How to Write an Effective Work Experience Section on Your CV

The professional experience section

The professional experience section is all about your paid and relevant work experience. It shouldn’t include voluntary or irrelevant work experience. This section is mandatory in every experienced professional’s CV. In most cases, it’s the most impactful section of the document. Also, it’s most likely to occupy the largest part of your CV.

The additional experience section

This section is not always necessary, but it can be very useful. You can use additional experience to list work that doesn’t fit in your professional experience section, but you still want to include in your CV. For example, older experience or roles significantly different from your target job can be summarised in the additional experience section.

The voluntary experience section

The voluntary experience section should include your relevant unpaid experience. Relevant pro bono work not only demonstrates your skills but also shows you are a good human. Don’t lose the opportunity to showcase your giving side.

The reverse chronological structure

This is the most common, easy-to-understand, and compelling way to structure your work experience. You start with your current or most recent position, which in most cases would be your most senior, important, and relevant role. Then, you work your way backward. You don’t have to list every role. Instead, focus on the ones that are useful based on your target job.

The reverse chronological CV is what recruiters and hiring managers are used to, as it represents the vast majority of resumes out there. This means that these CVs are easier to process for your target audience. Thus, reverse chronological order is highly recommended in most cases.

Related: CV Layout: Structure & Formatting Tips to Get More Interviews

The functional structure

Functional CVs aren’t based on chronological order. Instead, they focus on relevant parts of a candidate’s experience. While they can be useful for some career change cases, it is not a common structure. This means reading and understanding the document can be challenging for your audience, which is why I rarely recommend this option.

For experienced professionals

If you have work experience, your professional experience section should be the second section of your CV right after your professional summary, which serves as an introduction. The reason is that the top half of the first page of your resume is prime real estate, as your audience will focus on this part of the document. Using your professional experience section as a hook is a great strategy to gain attention from your audience. If you include additional or voluntary experience, these can follow.

For graduates and students

If you are at the beginning of your career, I suggest leading with your higher education, especially if it’s relevant to your target jobs. While academia and the industry are different, a relevant degree or certificate can demonstrate commitment, knowledge, and hard work. As for your experience section, it can come third in order, after your professional summary and education.

Related: 20 Highest Paying UK Graduate Jobs 2021

The question “how long should a CV be?” is similar to the question “how long is a piece of string?”. However, while it all depends on your candidate profile and target job, there are some general guidelines that can be helpful.

In most cases, your resume should be 1-2 pages long. This depends on the length and relevance of your experience and your target geography. If your resume is 2 pages long, then your experience section should take approximately a full page. If you go for a 1 pager, then the experience would be around a half page long.

This is an important consideration, as this space needs to be distributed between the roles you’ve had to date based on their importance. As a rule of thumb, if you have up to 10 years of experience, you can include every role, however, focus on the most recent 3-5 years assuming this work is relevant to your target job. If you are a senior professional with more than 10 years of experience, I suggest focusing on the most recent 5 years, summarising years 5-10, and listing older work as titles only or excluding them from the document.

Each position should be presented as a separate subsection in your work experience. While more important experience should be analysed in more detail than less important work, each position typically includes the following sections:

• Key info
• Context
• Details

Key information

This part should include high-level factual information about a position. These include the name of the employer, the job title, the location, and the start and end dates of the role. When it comes to the title, I suggest refraining from using internal job titles, as they may not be clear in the external market. Instead, opt for an external title that is commonly used for the type of work you did. If possible, use a title relevant to the role you are applying for assuming it is related to your previous work.

I recommend breaking down the above information using a best practice formatting that enhances readability and aligns with the expectations of hiring managers. Also, using this structure makes your application easier to process for applicant tracking systems.

Context

While the key focus of the experience section should revolve around your actions and accomplishments, it is important to introduce each role by providing some brief context.

I suggest starting with summarising the employer’s industry, product or service, headcount and/or revenues. All this information should be included in one sentence and 1-2 lines maximum. You can see an example below.

“X is a multinational consumer good company that produces health, hygiene, and nutrition products, has over 43k employees worldwide and generates £14 billion in annual net revenue.”

Then, it’s time to provide context on your role. While each job has many duties & responsibilities, there is always one overarching purpose. I recommend outlining this purpose in combination with key information, such as your reporting line, the size of your budget (if any), and the number of direct reports. Again, summarise this information in 1-2 sentences and 1-2 lines. Here’s an example.

“Responsibilities for heading M&A strategy, strategic R&D partnerships, and other expansive transactions for the Nutrition business unit to deliver transformational business result. Report to Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and supervise 4 direct reports.”

Details

This is where to include all the relevant details about each role. As you may know, it is best practice to use a bulleted list (3-5 bullets) for your most recent, senior, and important roles. I recommend building each bullet based on the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) method.

First, set the scene by summarising the situation and the task. In most cases, this is similar to your duties & responsibilities. Then, move on to outlining your key actions, i.e. what you did to achieve your goals. Keep this part at a high level, as brevity is paramount. Lastly, close off by highlighting your results and achievements. Quantify and objectify wherever possible.

You can see an example below:

“Oversee a team of 4 direct reports across the US and UK; establish clear goals and monitor performance metrics; develop the team through effective performance feedback, coaching and mentoring; resulted in the promotion of 3 team members.”

For older or less impactful roles, I suggest not using bullets. Instead, you can use one paragraph with approx. 3 sentences to outline your key responsibilities, actions, and related achievements in this order.