A Guide on How to Write a Personal Statement for Your CV

What is a CV personal statement?

A CV personal statement is a key part of any job application. No more than two or three sentences long, it sits below your contact details and provides a clear, attention-grabbing introduction to your CV. The statement outlines your experience, your skills, your achievements and your career ambitions, so the reader can scan the top of your CV and immediately start to form an opinion about your suitability for the role.

Do you need to include a personal statement in your CV?

A personal statement is one of the most important parts of a CV, along with contact details, work experience, education and skills. The statement should be carefully crafted to draw the reader in and encourage them to study your CV in greater detail.

Jobseeker's HR survey found that, on average, recruiters take just 30 seconds to decide whether a CV is worth a closer look. Without due care and attention, it's easy for a CV to become too bland and generic, something that will seriously harm your chances of progressing to the interview stage. A well-crafted personal statement shows recruiters a bit of your personality and gives them a unique insight into what you can offer.

Personal statements can be particularly handy for competitive roles and industries. As recruiters have to browse through many CVs, it's easy for applications to fade into the background unless there's something to grab their attention.

They’re also useful if you have a broad career history. A personal statement can tie those disparate experiences together and help prospective employers understand how your skills match their desired criteria.

On the other hand, if you have little or no experience, it may be best to save this space for a CV objective. While it shares similarities with a personal statement, a CV objective is usually only one to two sentences in length and focuses more on your career goals.

Should I change my personal statement for every job?

You'll make far more impact with your applications if you tailor your CV's personal statement for every application. Each job description will highlight a particular set of skills and experience, while each employer will have its own values and culture. Adapting your personal statement to reflect these is essential.

You might wish to write a generic personal statement as a foundation from which you create a tailored statement for each new job application. This can help you distill your experience, skills and achievements into a concise and impactful paragraph that you can adapt according to the requirements of the specific role and employer.

Personal Statement vs. CV Objective: What’s the Difference?

In most cases, you'll want your CV to include a personal statement, but there are some scenarios where a CV objective is more appropriate. While a personal statement highlights your relevant skills, experience and career achievements, a CV objective is more focused on your career goals and ambitions. This can make a CV objective ideal if you're lacking relevant experience, either as an entry-level candidate or a career changer.

Here's a brief summary of the key differences between a personal statement and a CV objective:

How to Write a Strong Personal Statement

Writing an impactful personal statement takes practice. The important thing to remember is that you don’t have a lot of space to go into detail – a short paragraph of around three sentences is usually long enough. To give your personal statement some structure, and to remain disciplined while writing, it can be helpful to break it down into the following three sections:

1. Who you are 
2. What you can offer
3. Your career goals

Who you are 

This section help the recruiter to quickly understand your background and industry experience. Reference your profession or job title, as well as an indication of your experience levels. You could introduce the paragraph with one or two of your key skills or qualities. For example, you may state that you're:

or:

What you can offer

Next, you’ll need to show exactly what you can offer your prospective employer. You’ll want to highlight skills and achievements relevant to the job description and back these up with evidence. Include one or two key skills, reflecting keywords and phrases that match the job description to increase the impact on the reader and help your CV pass the ATS screening stage.

It's also important to offer some evidence that supports the skills and experience you're showcasing. This could be a performance indicator, a project outcome, figures that indicate the scope or scale of your influence, or a particular target you've achieved or exceeded.

For example:

If you don’t meet all the criteria for the role you’re applying for, you may want to draw attention to transferable skills, which can demonstrate why you’re a suitable candidate. For example:

If you're struggling to think of engaging, impactful ways to show what you can offer the employer, Jobseeker's AI suggestions can help. Using Jobseeker's CV builder, you can input your job title and ask the AI assistant to provide a suggested profile, or to edit an existing personal statement to make it more appealing to hiring managers.

