Work Experience on a CV: How to Write It (Tips & Examples)
The 'Work Experience' section is the most detailed and important part of almost any CV. Employers will be looking for confirmation that you have the skills and experience for the job, and your performance in previous roles provides the best indication of this.
As such, writing your CV's employment history section is a high stakes affair, and you'll need to make key decisions on what to include, and how to present achievements to show your impact.
In this article, we'll show you:
- How to showcase your work experience in different CV formats.
- What to include in each work experience section entry.
- How to showcase your skills and achievements in your work experience section.
- Work experience sections in CVs for different career stages.
- Examples of CV work experience sections for different types of jobs.
Before we look at CV work experience sections in different career scenarios, let's begin by discussing how to structure and present this critical section of your CV:
How to format and structure your employment history section
The format and structure of your CV work experience section will differ according to your experience levels, and the role you're applying for. However, this guide provides some basic principles that you can apply, whatever your level of seniority:
Choose a format that works for you
The first factor determining how you present your work experience section is your chosen CV format. These are the main CV format types to choose from, each with slightly different implications for how you'll present your work experience section:
- Traditional: This reverse-chronological format is the go-to for most candidates who have a reasonable body of past work experience to draw on. Using this CV format, the work experience section will be the first main CV section below your header and CV profile. With a traditional CV template, you list your most relevant previous employments in reverse-chronological order, starting with the most recent, followed by some bullet points under each entry, showcasing your skills and achievements.
- Functional: With a functional, or skills-based CV format, your skills and education sections take priority over a structured work experience section. You group your skills and show achievements from your career under each skill category. As such, the dedicated work experience section acts more like a brief list of key employment details, rather than a detailed account of what you achieved in each role.
- Hybrid: A hybrid CV format combines the traditional approach with the functional approach. In this format, your work experience section is typically still the first main section, but you will also include a detailed skills section, showcasing how you've used each skill to achieve positive outcomes in your career to date.
- Creative: A creative CV layout gives you far more freedom for how to present work experience on your CV. If you're using a creative format, consider using infographics and charts to showcase your work experience in a visual way.
Learn what to include per work experience entry
If you're using a traditional, reverse-chronological CV layout, there are a few details you'll want to include with every work experience section entry. Add the following to ensure the reader has all the details they need to assess your employment history and judge your suitability for the role:
- Job title
- Organisation/company name
- Location
- Dates of employment
- Bullet points showcasing the skills you used in the role, and your achievements
Take a look at this example to see how all the necessary information fits into the work experience section:
Decide how many entries to include
The number of entries to include in your work experience section will depend on how much experience you have, how frequently you've changed jobs and how relevant your experience is to the role you're applying for. A basic rule of thumb for CV work experience entries is:
- to include any relevant roles from the past 10 years,
- or list your three most recent roles.
Add the most detail in your current or most recent role, with roles from longer ago, or with less relevance, requiring fewer details. Employers will want to see how your career has progressed through these roles, so make sure you save your most impressive skills and achievements for your most recent roles, providing more basic information in roles from the more distant past.
How to write work experience on your CV as an experienced professional
In most cases, the work experience section of the CV will come after your contact details and your personal statement. Start with your most recent position and add details including the name of the employer and dates worked.
Now, let's see what else you can do to showcase your experience and make your years more easy-to-grasp for the hiring team:
Include only relevant and recent jobs | If you’ve had several jobs over the course of your career, only list the positions that are relevant to the job you’re applying for and omit any jobs more than 15 years old to avoid age discrimination. You could explain any gaps in a cover letter or an interview. |
Handle promotions and internal moves | If you’ve had multiple jobs in one company, you could choose to list them as separate positions. Otherwise, if they were similar in nature, you could stack all the positions together and then add an overall summary to describe your work experience in the company. |
Tailor to the job description | Positions that are comparable in terms of content can have different job titles (i.e., salesperson vs sales employee). Make sure you’re (slightly!) adjusting any job titles so that they match those listed in the job description or on the company website. This will help it perform better at the ATS screening stage, which filters your CV for keywords. |
Manage employment gaps professionally | Be upfront if your gap is more than 6 months. Mention the reasons, for example, that you took time out to care for your children/parents or that you took a sabbatical to travel around the world. |
How to write work experience on your CV with limited or no experience
Writing a work experience section of a CV when you have limited work experience presents some different challenges. You might not be able to prove you have the necessary skills for the job through work experience alone. Follow this advice to ensure your CV still makes a positive impression:
Prioritise education, courses and transferable skills
If you have little work experience or you’ve just left education, then you’ll want to draw attention to courses you’ve taken at school, university or at other training providers. In this case, the education section will be placed higher than the work experience section in your CV.
