Executive Assistant CV Example

A meticulously crafted, tailored executive assistant CV gives your application the best chance of passing the ATS screening stage, impressing the hiring manager and progressing to the interview stage. Let’s take a closer look at the key parts of a CV and how to develop them for maximum impact.

Key sections for an executive assistant CV

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

At the end of the day, though, an executive assistant CV is just a way to tell the story of how you’ve grown in your career. Regardless of your experience level, you want that progression to feel seamless and easy to follow for recruiters. To help you get there, we’re going to walk through each part of the CV step-by-step, starting with the basics in your header and working our way through to your professional achievements.

CV Header

At the top of your executive assistant CV, add a header that establishes the design language of the document. Include the necessary contact information: your full name, email address, phone number and location. It's not typically necessary to include your full address. Additionally, consider adding a URL to your LinkedIn profile if you have one. This can help the reader to quickly access further information about your career and credentials that you haven't been able to add to your CV.

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

Below your CV header, the next section tends to be a CV summary or CV objective. This paragraph briefly explains a few of your key skills and qualities, so employers can easily understand whether you're likely to be a suitable candidate for the executive assistant job. 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.

For either a CV summary or an objective, aim for a length of two or three sentences. Showcase a few key skills, personal qualities and career achievements or ambitions, always reviewing the job description as you write, to show how you fulfil the requirements of the role.

A good CV summary will highlight one or two key skills that match those listed in the job description, and show how you've put them to good use in your career to date. You'll want to set yourself apart from other candidates by focusing on unique qualities or particular areas of strength that have shaped your career to date. Below you'll find a good example of how to write an effective executive assistant CV summary. The example shows quantifiable achievements and well-structured sentences.

Above is an example of CV summary that doesn't follow best practice, with some subtle shortcomings and failings. 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 History

A CV's work experience section is usually its most important element. Employers will want to see how you've developed relevant skills in previous roles, and how you've put them to good use in successful projects and career achievements. 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 relevant previous jobs, and add your job title, the name of the employer, its location and your dates of employment. Under this, write several bullet points showing employers how your skills and key qualities contributed to positive outcomes.

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 executive assistant CV work experience section below.

Take a look at a less strong executive assistant CV work experience section above. The work experience section could fail to make an impression if it's too generic, focuses on older or irrelevant roles or lacks tailoring to the job description. It's also important to avoid focusing too much on responsibilities that don't tell the reader anything of the value you added to the role.

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. In an executive assistant CV, focus on the most relevant and essential skills in your skills portfolio, such as communication and MS office proficiency, to show you're qualified for the executive assistant position and to put you in a strong position to progress.

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 executive assistant roles, hard skills from your career experience, such as expense reporting and reconciliation, and MS office proficiency tend to be prioritised by employers and recruiters. After reviewing the job description, compile a list of four or five key hard skills for your executive assistant CV to show you're capable of carrying out the duties required 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 an executive assistant 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. As a result of rapid technological changes in the world of work, soft skills are becoming ever-more valued by employers. Soft skills can also be particularly valuable for junior or entry-level roles where candidates haven't necessarily had the time to develop hard skills 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 executive assistant CV. You'll want to include a combination of 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.

Here are typical soft skills candidates include in an executive assistant CV.

Education

Your education section should showcase your most recent and highest qualifications, paying particular attention to anything that's specifically required for the role.

To be eligible for executive assistant positions, you typically need to have a relevant university degree, and include it in your CV. If you have a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration 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 calendaring and diary management or travel itinerary coordination.

Your education section should contain only the qualifications that you consider most relevant to the role. List them in reverse-chronological order, starting with the most recent and working back from there. 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 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.

Certifications and Licences

To showcase additional qualifications and training beyond the basic requirements for the role, consider adding a certifications section to your CV. It can enhance your chances of success to show specific training and certifications. Not only do these prove you're qualified for the role, but they also indicate proactivity and a dedication to professional development. Furthermore, a certifications section is particularly valuable if you're applying for a role that sets out required certifications or licences in the job description. These might include technical roles that require the use of specialist software or equipment.

