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CV Sections: Order & List of the Most Common Ones

Before you get down to writing a great CV, you must decide what sections it should have and in what order. Well, this is exactly what you’re about to find out.

Maciej Duszyński, CPRW
Career Expert
CV Sections: Order & List of the Most Common Ones

All good CVs share certain commonalities.

For example, they have the right CV sections. In the right order. With the right contents. And you really need to get all these things right, not to get… left behind.

Don’t worry—

In this guide, we’ll show you:

  • What the most common sections of a CV are.
  • How to order them on a CV for maximum impact.
  • Tips on how to make the most of the sections on your CV.

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1. Common Sections to Put on a CV

A single glance at a CV should be enough for the recruiter to know whether they’re dealing with an entry-level candidate or a seasoned pro. How to do this? Start with including the right sections on your CV.

Five common CV sections

Why these?

First off, if your contact information isn’t there, you can just as well submit a blank page—it will amount to just as much. So make it easy for the recruiter to reach out to you and include your current contact details, such as the phone number and email address.

Secondly, did you know that recruiters spend only about 7 seconds scanning your CV? That’s why a good rundown of the entire document is not just welcome, but absolutely necessary. And this is exactly what a CV objective (or summary) is here for.

The work experience section doesn’t really need any explanation, does it? If you don’t include it in your CV, the document will have no right to be called a CV in the first place. Simple as that.

The same applies to the education section. It’s a fixture on every professional CV and should be taken care of with all the attention it deserves.

As to your skills, if you miss them on your CV it’s very likely the hiring manager will miss them too. And that’s not exactly what you’d like them to miss. At least, not until you decide to change your job.

Moving on to the optional CV sections—

Even if there are no limitations as to what you can put on your CV, the rule of thumb is to only display the relevant stuff. Here’s a list of sections of a CV you may want to consider including:

Optional Sections on a CV

All these could be standalone sections on your CV, or you may want to include them as subsections. For example, relevant coursework could be part of the education section on a CV or you could list your accomplishments or projects as part of the experience section.

Expert Hint: Studies suggest that recruiters scan CVs in search of relevant information. Make sure to use the right section titles to help them quickly notice the things they’re looking for.

How to decide what sections to put on your CV and how much prominence give them?

Easy.

Always see to it that your CV is tailored to the job offer you’re pursuing. Does the employer put a lot of emphasis on your educational background? If so, it might be a good idea to add information about your relevant coursework, certifications, or publications in dedicated CV sections to make them visible.

If you’re not sure how to put your CV together, have a look at our dedicated guide on what to put on a CV.

2. How to Order the Sections of a CV

These are the three most common scenarios—

  1. You’re putting together your first CV with no experience.
  2. You’re writing a CV as an experienced candidate.
  3. You’re writing a career change CV.

For maximum impact, your CV sections should be arranged differently in each of these situations.

Let’s consider all of them.

More often than not, a CV with no experience will have its sections in the following order:

No Experience CV—Order of Sections

  1. Contact Details
  2. Career Objective
  3. Education Section
  4. Relevant Experience / Internships
  5. Extra-Curricular Activities
  6. Skills
  7. Hobbies and Interests

As you can see, in a no-experience CV the education section comes before the experience section. And this is a deliberate choice. Why? Well, if you have no experience under the belt you need to show what you do have. In this case, chances are that you can say quite a lot about what you’ve learned.

Remember:

Always make the most of your strengths and put them up top on your CV. Our dedicated guide on making an entry-level CV will show you how in a few simple steps.

Moving on—

As an experienced candidate, you’ll want to order the sections on your CV differently:

Experienced CV—Sections Order

  1. Contact Details
  2. Professional Summary
  3. Experience
  4. Education
  5. Skills
  6. Relevant Additional Sections

If you look closely at the sections on a CV for experienced candidates you’ll immediately notice two major differences. It has a professional summary rather than objective, and experience comes before education.

Why?

First off, let’s briefly consider the difference between the CV summary and objective sections. In essence, a CV objective focuses on your skills and is more fitting for inexperienced candidates. A CV summary, on the other hand, offers a brief rundown of your professional career’s highlights. As such, it’s a better choice for more experienced candidates.

Second, your experience is your strength and it should be as high up on your CV as possible—this rule never changes and is true for all CV formats. Always show off your strong points as high up on a CV as possible.

Finally, when you think about what extra sections to add to your CV—let relevance be your guide. So, if adding information on, say, your publications will look good on your CV but your publications are irrelevant to the job, don’t include this CV section.