Any courses you list should add value to your job application and help employers understand why you’re a suitable candidate. Therefore, there’s no need to refer to every course you’ve taken at university or school, unless it relates directly to the job you’re applying for.
Similarly, if you're lacking hard skills gained through work experience, focus instead on demonstrating transferable skills. You may have learned these in other walks of life, such as volunteering activities or participating in a hobby. However, if you can evidence these, it will provide useful information for the employer on how you might apply those skills in the workplace.
Include internships, volunteering, and part-time roles
In the work experience section of your CV, you could also mention part-time jobs, internships and even volunteering activities, if they helped you to develop transferable skills.
For example, if you volunteered at your local community centre, you’ll have picked up teamwork, communication and leadership skills. Just make sure that you mention that it was a volunteering role to avoid misleading employers.
Let the data speak for itself:
According to research from Jobseeker, 57.5% of HR professional say they view volunteer work as relevant professional experience on a CV. As such, although you should be clear your work was unpaid, the experience you gained is just as valuable as paid work experience.
If you're a graduate or you're changing careers, here's an example of how to present a work experience section without much relevant paid work experience:
How to highlight achievements in your employment history section
Rather than focusing on your duties and responsibilities in your work experience section, you'll make a far more positive impression on recruiters if you highlight your achievements. Jobseeker's research shows that HR professionals are overwhelmingly in favour of seeing achievements in CVs (98.7%).
See below for an explanation of why achievements are more important than responsibilities in a CV's employment history section:
Achievements | Responsibilities |
Shows the high points of your career | Show basic everyday duties with no highlights |
Provides evidence of the impact your actions had | Provides a description of what you did |
Completely unique to your own experience | Likely to be similar to other well-qualified candidates |
Requires impactful action verbs to show the scale of your achievements | Requires simple descriptive language |
Shows quantifiable evidence employers can use to assess your performance | Lacks quantifiable evidence of your performance levels |
Tips to show achievements in a work experience bullet point
Follow these steps to showcase your achievements and impress recruiters and hiring managers:
- Start with a strong action verb: Begin every bullet point with a direct action verb that matches the skills listed in the job description. Never use passive language like “responsible for” or “involved in”. The verb sets the tone for the entire bullet and signals ownership and confidence.
- Identify what you actually did: Be precise rather than general. “Managed client relationships” is vague, but “managed a portfolio of 34 enterprise clients across the financial services sector” is a specific statement about what you did.
- Add context: Include the scale, environment, or conditions under which you performed the action. This could be team size, budget, market, timeframe, or organisational context. Without context, even impressive actions can lack impact.
- Add the outcome: Every action should include an outcome. Mention what changed or improved as a direct result of what you did. If your bullet point ends at the action without stating an outcome, it is a task description rather than an achievement statement.
- Quantify the outcome: Avoid vague outcome language like “significantly improved” or “successfully delivered”. Use specific numbers, percentages or financial figures. For example, “a 34% improvement”, “a £1.2M saving”, or “a team of 18”.
Action verbs to include in your work experience bullet points
The best action verbs for your work experience bullet points will depend on the role you're applying for, and the language used in the job description. You'll want to use action verbs that match the job description as closely as possible. However, here's a list of a few of the most powerful action verbs for modern CVs:
- Managed
- Developed
- Collaborated
- Delivered
- Transformed
- Led
- Implemented
- Generated
- Designed
- Negotiated
Work experience examples in a CV
Take a look at these three complete CV examples for different types of roles, and different career stages, to see how the work experience section advice from this article in action:
Nurse CV example
Hertford
•
emma.maguire@example.com
•
07654 815386
•
Compassionate and clinically skilled Registered Nurse with 5 years of experience delivering high-acuity patient care across busy NHS acute and community settings. Consistently recognised for clinical excellence, patient advocacy, and team leadership. NMC registered with a clean professional record.
Staff Nurse — Acute Medical Ward
2024
-Present
Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Hertford
- Deliver direct patient care across a 36-bed acute medical ward managing complex, high-dependency presentations including respiratory failure, sepsis, and post-surgical recovery.
- Reduced medication administration errors by 19% by championing a double-verification protocol adopted across the ward.
- Mentored 5 newly qualified nurses through their preceptorship period — all 5 retained permanently following completion.
- Maintained consistently above-average patient satisfaction scores — averaging 93% across quarterly NHS Friends and Family surveys.