Take a look at this list of example certifications and licences for executive assistant candidates:

Language Skills

If you speak any additional languages, you might want to consider adding a languages section to your CV. Even if languages aren't a requirement of the job description, speaking a foreign language can reflect well on you as a candidate, and correlate with other soft skills that can increase your employability. Within this section, list the foreign languages you speak to a reasonable degree of competence, together with an indicator of your skill levels.

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

Alternatively, use an internationally recognised framework for languages, such as the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). This gives your language skills a standardised competence indicator, as follows:

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

Additional Sections

Optional sections can be useful to add to your CV, to provide additional evidence that you have the skills for the executive assistant job. If you're unable to show you have all the necessary skills for the job through your work experience, optional sections can be a valid way of providing further evidence of your suitability, to give you the chance of gaining an interview. If you're an entry-level candidate or a career changer, optional sections can be particularly valuable.

Explore our career resources for practical strategies to make your CV stand out and move you closer to landing an interview.

Hobbies and Interests

One valid way to show you have relevant skills for the job is by listing your hobbies and interests. Additionally, this section gives you the chance to show employers different facets of your personality and interests beyond work, which can help them to differentiate you from other applicants. However, a hobbies and interests section will only make an impact with the reader if the skills you showcase are relevant to the role. As such, only include this section if it helps you fulfil requirements of the role that you've been unable to show elsewhere.

Voluntary Roles

Another way of showing employers your skills and experience is through volunteer roles. If you're struggling to show you have the necessary credentials through your work experience, volunteering can provide valuable examples of how you've put your skills into action. Approach your volunteering section in much the same way as your work experience section.

For each entry, include a job title or description of your role, the organisation, its location and the dates you volunteered. Adding bullet points can also help you to show how you developed relevant skills, and used them to good effect.

References

When applying for roles in the UK, it's not standard to include references on your CV, and employers only tend to require them later in the process. Nevertheless, it's worth checking the job advert and being ready just in case. If the employer requests references on your CV, choose two or three, and always approach them for permission before including them.

Add their name, their job title, the organisation and their contact details. As an alternative, you could add a brief line confirming you're able to supply references when necessary, such as 'references are available upon request'.

Most effective action verbs for an executive assistant 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.

Example of an executive assistant CV

Now that we've covered the main sections to include in your executive assistant CV, we can see how it would all come together in its final form in the example below:

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.

How to make your CV ATS compatible

Employers and recruiters now routinely use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to ease the burden of the selection process. One of the key functions of these systems is CV screening, which reviews CVs and ranks them based on their likely fit for the role. By taking on this task, the systems can save hiring managers the time and effort of reviewing every CV in detail. With vacancies regularly receiving hundreds of applications, this can increase the efficiency of the recruitment process.

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 headings that reflect standard CV conventions, such as 'work experience', 'education' and 'skills'.
• Choose a simple, straightforward CV layout with clear, consistent formatting, that avoids text boxes, graphics or other special design elements, as these can make your CV harder to scan.
• Select a font that can enhance the readability of your CV, such as popular serif and sans serif fonts, with size 10 to 12 for body text and 14 to 16 for headings.
• Use bullet points throughout your CV in place of full sentences. This serves a few purposes, reducing the overall length, helping keywords stand out and making it overall more scannable by ATS apps.

There are lots of things to think about when crafting an effective, engaging executive assistant 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 a successful executive assistant CV

To grab the attention of the reader with your CV, tailor it to the exact specifications of the job description, incorporating keywords and phrases that match the employer's requirements. Choose the most fitting CV format for your experience level, and focus on showcasing how you've developed the necessary skills for the role, and used them to positive effect in previous roles.

Finally, building your CV using Jobseeker's HR-approved CV templates can help to catch the eye of recruiters and hiring managers, making your application stand out and giving you the best chance of gaining your dream job.

Sources:

1. JobHelp (UK Department for Work & Pensions campaign), No work experience? Focus on what you do have
2. Jobseeker, HR Statistics