Crew Member CV Example

A stronger, more engaging crew member 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.

Main sections of a crew member CV

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

However, at any stage of your career, a crew member 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 crew member CV with a professional-looking header that includes all the relevant contact information. This usually includes your name, your email address, your phone number and your location, but not your full address. Additionally, add your LinkedIn profile, if this is in use and up-to-date. A well-utilised LinkedIn profile can give further information to the reader about your skills, experience, industry knowledge and career achievements.

When you're applying for jobs in the UK, it's generally not advisable to include a photo or more personal details than are strictly necessary, such as your age, gender, ethnicity or nationality. Including these can jeopardise the recruitment process by introducing bias, and can fall foul of the Equality Act 2010.

CV Summary or Objective

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 crew member 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.

Both a CV summary and objective should be concise, with an ideal length of two or three sentences. List your key skills, personal strengths and career achievements or ambitions, taking care to ensure the content reflects the requirements listed in the job description.

A good CV summary would typically focus on a couple of key skills that match the job description, demonstrating how you've used them to good effect in previous roles. It's important to focus on your unique qualities and provide a preview of how they've made an impact in your career to date, which you'll unpack later in the document. Below you'll find an example of a strong crew member CV summary.

See above for an example of an ineffective summary, with subtle differences leading to a reduction of impact. For a summary to make less of an impact, it might include generic or vague information, lack evidence of your impact, or fail to highlight specific personal qualities that make you stand out from other candidates. It may also lack tailoring to the job description or include long, poorly structured sentences.

Work Experience

The work experience section of a CV is usually the most important part. Employers look for evidence of how you've developed and used your skills to good effect in your career to date, as an indication of your likely future performance. 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.

List only your most relevant jobs, and go back up to 10 or 15 years, depending on your experience levels. List your job title, the name of the employer, its location and the dates you worked there. Also include bullet points for each entry, highlighting how you used your skills to add value for the employer.

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. Here's an example of best practice in a crew member CV work experience section:

Take a look at a less strong crew member CV work experience section above. A less-effective work experience section could focus too much on irrelevant or out-of-date roles, or include generic information about your responsibilities that fails to show the impact you made. It might lack tailoring to the job description or fail to provide evidence to support the claims made in the bullet points.

Education

In your education section you'll want to list your highest and most recent qualifications, particularly if they're a requirement for the role.

For careers as a crew member, you don't generally need a specific degree. However, it can still be useful to include relevant certifications, training or formal qualifications in your CV's education section, even if these aren't requested by the employer. These could include Fire Safety Awareness, or any training that shows your skills development in maintaining equipment functionality or operating POS systems.

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.

You might also wish to add specialist qualifications, certifications or licences that are required for the role. If you add any of these, include the expiry date, if the qualification requires renewal in the future.

Skills

The skills section of a crew member CV provides space for showcasing the key skills and qualities that set you apart as a candidate. You'll want to only include the most relevant skills, so review the job description and list hard and soft skills that match the requirements, while reserving some space to mention your own unique characteristics. In a crew member CV, only list the most relevant and essential skills you possess, such as teamwork and handling cash transactions, to make a positive first impression and show you're qualified for the crew member position.

Hard Skills

Hard skills refer to the technical and specialist skills required for the everyday duties of the job. They might include specialist knowledge, or the use of certain software and equipment. You can gain these skills through study, training or industry experience, and they might require a licence or certification. For crew member jobs, critical hard skills you've gained in your career can include handling cash transactions, and managing stock levels. 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.

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.

Review the examples below to understand which skills are often added to the hard skills section of a crew member CV.

Soft Skills

Soft skills differ from hard skills because they tend to be more transferable and applicable to different roles. Soft skills are the personal strengths and qualities that define your style of working and determine how well you're likely to fit in with the team and wider organisation. Owing to the rapidly evolving nature of the work landscape, soft skills are growing in importance for a number of roles and industry sectors where technology is replacing hard skills. Additionally, soft skills are particularly valuable for junior and entry-level candidates, who might not have much work experience but have the right building blocks for a successful career.

Adopt the same approach as you did with your hard skills list, reviewing the job description to understand the requirements, before assessing which soft skills you can provide evidence for throughout your crew member CV. Aim to add up to five soft and transferable skills, including a mix of the most essential skills from the job description, together with some skills that make you stand out as a unique and compelling candidate.

Consider the following soft skills that frequently appear in a crew member CV.

Foreign Languages

If you speak a foreign language, it can be beneficial to include a languages section on your crew member 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. In this section, include any foreign languages you speak to a standard that could be useful in the world of work, with an indication of your proficiency level.

There are several methods of confirming your foreign language skills on your CV. The simplest way is by assigning a basic descriptive word, 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

Certifications and Licences

If you have extra qualifications beyond the basics of what's expected or required for the role, you might want to include a separate certifications section in your CV. 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, 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.

See below for a list of example certifications and licences you might add to your CV for crew member roles:

Optional Sections

Adding optional sections to the end of your crew member CV is a good way of showing you have the necessary skills for the job. Consider adding optional sections if you're unable to show all the necessary skills for the job through work experience, but could show them through extracurricular activities and other areas of life. This could be especially relevant if you're a junior candidate, or if you're changing careers.

If you're curious about other ways to make your CV more effective, our career resources will help you strengthen your application.

Hobbies and Interests

Your hobbies and interests can be a useful way of showcasing additional skills that are relevant to the job description, but that you haven't been able to prove via your work experience. 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, only mention hobbies and interests that are relevant to the role, and that help you prove skills that you haven't been able to show in your work experience or other CV sections.

Awards and Achievements

Creating a list of your key career achievements can be an effective way of drawing attention to the things you're most proud of from your career. If you've won any awards or achieved any key milestones in your career to date, you might want to mention them here.

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. In your volunteering section, use a similar structure to your work experience section.

Add your job title or a description of the volunteer role, the organisation name, its location and the dates you volunteered (start and end date). Under this, add bullet points to show the skills you used, and evidence of how they contributed to positive achievements for the organisation.

Most effective action verbs for a crew member 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.

Full example of crew member CV

Now you know how to create a crew member CV for maximum impact, take a look below at this full, completed example:

If you want a sneak preview of what your one-page, fully designed and finalised CV might look like, see our completed examples.

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. This task can relieve some of the strain on hiring managers through the recruitment process, which can become very resource-intensive, with roles often eliciting hundreds of applications.

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 match the job description, giving you the best chance of appearing as a strong fit for the role.
• Use clear, standard CV headings that are easily recognisable, such as 'work experience', 'education' and 'skills'.
• Choose a standard CV layout that avoids the use of any special design elements that might make your CV less compatible with ATS scanning software.
• Select a font that increases the readability of your CV, such as popular serif and sans serif fonts, between the sizes of 10 and 12 for main text and 14 and 16 for headings.
• Use bullet points rather than writing long, full sentences, as this will make your CV easier to scan and parse, and help your keywords and phrases to stand out.

You might feel there are a lot of steps to creating an ATS-compatible crew member 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 an impactful crew member CV

To make a strong first impression on hiring managers, tailor your CV for every application, adding keywords and phrases that match 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, enhancing the look and feel of your CV using one of Jobseeker's HR-approved CV templates can help leave a lasting impression on the reader, and boost your chances of success with your job applications.

Sources:

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