Healthcare Assistant
2022
-2024
Welwyn Garden City Community Hospital
- Supported nursing teams across general medical and surgical wards, developing foundational clinical skills ahead of nurse qualification.
BSc Nursing (Adult) — First Class Honours
2019
-2022
University of Leeds
Acute patient assessment
Medicines management
Wound care
EMIS & SystmOne
NMC Registered Nurse (PIN current)
BLS & ILS Certified — current
The example above shows a registered nurse with two years' clinical nursing experience and previous relevant experience as a healthcare assistant. The work experience section of her CV focuses predominantly on her relevant nursing experience, quantifying her achievements across several relevant aspects of her work.
UX developer CV example
London
•
sophie.chen@example.com
•
07351 945276
•
linkedin.com/in/sophiechen-ux
Senior UX Developer with 8 years of experience designing and building intuitive, accessible, and high-performing digital products for B2C and B2B audiences. Expert in bridging the gap between design and development — equally fluent in Figma and React — with a consistent record of measurable improvements in user engagement, conversion, and retention.
Senior UX Developer
2020
-Present
Alpha Bank, London
- Architected and delivered a redesigned onboarding flow for 2.4 million active users — reducing drop-off at registration by 34% and cutting average time-to-first-transaction from 8 minutes to 3.2 minutes.
- Led a cross-functional design sprint team of 9 — spanning UX research, product, and engineering — delivering a redesigned personal finance dashboard that increased daily active usage by 28% within 90 days of launch.
- Established Alpha's first UX accessibility framework — achieving WCAG 2.1 AA compliance across all core product screens and reducing accessibility-related support tickets by 61%.
- Implemented a component-based design system in Figma and React that reduced front-end development time for new features by 40% across a team of 22 engineers.
UX Developer
2017
-2020
Swordfish UK, London
- Designed and built responsive web interfaces for 8 enterprise clients across financial services, retail, and healthcare — consistently delivering projects on time and achieving average usability test scores of 87/100.
- Conducted 120+ user research sessions — interviews, usability tests, and card sorting exercises — translating findings into validated design decisions that reduced client revision cycles by an average of 3 rounds per project.
BSc Computer Science — 2:1
2014
-2017
University of Bristol
React
JavaScript
Accessibility (WCAG 2.1)
Agile & Scrum
Nielsen Norman Group UX Certification (2022)
AWS Cloud Practitioner (2023)
This UX developer CV example shows extensive work experience at a senior level. The CV's work experience section focuses on highlighting impactful achievements that will set the candidate apart from other applicants.
Project manager CV example (career changer)
Manchester
•
jacob.watkins@example.com
•
07945 747866
•
linkedin.com/in/jacob-watkins
Driven and highly organised professional transitioning into project management, bringing 6 years of transferable leadership, planning, and stakeholder management experience from a career in retail operations. PRINCE2 Foundation certified, with demonstrated ability to deliver complex multi-workstream activities on time and within budget.
Area Operations Supervisor
2018
-Present
Senseo Retail Ltd
- Coordinated store operations across 6 retail sites — managing interdependent workstreams including staffing, stock management, compliance audits, and seasonal changeovers simultaneously, directly mirroring project management delivery frameworks.
- Led a store refurbishment programme across 3 locations — scoping works, managing contractor relationships, tracking budgets of up to £180K, and delivering all 3 sites within agreed timelines and below budget.
- Managed stakeholder communication between store managers, regional directors, and head office — producing weekly progress reports and chairing monthly performance review meetings attended by up to 14 stakeholders.
- Reduced operational incident rate across managed sites by 31% through implementation of a structured risk monitoring and escalation process.
BA Business Management — 2:1
2015
-2018
University of Manchester
Workstream coordination
Budget tracking
Risk management
Stakeholder reporting
Agile Fundamentals — LinkedIn Learning (2023)
This CV example shows a candidate applying for a project management position, looking to change careers from an operations role. The work experience section focuses heavily on highlighting transferable skills that the candidate can take from their operations experience into a project management role.
Dos and don'ts for your CV work experience section
Keep these things in mind when writing your work experience section:
Dos
- List your work experience entries in reverse-chronological order, starting with your current or most recent role.
- Cover roles from the last 10 years of your career (longer if you're applying for a senior or academic position).
- Only include previous jobs that are relevant to the role you're applying for.
- Include bullet points focusing on relevant skills, and how you've used them to make an impact in your career to date.
Don'ts
- List your work experience in chronological order, starting with the oldest. This gives too much prominence to less relevant information.
- Add jobs from the distant past, or that hold little relevance to the role you're applying for.
