Chief Of Staff CV Example

Developing a more strategic a chief of staff CV will strengthen your ability to move efficiently through ATS screening while positioning you credibly with senior decision-makers. More importantly, it enables you to demonstrate leadership maturity, commercial impact, and organizational influence. This way, you ensure your leadership competencies, transformation initiatives, and measurable business results are clearly communicated, showing your suitability for complex, high-responsibility positions. Let’s take a closer look at the key components of a CV and consider how to develop each to communicate authority, strategic judgment, and measurable business impact.

Key sections of a chief of staff CV

Your approach to creating your winning chief of staff CV will differ depending on your experience, your seniority and the details listed in the job description.

However, at any stage of your career, a chief of staff CV serves as a professional biography that must clearly illustrate your career trajectory. To help you tell that story effectively, we will now break down the document piece-by-piece, starting with your contact header and moving through the key pieces of your professional path.

CV Header

Start your chief of staff CV by adding a professional-looking header that contains all your relevant contact information. Include your name, email address, phone number and location (your full address isn't typically necessary for UK job applications). Additionally, listing your LinkedIn profile in your CV header can be valuable. It serves to provide more detailed information about your career journey, your qualifications and your industry standing, in an easily accessible way.

For UK applications, it's not usually a good idea to add a personal photo or any other personal details, such as your age, gender, nationality or ethnicity. These can risk introducing bias to the selection process and, as such, are often discouraged in job adverts under the terms of the Equality Act 2010.

CV Summary

Below your contact information, a short, concise CV summary or CV objective can set the tone for your application and provide brief, basic information on your key skills and qualities that gives a strong indication to the reader about your suitability for the chief of staff role. The CV objective provides an alternative to the standard CV summary. While the CV summary focuses on your skills and achievements through your work experience, a CV objective highlights your ambitions and plans for the future, including how the role fits with these. This makes it ideal for junior candidates.

Whether you choose to write a summary or an objective, aim for a length of two or three sentences, introducing your key skills, unique qualities and key achievements or ambitions, making sure they reflect what's included 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. Find an example below of a positive chief of staff CV summary, characterised by evidence to support your claims and well-structured, easy-to-read sentences.

Above is an example of CV summary that doesn't follow best practice, with some subtle shortcomings and failings. Your summary could miss the mark if it's too generic and doesn't describe unique personal qualities and strengths. It might also be vague, use long, unstructured sentences, lack quantifiable evidence of your impact, or not be tailored to the job description.

Professional Experience

Work experience is usually the most important section of any CV. Employers will be looking for evidence of how you've developed relevant skills in your career to date, and how you've used them to positive effect in previous roles. 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.

This section should contain a list of your most relevant previous jobs in the last 10 or 15 years. Add the job title, the name of the employer, its location and your dates of employment. Include detail in bullet points, outlining the skills you used in the role and the impact they made.

When writing your work experience section for senior chief of staff applications, you may wish to make it longer and more detailed than the same section for a more junior CV. This will give you more space to showcase your extensive experience and expertise in the sector, by showing more detail about each role, or by listing more previous roles.

The difference between an average CV work experience section and an outstanding one is the use of action verbs and quantifiable evidence. You'll want to show how your actions led to measurable positive outcomes for employers, and indicate a progression in your skills throughout your career. Take a look at this chief of staff CV example work experience section for inspiration:

Above you'll find a less effective example of a chief of staff CV work experience section. 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

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

Chief of staff roles typically require candidates to have a relevant university degree, and you'll want to showcase this in your CV to confirm your eligibility. Add your Bachelor of Science in Management or another related degree that makes you an eligible candidate for the position, in your CV. If you have any other degrees or qualifications that highlight stakeholder analysis and engagement, risk assessment and mitigation or your most relevant skills, you could also add these.

When listing your qualifications in your education section, select only the most suitable qualifications and list them in reverse-chronological order, starting with the most recent and working backwards. When adding each qualification, include the name and level of the award, the institution, its location (if necessary), and the dates you attended or graduated. It can also be valuable to add bullet points outlining your key achievements and activities, such as projects you worked on, modules you completed, awards you won or societies you participated in while studying.

If you have any specialist certifications or licences that are necessary for the role, or help you stand out above other candidates, you may wish to mention them here. When adding any special licences, it's a good idea to also reference their expiry or renewal dates, if applicable.

Skills

Your CV's skills section CV's skills section is a great place to showcase some of the key skills necessary for the role. Check the job description to understand which skills are most essential, and provide a combination of hard and soft skills, reserving space to include some unique qualities that can help you to stand out from the competition. For a chief of staff CV, it's essential to include relevant skills for the role that match your skill set, such as problem solving and financial modelling and forecasting, to impress the reader and show you're qualified for the chief of staff position.

Hard Skills

Hard and technical skills are the essential skills required for carrying out the everyday duties of the role. They might include specialist operation of certain software or equipment, or knowledge of certain industry standards and regulations. You could gain these skills via training, certifications or industry experience. For chief of staff roles, hard skills from your career experience, such as stakeholder analysis and engagement, and risk assessment and mitigation tend to be prioritised by employers and recruiters. Firstly, check the job description, then add four or five key hard skills in your CV that help the employer to decide if you're a good fit for the role.