Your career goals 

The last section of your personal statement should introduce your career goals and reaffirm why you’re applying for the role. This is particularly useful for junior or entry-level candidates, who might lack relevant work achievements to mention in their personal statement, but have clearly defined ambitions for their career. However, for experienced candidates, it can also show the employer why you're making this career move, and why you want to work for the organisation. For example, it may read:

Or:

Formatting your personal statement

Your personal statement should be a short, snappy paragraph that’s easy for the reader to scan. Aim for no more than three sentences and place your personal statement at the top of your CV, directly under your header with contact details. Use a clear, readable font that’s consistent with the rest of the document, with left-aligned text rather than justified text, as this is typically easier to read.

CV personal statement examples

Take a look at these complete examples for inspiration on how to write your own CV personal statement:

Looking for more examples? Check out our CV examples to get inspired.

Industry-Specific Personal Statement Examples

Your approach to your personal statement might vary according to the industry and type of role you're applying for. See below for some examples of personal statements for different industry sectors. Each example includes a version that reflects best practice, and one that includes common personal statement mistakes.

Creative industries

For these two versions of creative industries personal statements, the first provides clear, tailored examples of key skills for a graphic designer position, while the second is too general regarding skills. The first example demonstrates career achievements, mentioning an award-winning campaign, while the second fails to offer any evidence of performance. Finally, the first candidate is clear about the next steps for their career, while the second candidate lacks an inspiring narrative regarding their future pathway.

Technical roles

As with the previous examples, the first version of these two CV personal statements offers clear evidence of the candidate's performance, focusing on a few key skills that are directly to the relevant to the role. It also provides a roadmap for why they're applying for the job and how it fits with the next steps of their career. By contrast, the second example fails to add any specific examples of key skills and how they've contributed to career outcomes, while offering only vague insights into why they've applied for the job.

Corporate roles

Again, the first example shows a detailed understanding of what recruiters are looking for, adding clear examples, supported by evidence, and including keywords that will help the applicant's CV pass the ATS stage. On the other hand, the second example is far too generic, lacking any evidence of career achievements or specific skills, and failing to demonstrate a compelling reason for the candidate's motivation to change jobs.

Tips for the perfect CV personal statement

Follow these tips for the most impactful, engaging CV personal statement:

1. Keep your personal statement short

The ideal personal statement captures your experience and skills in no more than 50-200 words. Consider it the written equivalent of an elevator pitch, designed to spark your recruiters’ interest so that they’ll want to read the rest of your CV. As you’ll have plenty of space in your cover letter to elaborate on any points, your personal statement should only provide recruiters a quick summary of your career history.

2. Use implied first-person perspective

Your personal statement is about yourself, so make it personal! Writing about yourself in the third person, i.e. “he” or “she” can sound pretentious and appear distant.

Writing in the first person adds a personal touch to a CV which may otherwise consist of bullet-point lists. However, avoid starting sentences with 'I', and instead opt for implied first-person perspective (for example, rather than 'I am a dedicated project manager', write 'A dedicated project manager').

3. Identify your skills and achievements

When writing a personal statement, the tendency is to include generic statements which could describe any candidate. To help make your personal statement unique to you, start by identifying your skills and achievements.

One of the best ways to do this is to think about all the jobs you’ve had and ask yourself what difference you made to each employer. You could also dig out past reviews and appraisals to identify the objectives/skills for which you received positive feedback.

4. Quantify your achievements

Offer evidence to back up the claims you make in your personal statement, so employers can see the value you’ve added for previous employers. The section doesn’t allow you space to go into great detail about the impact you’ve made. However, if you can offer up one piece of evidence to showcase a particular success, or a key strength, it will help to make a positive impression on the reader. Remember to reference evidence of your impact and achievements throughout your CV.

5. Tailor your personal statement to each job application

In the same way that you would tailor your CV to each job you’re applying for, you’ll also need to tailor your personal statement. Look at the desired experience, skills and education in the ‘Requirements’ section of the job description and draw on examples of how you meet each criterion from your career history.

6. Make your personal statement easy to read

While your personal statement should be short, it should also be easy to read. Don’t make it another bullet-point list like the rest of your CV, but at the same time, avoid boring the reader with a mini-biography of your entire career history.

Recruiters have little time to spare and don’t need to know the ins and outs of every job you’ve ever had. Use specific keywords from the job description, include specific examples to help recruiters understand why you’re the right candidate and save details for your cover letter or interviews. Check out these cover letter examples to see how your details can be best conveyed.