- Focus on your key duties and responsibilities, as these are unlikely to differentiate you from candidates with similar experience levels, and give no insight into your actual performance and impact.
Work experience CV sections in different countries
The way you approach your CV's work experience section may differ depending on the country you're applying in. Let's take a look at some CV work experience conventions for different countries:
Country | Work experience section conventions |
|---|---|
South Africa | Work experience should focus on responsibilities and measurable achievements, typically listed in reverse chronological order with employer, job title, and employment dates clearly displayed. Send only a brief profile initially, which is a short, one page-version of your CV. Upon request, follow that up with a comprehensive CV. |
Ireland | Employers expect concise, achievement-focused work experience entries that emphasise impact, responsibilities, and relevant skills, usually supported by quantifiable results where possible. |
Australia | The work experience section should demonstrate accomplishments and business outcomes using strong action verbs, with particular emphasis on achievements rather than duties alone. |
New Zealand | Work experience should highlight practical contributions, key responsibilities, and results in a clear reverse-chronological format, with evidence of initiative and collaboration valued by employers. |
USA | Resumes should present achievement-driven bullet points that quantify results wherever possible, using action verbs and focusing on value delivered to the employer. |
India | Work experience should combine key responsibilities with measurable achievements, often including project outcomes, team contributions, and technical or industry-specific expertise relevant to the target role. |
Key takeaways for writing the work experience section of your CV
The work experience section is one of the most critical elements of your CV. Remember these key points from this article when writing your CV, to ensure a high-impact work experience section:
- A traditional, reverse-chronological format is the most popular CV layout, and this gives special prominence to the work experience section. List your work experience in reverse-chronological order, starting with your most recent role.
- Rather than focusing on your duties and responsibilities in the role, use your work experience bullet points to showcase your key achievements, and the impact you made.
- Use action verbs at the start of each bullet point that reflect the job description, and quantify your achievements, so the employer can see the value you added in previous jobs.
- Aim to include up to three previous jobs, or relevant roles from the last 10 years of your career. If you lack paid work experience, you can add internships and volunteer work to your work experience section, focusing on transferable skills.
For help creating a CV with a work experience section that you gets you noticed, use Jobseeker's CV builder. Jobseeker offers a wealth of CV resources to equip you with the skills to create a CV that stands out from the crowd. You can also create a professional-looking application in minutes using Jobseeker's expert-designed CV and cover letter templates. Sign up today to get started.
CV work experience section FAQs
Are 'Work Experience' and 'Employment History' the same CV sections?
'Work Experience' and 'Employment History' are two names for the same CV section. They both describe the section where you outline your relevant work experience. The best approach is to use a standard name for this section, so ATS recognises the section when it scans and screens your CV. Both 'Work Experience' and 'Employment History' are valid names for this section.
How far back should work experience go on a CV?
Generally speaking, going back over the last 10 years of your career in your CV's work experience section is probably sufficient. Work experience from more than 10 years ago is less likely to be relevant to your current application, and can mean this section takes up too much space. If you're a particularly senior candidate, or you're applying for an academic job, these are situations where you might wish to go back further in your career.
How many bullet points per job in the work experience section?
An average of three bullet points per work experience CV section entry is ideal. This gives you the chance to describe three key skills and achievements from your time in the role. Another approach is to include more bullet points for your current, more relevant roles, and fewer for older, less relevant roles, which will draw attention to the most recent achievements in your career.
Should I include volunteer work in my employment history?
Most of the time, volunteer work merits its own dedicated CV section. However, if you're lacking relevant paid work experience in the role you're applying for, or you're just at the start of your career, it's perfectly acceptable to include voluntary roles in your CV's work experience section. Just make it clear in your bullet points that this was a voluntary position.
Should I avoid employment gaps in my work experience section?
It’s not unusual to have gaps in your CV. There are any number of reasons why you might have taken time away from the workplace: studying, sabbaticals, parental leave, redundancy or plain old unemployment. If you’ve been in employment for a long time, there’s no harm in omitting a few jobs to include only relevant positions. This will take care of any gaps in your CV. Similarly, when stating the dates of your employment at each company, you need only mention the month and year of your tenure.
If there are still significant gaps in the work experience section of your CV, you could include volunteering experience or any part-time jobs. Even if these are not directly relevant to the position you’re applying for, they show employers that you used the time productively to pick up transferable skills. You could also mention any personal reasons, for example, that you took time out to care for your children/parents or that you took a sabbatical to travel around the world.
Another way of handling career gaps is to elaborate further in your cover letter and interview, should the opportunity arise. For help writing a concise and engaging cover letter, check out Jobseeker's cover letter examples.
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