Agile Business CV Example

A stronger, more engaging agile business CV gives you the best chance of success. It can help you pass the ATS CV screening stage and impress the recruiter or hiring manager, increasing your prospects of reaching the interview stage. Now let’s explore the main sections of a CV and see how to structure each one for maximum impact.

Key sections of an agile business CV

Your agile business CV strategy will depend on various factors, including your previous experience, your seniority and the details listed in the job description.

However, regardless of your years of experience, an agile business CV needs to connect the dots of your career into a cohesive story. In the following sections, we’ll dive into the specific chapters of your CV step-by-step, showing you how to refine everything from your initial introduction to your long-term achievements.

CV Header

Start your agile business CV with a header that features subtle, professional design elements and sets the tone for the document. Add your name, email address, phone number and location (your full address isn't normally needed). If you have a LinkedIn profile, consider adding a URL to this in your header, to help the reader easily find more information on your career and credentials.

For jobs in the UK, a personal photo is usually not required on your CV. That, along with any other personal details such as age, gender, ethnicity and nationality, are generally discouraged under the terms of the Equality Act 2010, which aims to reduce and eliminate discriminatory practices, such as recruitment bias.

CV Summary or Objective

Underneath your contact information, write a brief CV summary or CV objective to introduce yourself and highlight a few key skills and qualities. This can help the employer to quickly form a first impression on your suitability for the agile business specialist role. While a CV summary showcases your key skills and achievements in the context of your career to date, a CV objective provides an alternative approach. It focuses instead on your ambitions for the future, making it ideal for junior candidates without much work experience.

In your summary or objective, write up to three sentences outlining your key skills, unique personal qualities and career achievements or ambitions, taking care to always reflect the requirements listed in the job description.

An effective CV summary will focus on a few of the key skills required for the role and show how you've put them to good use in your career to date. You'll want to give the reader a good impression of your unique qualities and briefly provide evidence of their impact in previous roles. Below you'll find a good example of how to write an effective agile business CV summary. The example shows quantifiable achievements and well-structured sentences.

Above is an example of a less effective CV summary, with some subtle, yet notable differences. There are several factors that could make your summary less engaging. These include using long, poorly-structured sentences, failing to add evidence of your impact, being too generic with the skills you mention and not adapting your CV summary to specifically respond to the job description.

Employment History

As with most CVs, your agile business CV work experience section tends to be the most vital part of your application. Employers tend to look to this section for evidence of how you've developed useful and relevant skills, and used them to add value for previous employers. Remember, it's essential to tailor this section to match the job description, including keywords and phrases to help employers see how you'll fit the role, and how you might put the required skills to good use in the future.

Add your most relevant previous jobs, including the job title, the name of the employer, its location and the dates you worked there. Below each entry, include several bullet points showcasing your skills and explaining how you used these to achieve positive results.

To differentiate your work experience section from other candidates, include action verbs and quantifiable evidence that showcases the impact you made. Show your career progression through the skills you developed and used in each role. Take a look at an example of a strong agile business CV work experience section below.

Above is an example of what not to do with your agile business CV. An unengaging work experience section could be too generic, focusing too much on day-to-day duties rather than skills and achievements. It could also fail to address the job description or lack evidence to show the impact you've made in your career to date.

Education and Qualifications

Your education section is the chance to list your most recent and highest qualifications, and anything that's relevant or required for the role.

To be eligible for agile business specialist positions, you typically need to have a relevant university degree, and include it in your CV. If you have a Bachelor of Science in Business Management or another related degree that qualifies you for the role, you should definitely mention it in your CV, along with any other degrees or qualifications that highlight your most relevant skills, such as scrum project management certification or kanban workflow optimisation techniques.

When adding your qualifications to your education section, choose the highest relevant qualifications, and list them in reverse-chronological order, starting with your most recent. For each entry, include the name and level of the degree or certification, the institution, its location and your graduation date or dates of study. To emphasise your qualifications and achievements, you might wish to include one or two bullet points, which highlight things like specialist areas of study, projects, dissertations or society memberships.

If the job description requires any specialist certifications or licences, you may wish to add these in your education section. If you add these, it's also a good idea to include the expiration date of the licence or qualification, if it has one.

Skills

In your CV skills section, include a combination of the key hard and soft skills you possess, that make you a suitable candidate for the position. Make sure your skills list reflects the requirements specified in the job description, and include a few skills that are unique to you, and help set you apart from the pack. In an agile business CV, only list the most relevant and essential skills you possess, such as collaboration and data modelling analysis techniques, to make a positive first impression and show you're qualified for the agile business specialist position.

Hard Skills

Hard skills and technical skills are specialist skills that are essential for carrying out the main responsibilities of the role. You might acquire hard skills through study, or through on-the-job training, and some hard skills may require a certification or licence. For agile business specialist jobs, essential hard skills from your career-to-date might include risk assessment mitigation techniques, and scrum project management certification. After checking the job description, include a list of four or five key hard skills in your CV to confirm that you have the necessary expertise for the role.

The best hard skills section would be based around skills listed as 'essential' or 'required' in the job description. To give yourself the best chance of success, you'll want your strongest skills to match closely with those most desired by the employer, and your hard skills list should reflect this.

See below for examples of skills that are frequently included in the hard skills section of an agile business CV:

Soft Skills

Soft skills are distinct from hard skills and tend to reflect your inherent personal qualities and strengths. These are often more transferable to different roles, and help the reader understand your working style, and your likely fit to the team and the organisational culture. Transferable skills are among the most in-demand skills for employers, with rapidly changing and evolving ways of working requiring ever-more flexible and adaptable employees. Soft skills are also highly valuable for junior and entry-level positions, where candidates aren't expected to have a wealth of relevant work experience and career achievements.

