How to Make a Professional CV from Scratch — Complete Step-by-Step Guide

Starting from zero is actually an advantage

When you build a CV from scratch, you don't have to undo years of bad habits. No outdated "objective statement", no photo from 2011, no template with decorative borders that fail ATS scanning. You're starting clean.

This guide walks you through every section in the right order — what to include, how to format it, and what to skip.

Before you start: gather your information

Building quickly requires having everything ready. Before opening a document or tool, collect:

Contact details: email, phone, location, LinkedIn URL
All job titles, companies, and dates (to the month)
Key responsibilities and achievements for each role
Qualifications: university, degree, classification, year; A-levels or equivalent; any relevant certifications
Skills: software, tools, methodologies, languages

Don't try to recall this while writing. Having it ready means the actual writing takes half the time.

Section 1: Contact details

At the top of the page. Plain text, not a table or text box.

What to include:

Full name (slightly larger, bold — 16–18pt)
Professional email (firstname.lastname@gmail.com format if possible)
Phone number
City (not full address)
LinkedIn URL (optional but recommended)

What to leave out:

Date of birth
Nationality (in most countries, this invites discrimination risk)
Full home address
Photo (in the UK and most English-speaking countries, this is not expected and not helpful)

Section 2: Personal profile

2–3 sentences. Job title, years of experience, key specialisms, what you're targeting.

Keep it short. This section is often skimmed in under 5 seconds. If it's vague or generic, it costs you nothing — but if it's strong, it earns you a closer read.

Section 3: Work experience

This is the most important section. List roles in reverse chronological order (most recent first).

For each role:

Job title (bold)
Company name
Location (optional — city is fine)
Dates (Month YYYY – Month YYYY or Present)
3–6 bullet points

How to write bullet points:

Start with an action verb: Managed, Led, Built, Delivered, Increased, Reduced, Designed, Implemented.

Follow with what you did and, where possible, the result.

Weak: "Responsible for managing the marketing budget."

Strong: "Managed £450k annual marketing budget, reducing cost-per-acquisition by 22% through channel reallocation."

If you don't have numbers, describe the scope: team size, scale, responsibility level, stakeholders.

The most common mistake: listing responsibilities without outcomes. Recruiters want to know what happened as a result of what you did.

Section 4: Education

Most recent qualification first, working backwards.

For each:

Institution name
Qualification and subject
Classification or grade
Year of completion (or expected year)

Add A-levels or equivalent below. For professionals more than 5 years out of education, this section can be brief — employers weight experience far more heavily.

Modules, grades, and dissertations can be included if they're directly relevant to the role. Otherwise, leave them out.

Section 5: Skills

A specific, scannable list of your technical and professional skills.

Not: "Communication, teamwork, problem-solving." These are not skills — they're qualities every candidate claims.

Yes: "Python, SQL, Tableau, Google Analytics, Salesforce CRM, Agile/Scrum, JIRA"

Group by type if the list is long: Technical Skills, Software, Languages, Certifications.

This section is heavily scanned by ATS keyword matching. The skills listed here should match the language used in the job descriptions you're targeting.

Section 6: Certifications and additional sections

Only include these if they're relevant. Options:

Certifications (Google, AWS, CIM, ACCA, etc.)
Languages (with proficiency level)
Publications or presentations
Volunteer work (especially if relevant or if you have a shorter work history)
Professional memberships

Don't add these sections to fill space. A 2-page CV with relevant content is better than a 3-page CV padded with irrelevant extras.

Formatting rules

Single-column layout throughout
Standard section headings (Work Experience, Education, Skills — not creative alternatives)
Clean font: Arial, Calibri, or Garamond at 10–12pt
No tables, text boxes, columns, or images
Save as .docx for most applications (PDF if specified)
1–2 pages for most candidates; 3 pages only for very senior or technical roles

Using CVCircuit to build from scratch

CVCircuit was built specifically for this process. You enter your information section by section, and it formats everything correctly as you go. The output is an ATS-compliant single-column CV with strong formatting.

If you're unsure how to phrase your bullet points, the AI writing assistance can rewrite them into achievement-led statements. Once your base CV is built, you can tailor it to any job description in under 60 seconds.

Build your CV free — no credit card, no design decisions, results in about 10 minutes.