You'll want to include a list of hard skills that closely matches the skills listed as 'essential' or 'desirable' in the job description, while also reflecting your own strongest technical skills.

Below, you can find the types of skills typically featured in the hard skills section of a chief of staff CV:

Soft Skills

Soft skills are the personal strengths and qualities that show employers how well you'll fit into the role and complement other members of the team. Soft skills tend to be more transferable and applicable to different roles than hard and technical skills. 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.

Similar to your hard skills section, it's best to first review the job description to know which soft skills to focus on in your chief of staff CV. You'll want to include a combination of soft skills that you can provide evidence for throughout your CV. Your soft skills list should reflect the job description as closely as possible, while also reflecting your strongest, unique talents and personal qualities. Aim for a list of around five key skills.

For senior, executive and director level roles, you'll want your CV's soft skills section to showcase your leadership and management skills. Aim to include soft skills that highlight your ability to lead a team and represent an organisation, such as decision-making, strategic thinking, change management and communication.

Below is a selection of soft skills regularly featured in a chief of staff CV.

Certifications and Training

Depending on the role and your qualifications, it might be necessary to include a certifications section. It can be a valuable way of differentiating yourself from other candidates and showing employers your dedication, motivation and commitment to professional development. Furthermore, if there are any necessary certifications or licences for the job, this CV section takes on even more importance. If you're applying for a technical role or a position that involves the use of specialist software or equipment, these might make it more necessary to include a section showcasing your training.

These example certifications and licences are ideal for candidates applying for chief of staff roles:

Projects and Publications

For roles in academia or scientific disciplines, or for senior or executive appointments, it can be valuable to include a section listing relevant publications and projects. Include any publications or projects that showcase your expertise and contribute to the academic discourse, such as journal articles, book chapters, research papers or funded projects that have achieved recognition or received awards.

When listing publications, use a standard citation style which is most suitable for the management sector. The most popular UK CV citation style is the Harvard style, but you could alternatively use the APA (American Psychological Association), MHRA (Modern Humanities Research Association) or OSCOLA (Oxford University Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities). See an example citation for a chief of staff CV publications section, listed using the appropriate citation format:

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.

Furthermore, as a senior chief of staff candidate, a summary of your achievements and awards is a valuable way of showing your expertise and standing in your profession, as well as your career progression.

Languages

If you speak a foreign language, it can be beneficial to include a languages section on your chief of staff CV. Whether languages are a requirement of the job description or not, if your CV lists additional languages, this typically reflects well on you as a candidate. Under this section, list any foreign languages you speak to a professional standard, with an indicator of your competency level for each.

There are a few acceptable ways of citing your foreign language proficiency levels. The simplest way is to assign a basic descriptive word to indicate your skills, such as:

• English: Fluent
• Spanish: Intermediate

You could otherwise use an internationally recognised language standard, such as the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). This assigns your language skills a standardised level of competence, as follows:

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

Best action verbs for an engaging chief of staff CV

Adding strong action verbs to the bullet points in your CV's work experience section is a great way to focus on the key skills required for the job, while showing the impact you've made. Start each bullet point with an action word that reflects the job description, so the reader can easily identify your best qualities. Always remember to back up any action verbs you use with evidence that shows the impact it made and the achievements that it led to. Use past tense for action verbs that describe previous roles, and present tense for your current position.

Chief of staff CV sample

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

A standard UK CV is typically between one and two sides of A4, but if you're applying for a senior role, it's acceptable to make your chief of staff CV longer. The extra length can help you to show all the credentials and experience that make you suitable for such a senior role in the management sector. This might mean including awards, publications, professional memberships, conference appearances or significant career milestones and achievements.

This can mean it's beneficial for your CV to be longer than the standard two pages. If you want to get a feel for how your CV will look once you finalise its design and layout, check out our CV examples for inspiration.

Guide to CV ATS optimisation

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.

The increasing usage of ATS apps by recruiters and employers means it's critical to adapt and prepare your applications to successfully navigate this stage of the selection process. Following the tips below will give you everything you need for an ATS-compatible CV:

• Include keywords and phrases that mirror the job description to maximise your chances of ranking highly in the ATS screening stage.
• Use clear, conventional CV headings to make your CV easier to navigate, including 'work experience', 'education' and 'skills'.
• Opt for a simple CV layout with consistent formatting, avoiding any special design elements that could make your CV harder for ATS apps to scan.
• Select a font that's widely used and maximises readability, including popular serif and sans serif fonts between size 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.

There are lots of things to think about when crafting an effective, engaging chief of staff CV, but ATS compatibility is something that's easy to overcome. Use one of our expert-designed, ATS-compatible CV templates and remove the stress from creating a CV that puts you in the frame for the role.

Key takeaways for an impactful chief of staff CV

For the best chance of impressing employers, always tailor your CV for every application and include keywords and phrases that reflect the job description. Select a suitable CV format for your experience level, and show the reader how you've used skills relevant to the role, to create a positive impact in your career to date.

Finally, using a clean, professional CV template like those offered by Jobseeker, can help your CV stand out among its competitors and give you the best chance of success with your applications.

Sources:

1. Public Appointments, Tips for a good CV
2. Jobseeker, Hiring Trends