Just like the hard skills section, begin by reviewing the job description to learn the most desirable soft skills to include in your agile business CV. Only add soft skills that you can provide evidence for throughout your CV. Craft a list of up to five key soft and transferable skills that reflect the job description, while also including some of your strongest, most unique skills to stand out from the crowd.

The section below provides an overview of soft skills often highlighted in an agile business CV.

Foreign Languages

Including a section on language skills can be beneficial, if you speak at least one language to a reasonable level of competency, in addition to your mother tongue. This is true even if language skills aren't a requirement for the role, as foreign language abilities often correlate to other valuable soft skills. Under this section, list any foreign languages you speak to a professional standard, with an indicator of your competency level for each.

The methods for indicating your foreign language skills on your CV include assigning a basic descriptive word, such as:

• English: Fluent
• Spanish: Intermediate

You might wish to use an internationally recognised standard for your language skills, such as the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). This divides your language skills into the following categories:

• A1: Beginner
• A2: Elementary
• B1: Intermediate
• B2: Upper intermediate
• C1: Advanced
• C2: Proficiency

Certifications and Training

If you've invested your time and resources into gaining extra qualifications beyond the minimum requirements for the role, you could highlight these in a certifications section. Having a separate section can draw more attention to your training, and show employers your proactive, motivated mindset towards professional development, which could be a key asset. Furthermore, the CV certifications and training section is a great showcase for official licences and certifications when applying for roles where these are a key requirement listed in the job description. These could include positions where the use of specialist software and equipment is a routine part of your everyday responsibilities.

See below for a list of example certifications and licences you might add to your CV for agile business specialist roles:

Additional Sections

Including optional sections in addition to the core elements of your agile business CV can help you provide further evidence of your suitability for the role. Consider including a few optional sections to your CV if you think you need to provide extra information to prove your credentials. These sections can be particularly valuable if you lack relevant work experience, such as for entry-level roles, or if you're changing careers to a completely new field or specialism.

And if you'd like more tips on making your CV stand out, explore our career resources. They’re designed to help you showcase your strengths and boost your chances of landing the job.

Hobbies and Interests

If you have any hobbies and interests that can showcase skills relevant to the job description, it might be worth including them. Additionally, hobbies and interests are an ideal way to show the employers some elements of your personality and interests beyond work, which can set you apart from other candidates. However, hobbies and interests can only add value to your CV if they provide evidence of skills and experience that you can use in the role you're applying for. As such, only add hobbies as a way of filling gaps in the skills you've developed or used through work experience.

Achievements

Creating a section for your achievements and awards can help you draw attention to the things you're most proud of in your career to date. If you've been awarded any prizes or accolades, or reached any key career milestones, these can all help to show you have the required status and experience for the role.

Volunteering

Another valuable optional section for your CV is volunteering. This section can offer a great alternative showcase for your skills and experience, if you don't have much relevant work experience. Consider adding this section if you have any relevant unpaid experience, either as a junior candidate or a career changer. For this section, use a similar structure to your work experience section.

List your job title or a description of the role, the organisation name, its location and the dates you occupied the role. Use bullet points to show employers how you put your skills to use, and any positive achievements from your time in the role.

Most impactful action verbs for an agile business CV

Using strong action verbs in your work experience bullet points is a great way to focus this section and show the impact you've made in your career to date. Starting each bullet point with an action verb that reflects the skills required for the role will help the reader to easily cross-reference your skills to the job description. Remember to always back up the action verbs you use with quantifiable evidence that shows the impact you made. You can use past tense for any action verbs describing previous jobs, with present tense for action verbs to describe your current role and responsibilities.

Agile business CV example

Now that you know exactly what to include in your agile business CV, we can take a look at a final, finished example below:

If you're not sure what your one-page, finalised CV design might look like, check out our examples.

Tips for optimising your CV for ATS

Many employers now use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to assist with managing the recruitment process. One of the key elements of most ATS apps is the ability to scan CVs and rank them according to their likely match to the job description. By taking on this task, the hiring manager can reduce the time and resources they spend on the initial selection process, making recruitment more efficient and cost-effective.

With ATS apps becoming more prominent, it's essential for candidates to optimise their CVs to increase their chances of passing the initial screening stage. You can read a list of the top tips for ATS optimisation below:

• Include keywords and phrases that mirror the job description to maximise your chances of ranking highly in the ATS screening stage.
• Use standard CV headings that clearly identify each section, such as 'work experience', 'education' and 'skills'.
• Choose a standard CV layout, avoiding special design elements such as text boxes, columns or unlabelled graphics that can confound ATS scanning apps.
• Select a font that enhances the readability of your CV, including recognised serif and sans serif fonts between sizes 10 and 12 for body text, and 14 and 16 for headings.
• Use bullet points in place of full sentences and paragraphs, as these are easier for ATS apps to scan and parse, and help your keywords stand out.

You might feel there are a lot of steps to creating an ATS-compatible agile business CV, but with just a few small changes, you can ensure your CV passes this stage. Use one of our ATS-compatible CV templates, which are designed by experts to give you the best chances of success.

Key takeaways for a successful agile business CV

To stand out from the crowd with your CV, tailor your approach to each individual application, incorporating keywords and phrases that match the job description. Pick a CV format that matches your experience level, and focus on showing the reader how you've developed relevant skills and put them to good use to add value for previous employers.

Finally, creating your CV using one of Jobseeker's expert-designed CV templates can give your application the edge, placing you among the leading candidates and positioning you for success with your job applications.

Sources:

1. Barnet Council (UK local government), Recruitment tips: How to write a supporting statement
2. Jobseeker, HR Statistics