skills have been applied to support the business functions of former employers and help them manage their information in particular.
Anybody reading this profile will be left with no doubt that they have just found a competent administrative professional.
Check out our full admin CV example and writing guide, or receptionist CV example.
Customer service CV profile
What makes this CV profile effective?
A good customer service agent should be personable and approachable, with a flair for product knowledge and sales – and this profile shows recruiters all of those things. The short sharp nature of this profile makes it a very easy read and quickly demonstrates the candidate’s length of experience in customer facing roles, along with their product and industry specialisms.
The profile goes on to detail this person’s retail skills, sales strengths and even brags a little without being too forward. Ultimately the profile demonstrates how this candidate could contribute to customer satisfaction and sales in a professional manner.
Check out our customer service CV example , waiter/waitress CV example, best CV templates, CV UK format examples, care assistant CV, Support worker CV, warehouse operative CV or 10 good CV examples.
Top tips for writing a CV profile
- Your CV profile is the first thing a recruiter or hiring manager will see when opening your CV, so it’s worth investing a lot of time and effort into it
- Give reader’s a high level overview of your skills and experience, and encourage them to read the rest of your CV
- Keep it short (5-8 lines) to ensure you get your message across quickly to time-strapped employers
- Avoid clichés such as “Works well in a team” or “always goes the extra mile” and focus on tangible industry specific content
- Give readers a reason to be interested in hiring you by describing the benefits you can bring to their company e.g. Will you boost their sales? Cut their spending? Take care of their customers?
Digital marketing CV personal profile
What makes this CV profile effective?
This profile wastes no time in showcasing this candidate’s full range of digital know-how (such as SEO, content, PPC, conversion optimisation) whilst being sure to highlight a specialism in eCommerce. Overall the profile does a great job of quickly telling recruiters how this person applies their interpersonal skills and knowledge to employer projects in order to boost traffic, leads and sales – crucial metrics in any digital marketing role.
See our digital marketing CV example.
Events manager CV profile
What makes this CV profile effective?
This event manager CV profile starts with a headline of the candidate’s experience within events management, detailing their expertise in administration, organisation, planning, and delivery – it also highlights their Prince2 certification which is extremely important for anybody in a project-based role.
This events manager is effective in showing their personal contribution involves all stages of the event from conception to completion, and the core skills section draws attention to highly sought after events attributes such as budget management, operations and corporate partnering.
Quick tip: Learn how to write a cover letter to ensure your CV gets opened.
Check out my video guide on how to write a CV profile:
Quick tip: A poorly written CV will fail to impress recruiters and employers. Use our quick-and-easy CV Builder to create a winning CV in minutes with professional templates and pre-written content for every industry.
Executive assistant CV profile
What makes this profile effective?
This profile gets straight to the point by giving an overview of the candidate’s in-demand executive assistant skills such as office management, and secretarial skills – it also highlights the range of industries they have gained experience in. The overarching theme of the profile is that this person ultimately provides a high level of support to colleagues and customers which is exactly what’s sought after in a good executive assistant.
The core skills provide a snapshot of the candidate’s vital skills such as diary management and reception duties – giving readers a good idea of their suitability for EA roles within seconds of opening the CV (curriculum vitae) and giving them a good chance of landing job interviews.
Graduate CV profile (no experience)
What makes this profile effective?
This graduate candidate hasn’t quite completed their degree course yet, and doesn’t have any professional experience, but it hasn’t stopped them from writing a powerful personal profile. They start by stating their degree course, and making it clear that they are achieving high grades, whilst also mentioning their bilingual abilities and extra-curricular activities. They compensate for their lack of experience by detailing their ambitions to pursue a career in law and detail some of the skills they are gaining through their studies and voluntary work. Some junior candidates prefer to use a slightly longer personal statement at the top of their CV – you can see this style in my CV personal statement writing guide.
Check out our school leaver CV example, Graduate CV example and student CV.
HR CV Profile
What makes this profile effective?
This candidate kicks their CV off with a nice a simple outline of their length of HR experience, along with the industries they have experience in (FMCG, IT) and an indication to the size and calibre of company they are used to working with – this is exactly what a recruiter needs to know when opening an HR CV.
They then expand to provide detail on their specialisms within HR such as employment law and health & safety whilst showing readers what impact this has on the wider business and their stakeholders.
