How to write a professional CV

1. Get your section order right

Order isn't cosmetic — it decides what a hiring manager sees in the first few seconds. The rule: put your strongest material at the top.

With experience behind you, order it: contact details, professional summary, work experience, education, skills. As a graduate or career starter, flip it: contact details, summary, education, skills, then training and projects.

• Never leave a "Work experience" heading empty or filled with "none" — delete it and use "Training & projects".
• Always list newest to oldest within every section.
• Use standard section headings — "Work experience", "Education", "Skills". Automated systems look for exactly these.

2. Write a summary that gets read

The summary is three or four lines at the top of your CV, and it's the part most reliably read. It should answer three questions: who you are professionally, your strongest achievement, and what you're looking for.

The worst thing you can put here is generic filler like "ambitious self-starter seeking growth who works well in a team". That sentence could be pasted into anyone's CV, which is exactly why it means nothing.

• State your years of experience and your field in the first line.
• Include at least one number — an achievement or the scale of your responsibility.
• Rewrite the summary for every application. One summary for all jobs means it fits none of them.

3. Turn duties into achievements

Most CVs describe duties: "responsible for preparing reports". That tells the reader what was in your contract, not what you accomplished. The stronger shape is: verb + what you did + the result, with a number.

Compare "prepared monthly reports" with "automated the monthly report, saving six working hours a week". The second describes someone who improves things; the first describes someone who executes.

• Start every line with a verb: managed, built, reduced, increased, led.
• Add a number wherever you can: a percentage, an amount, a headcount, a timeframe.
• With no number available, give the scope: "for a team of four" or "across three departments".
• Three to five bullets per role is enough — older roles need only one line.

4. Make it machine-readable

Most large employers run CVs through an applicant tracking system before a human sees them. The software reads text, so any design choice that obstructs reading drops you before you start.

• Use a single-column layout — multiple columns get read out of order.
• Never put important information inside images, graphics or text boxes.
• Keep contact details out of the page header — many systems ignore it entirely.
• Save as PDF unless Word is explicitly requested, and name the file after yourself: "ahmed-alotaibi-cv.pdf".
• Mirror keywords from the job posting exactly as written — the software matches literal text.

5. Mistakes that get you rejected immediately

• Spelling errors — the most common reason for rejection despite being the easiest to avoid.
• An unprofessional email address. Use your name, not a nickname.
• A photo on a CV submitted through an ATS — it confuses parsing and isn't expected internationally.
• Excess personal detail: marital status, ID number, religion. None of it belongs there.
• Unexplained employment gaps. Address them briefly rather than leaving an open question.
• Three pages or more. One page for a graduate, two at most for a long career.

6. Check before you send

• Read it aloud — clumsy sentences are heard before they're seen.
• Verify every number is accurate and you can defend it in an interview.
• Open the PDF on a different device to confirm the formatting hasn't broken.
• Run an ATS compatibility check before sending so you know exactly where you stand.