7. Proofread your personal statement 

It’s worth proofreading your personal statement to catch any spelling or grammar mistakes and to make sure it flows well. Your personal statement is the first impression recruiters will have of you. If it’s littered with mistakes, it conveys a lack of attention to detail and doesn’t bode well for the rest of your CV.

You not only want to impress recruiters with your achievements but also your writing skills. A well-written personal statement demonstrates that you have good communication skills (without buzzwords!), and more importantly, ensures that recruiters won’t discard it at first glance.

CV personal statement mistakes to avoid

There are also several key mistakes people often make when writing a CV personal statement. If you can avoid these errors, you’ll have a better chance of impressing the reader: 

1. Don’t use cliches or buzzwords

Avoid using jargon or buzzwords. There’s a reason that it’s called a personal statement! If you write that you’re a good team player, you have a strong work ethic or you’re an effective communicator, it’ll be more difficult to stand out from the crowd. 

These are just empty phrases that don’t really tell recruiters who you are or what you can do. Instead, provide examples of how you’ve worked well in a team or communicated effectively. If you wouldn’t describe yourself as a ‘team player’ in real life, don’t do it in your CV.

2. Don’t make your personal statement too vague or generic

Be as specific as possible about your qualities, strengths and career ambitions. A vague, generic and directionless personal statement will be quickly forgotten and won’t do anything to help you stand out from other candidates.

3. Don't use passive voice

Using passive voice (for example, 'the project was successfully completed'), leads to an unengaging style that fails to highlight the impact you had. Instead, use active voice that showcases the impact you made (for example, 'developed projects, leading a dynamic team of six project managers').

4. Don't use 'I statements'

Writing in complete sentences with 'I statements', (for example 'I am a web developer with six years' experience. I work closely with clients to deliver engaging websites and applications') can make your personal statement long and unwieldy. Write in the implied first person perspective, with clear, lean sentences that maximise the use of impact verbs and keywords and skills related to the job description (for example, 'experienced research director with 10-year track record of designing national statistics surveys and delivering complex statistical analysis').

5. Don’t use inconsistent tense

Keep the tense consistent throughout your personal statement, and across your entire CV. It’s up to you whether you write in the present or past tense, but switching between these throughout your personal statement can cause confusion for the reader.

6. Don’t make it too long

Aim to keep your personal statement short, punchy and to-the-point. Two or three sentences is usually a perfectly reasonable length for a personal statement. Any longer than this, and the paragraph will become harder to read and may lead to the reader becoming distracted. Writing a short personal statement will also help you to stay focused on the point and deliver an impactful paragraph, focusing purely on your most important strengths and achievements.

What Recruiters Really Look for in a Personal Statement

Jobseeker's HR survey can provide some valuable insights into what recruiters and HR professionals really look for in a CV personal statement. The research shows:

• More than half (53.5%) of HR professionals want CV personal statements to reflect relevant work experience.
• Around 6 in 10 recruiters (60.7%) expect personal statements to highlight skills and achievements.

Other valuable CV insights from HR experts, that you can use to help you craft a winning CV personal statement, include:

• Three-quarters of recruiters use ATS apps to review CVs (76.8%), with more than half saying relevant keywords are critical to getting through the screening stage, and 65% looking for hard skills. Including keywords and hard skills in your personal statement can boost your CV's performance at the ATS stage.
• 98.8% of HR professionals value clean, consistent formatting throughout a CV. As such, don't feel pressured to 'over-design' your personal statement section, or any part of your CV.

Key Takeaways for a Strong CV Personal Statement

Writing a winning CV personal statement requires a tailored approach. The best statements are a concise, impactful paragraph showcasing relevant skills and the impact you've made in your career to date, while showing why you're applying for the job. For any successful personal statement, practice makes perfect, so work on refining your personal statement to the most impactful, engaging paragraph that stands out from other candidates. Another way to make your CV stand out from the crowd is to use a professional CV template from Jobseeker. Sign up today and start creating an eye-catching CV in minutes. Explore our resources to learn more about the ins and outs of CV and cover letter creation as you explore the next steps in your career.