Basic CV template. – Online CV creator reviews.
IT manager CV profile
What makes this profile effective?
This IT manager CV profile does a great job of outlining not-only the candidate’s technical expertise, but also their ability to work closely with non-technical staff to drive change across employer business. They start by summarising their length of experience and particular expertise within IT infrastructure, whilst also demonstrating an industry specialism of educational employers.
They then delve a bit deeper to highlight specific technologies within infrastructure that recruiters will be looking for, and demonstrate key business skills such as solution implementation, relationship building and stakeholder management.
Managing director CV profile
What makes this personal profile effective?
As a senior candidate, it’s important to head your CV up with a profile that highlights your depth of experience, and quickly tell recruiters the kind of results you achieve for companies. This candidate provides a punchy explanation of their length of experience in business, combined with some core benefits they deliver for businesses, such as operational efficiency, customer experience and profitability.
They go on to detail their industry specialisms, relevant qualifications, and specific strategies they implement to drive business growth – giving readers a great overview of their abilities.
Note: a CV profile is also known as a summary or objective.
Marketing CV profile
What makes this CV profile effective?
This profile opens with a clear statement of the candidate’s marketing experience, and promptly tells readers the level they work at by giving an indication of typical campaign value – this will certainly catch the eye of a busy recruiter.
They give further high-level detail of the types of marketing campaigns they have led (online, print, social) and show the impact they deliver by highlighting results such as market share growth, lead generation and customer base growth.
Nurse CV profile
What makes this profile effective?
This profile provides a short sharp explanation of the candidate’s extensive experience within nursing with high-level detail of the types of care they can carry out, along with the environments they work within – this instantly gives readers a great idea of the roles this person is suitable for.
They expand to explain their passion for the role, which is important in a care-based role, and they also list the specific medical areas which they are competent in, which are key terms that recruiters will be looking for.
Procurement CV profile
What makes this profile effective?
By opening with a brief statement on key knowledge and abilities within procurement, such as purchasing, stock control and logistics, as well as detailing their industry specialisms – this candidate sets a great tone for the CV and quickly gives recruiters a snapshot of their offerings.
The profile further expands by explaining how the candidate’s actions add value to employer procurement by improving supplier relationships, reducing costs and improving supply chain efficiency.
Project manager CV profile
What makes this profile effective?
This candidate’s profile opens strongly by giving a brief overview of length of project management experience, important certifications (Prince2) and the types of projects they have led – when recruiters are searching for PMs, these are the details they want to know first.
In-demand project management skills such as budgeting, stakeholder management and contract negotiation are also highlighted whilst ultimately demonstrating that project delivery is paramount.
Check out our project manager example CV, architect, electrician CV and engineer example CV
Sales CV profile
What makes this profile effective?
As a sales professional, it’s important that recruiters can quickly see your ability to communicate persuasively and deliver results for employers. To do this, this candidate quickly demonstrates their ability to hit targets, sell to senior figures, and grow revenue within their chosen sector.
This profile also highlights some essential sales skills that recruiters will expect to see, such as networking, lead generation, presenting and closing sales – essential features in any sales CV.
Supply chain CV profile
What makes this profile effective?
This person makes their experience length and core supply chain abilities known quickly to ensure that readers pay attention to the CV once they open it. They include some in-demand supply chain skills such as stock control, procurement, supplier negotiation, as well as giving an indication of the type of firms they have worked for.
Anybody who picks up this CV can promptly understand what this candidate’s high-level skills are, and what sort of role they could fit in to.
Teacher CV profile
What makes this profile effective?
When a recruiter or employer is looking to hire a teacher, they will firstly want to know, what age group does this person teach? What curriculum do they know? Where have they taught?
This profile answers those questions straight away and gives a good intro to the teacher’s skills set by including skills like classroom management, resource planning, and even showing that they contribute to wider school community activities.
Check out our teacher CV example, teaching assistant CV example and academic CV example.
Teaching assistant CV profile
Why is this CV profile good?
In order to give recruiters an instant understanding of how this candidate could add value to any school, they have given a brief but powerful overview of the core factors that school staff would need from them.
This includes things like; how long they have been working in schools, the year groups they work with, the key classroom activities they can carry out, and above all, how they help students to learn and progress.