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Now—

As a career changer, you might have mixed feelings about deciding on the right CV sections order. What we recommend is this:

Order of Sections on a CV for Career Change

  1. Contact Details
  2. Objective
  3. Relevant Experience 
  4. (Optional) Additional Experience
  5. Education
  6. Skills
  7. Extra Sections

The thing with changing a career is that you may have had quite a lot of experience… but most of it could be irrelevant to the position you’re pursuing.

That’s why you should opt for the professional objective (rather than summary) and follow it up with your relevant experience. This way you’ll show the recruiter your motivation and back it up with examples. Also, you may consider including an additional experience section where you can put things indirectly related to the job you want to get.

And just like in the previous cases, let relevance guide your choice as to what additional CV sections to include.

3. CV Section Writing Tips

Here’s a brief rundown of the most important things to keep in mind when writing different CV sections.

If you’re looking for more detailed advice and examples, please visit our dedicated guides linked to in the first section of this article.

Contact Details

Remember to:

  • Include your full name and position.
  • Add your phone number and email address.

Before you link out to your social media profiles (e.g. LinkedIn) make sure they’re up to date and don’t include any information you don’t want the recruiter to learn about. Also, make sure your email address looks professional. Use your real name rather than your high school pseudonym.

Adding your postal address is rarely necessary these days. Only do it if the job offer says it’s necessary or if the employer is looking for people residing in a particular area.

CV Profile 

A CV profile is an umbrella term for the CV summary and objective. Regardless of which one you decide to put on your CV, remember:

  • Limit the length to 3–5 sentences.
  • Address the employer by name.
  • Use facts and figures to boost your chances.

Also, even though this is the first section of a CV—write it last. Why? It’s a brief rundown of the entire document. If you don’t have the full version in front of your eyes, you won’t know what to pick out.

Professional Experience

Most of the time, this is the central section on any CV. So—

  • Describe your experience in terms of achievements, not responsibilities.
  • Focus on the things relevant to the position you’re pursuing.
  • Use numbers to quantify your experience and show your real-life impact.

Also, remember to put your most recent experience up top and move back in time from there. This is how a reverse-chronological CV format works. What does it mean to present your experience as achievements, rather than responsibilities? Say, you work for a sales department. This is what your achievement can look like:

  • Grew sales by £30K in Q2 2019 which exceeded the planned KPI by 30%.

This is a responsibility of yours:

  • Developing sales and meeting KPIs.

See the difference?

Education

Just like in the case of your professional experience, the contents of the education CV section should be relevant to the job offer and adequate to your experience.

In other words, if the employer is looking for someone with a specific educational background, make sure you put everything that’s necessary there. Also, if you graduated 10 years ago, you don’t have to provide details regarding your extracurricular activities—it’s your experience that matters most.

In the vast majority of cases, though, that’s what you’d normally put in the education section:

  • Name of the school
  • Graduation date
  • Degree earned

Skills

The skills section on a CV must be something more than just a list. Each of the items you decide to include should not only be relevant to the job—your experience and/or education CV sections should reflect it too.

Let’s say you put interpersonal skills among your skills. Now, it would be good if one of the achievements showed that you do display them. Something along the lines of established long-term relations with 3 new vendors would do the job.

Plus, make sure to present a healthy mix of your hard skills and soft skills—both of them are important.

Additional Sections

Let’s put it this way—

Make sure the additional sections you decide to present on your CV actually add to your value, not dilute it.

So if the employer is looking for someone who speaks fluent German, do add a section on your knowledge of foreign languages by all means. Just make sure you put German there and describe your proficiency level. If you’re planning to only list your basic knowledge of Spanish, it will get you nowhere. See the point?

The same is true about any other additional section on a CV. Make sure it’s relevant and boosts your value in the eyes of the hiring manager.

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Key Points

Standard CVs include five basic CV sections:

  • Contact Details
  • CV Profile
  • Professional Experience
  • Education
  • Skills

You can also include other (optional) CV sections, such as:

  • Certifications
  • Interests
  • Volunteering
  • Awards and Honours

…and many others. The rule of thumb is to only include sections that are relevant to the job you’re pursuing.

The order of CV sections is not set in stone and depending on your professional background you may want to put either the experience or education section first.

But there’s more to effective CVs than putting different sections in the right order—you must fill them in with impactful content.

Do you have any questions? Would you like to share your observations on CV sections and their order? We’d love to hear from you! Give us a shout out in the comments below.

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Maciej Duszyński, CPRW
Experienced in the education management industry, Maciej shares his knowledge for every step of your job hunt, from landing an internship to moving to an executive position. Maciej has helped job candidates at all stages of their career paths, from interns to directors to C-suite members, to thrive in their job. His mission is to help you find the right opportunity and create a job application that gets you the career you deserve. Maciej holds a Master’s degree in English with a specialization in communication and education management.

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