Chef CV profile
Why is this CV profile good?
This chef’s CV profile provides readers with an easy-to-digest (no pun intended) summary of what this candidate can offer kitchens and restaurants. They not only cover their most valuable chef skills such as menu development and health & safety, but they also highlight they types of venues and food types the specialise in, so that recruiters can see the best places to match them to – these can of course be tailored to suit particular jobs, if you have wide-ranging experience.
Business analyst CV profile
Why is this CV profile good?
This business analyst candidate ensures that recruiters do not skip past their CV by putting together a quick and impactful message in their profile which highlights their core BA skills, gives examples of the types and sizes of projects they have worked on, and also shows they are qualified to do the job.
Core qualities that BA employers will be looking for include; requirements gathering, quality assurance, workshops, Agile, Waterfall and UAT testing.
Support worker CV profile
Why is this CV profile good?
As a support worker it’s crucial to swiftly prove to recruiters and employers that you have the right skills and knowledge to provide care in a professional and effective manner.
This candidate does exactly that, by summarising the type of people they have experience caring for, health issue knowledge, patient relationship and the types of organisations they have worked in. This gives readers enough relevant info to be enthused and continue to read the CV.
Estate agent CV profile
Why is this CV profile good?
As an estate agent, you need to prove your abilities to deal with customers, negotiate prices, work towards targets, and sell properties. This candidate by giving a high level snapshot of all their most essential estate agent qualities in just a few short lines.
They mention the the types of properties they have experience in selling, how they manage the house buying process, and round up by talking about the results they achieve for their employers.
This tells recruiters everything they need to know within the first few seconds of opening the CV.
Graphic designer CV profile
Why is this CV profile good?
This graphic designer ensures that their CV is noticed by providing readers with enough information to know what type of graphic design software they can use, the type of work they can produce, and the kinds of organisations they can produce it for.
They do this by highlighting in-demand software skills such as PhotoShop and Sketchup, and giving an overview of the designs they create and who for.
Student CV profile
Why is this CV profile good?
As a student or school leaver, you won’t have much experience, so this candidate has expanded upon their education, extra curricular activities and interests to give their profile plenty of substance.
By highlighting their passion for the industry they are trying to break into and demonstrating plenty of transferable and workplace skills, such as mathematics and communication. They also prove their enthusiasm by listing some of their voluntary work and school club involvement.
Architect CV profile
Why is this CV profile good?
This architect makes sure that their CV is not skipped over, by creating an eye-catching profile that quickly explains why their CV is worth reading, by summarising all of their most in-demand talents.
As an architect, this includes attributes such, what areas of architecture do they specialise in? (both in education and experience) What kind of building projects have they worked on? (size, scale, type). What is their software knowledge? How do they work with others to deliver results for employers and clients?
6 tips for writing your CV profile
When writing your own CV, dedicate plenty of time and effort to your CV profile, as it can often make or break your CV.
Here are my top 6 tips for creating a winning CV profile that will get you noticed by the best employers
Tailor to your target jobs
The key to getting your CV noticed by recruiters, is giving them what they are looking for – it’s that simple.
To do this, you just need to pack your CV profile with the skills and knowledge that you have, which most closely match what they want to see in a candidate.
Do this by searching for your target job titles on one of the major job sites, and making a list of the skills knowledge and experience that regularly appear in the job descriptions.
Once you have a list of these in-demand requirements, simply try to fit as many of them as possible into your CV profile as you can – or close variations if you don’t have perfectly matching skills.
Keep it short and sharp
Recruiters often see hundreds of job applications and CVs in a day, so they don’t always have much time to read your CV on first receiving it.
For this reason, you need to keep your CV profile brief, so it can be skim read quickly, and the most important points are easy to spot.
Avoid CV cliches
You may well be a “team player” or maybe you “go the extra mile”.
These qualities, such as teamwork, are important, but recruiters are not searching for them at this stage of the application… Plus they are generic to all jobs.
They are looking for profession specific skills like software knowledge, languages, qualifications, length of experience within a particular industry etc.
So stick to the hard facts and skills in your CV profile.
Sell yourself
Your CV profile is no time to be modest.
You need to tell employers why it’s worth investing their time in reading your CV.
So sell yourself by describing your highest levels of achievement and even include some action verbs, facts and figures to show the kind of results you can achieve.