Optical Assistant CV Example

A stronger, more engaging optical assistant 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. We’ll now review the essential sections of a CV and outline how to write each for the strongest results.

Key sections of an optical assistant CV

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

At the end of the day, though, an optical 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

Start your optical assistant 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.

For UK jobs, it's generally not a good idea to add a photo or any other personal details beyond your basic contact information. This means leaving off details such as your age, gender, ethnicity and nationality, as these can introduce bias to the selection process and complications related to the Equality Act 2010.

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 optical assistant job. A CV summary focuses on your key skills and achievements, while a CV objective provides an alternative approach, showcasing your career ambitions and how the role fits with these. This makes a CV objective ideal for entry-level candidates.

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.

The most effective way to approach a CV summary is to focus on one or two key skills that reflect the requirements of the job description and show how you've used them to create positive outcomes for previous employers. You'll also want to showcase your unique personal strengths, and touch on how they've contributed to your career progression up to now. Find an example below of a positive optical assistant 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. 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.

Work History

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. Always take the time to tailor this section, including keywords and phrases that match the job description. This will help employers to judge how strong a fit you are for the role, and how you might apply your skills for the benefit of the organisation.

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. See below for an example of how to put the work experience section best practice into action:

The example above shows what not to do with your optical assistant CV work experience section. A poor work experience section might look more like a generic list of responsibilities rather than an account of how you've used your skills to positive effect in previous roles. It might also include old or irrelevant job entries and lack tailoring to the job description.

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 an optical assistant, 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 Contact Lens Fitting Certification, or any training that shows your skills development in optic equipment calibration techniques or accurate spectacle lens measurements.

Creating the education section of your CV means selecting the most relevant and highest qualifications, and listing them in reverse-chronological order, starting with your most recent achievements and working back from there. For each entry into your education section, add the qualification name and level, the institution or awarding body, its location and your dates of study or graduation. For extra emphasis on your education section, include bullet points showcasing projects you worked on, modules you studied, awards you won or societies you participated in, if they help you to prove you're a suitable candidate.

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

A CV's skills section is the place to show the reader, in an easily accessible format, that you have the necessary skills for the job. Read the job description to understand the most essential skills, and create a list of both hard and soft skills, ensuring you include some of your strongest, most unique characteristics and qualities to set you apart from the competition. In an optical assistant CV, focus on the most relevant and essential skills in your skills portfolio, such as communication and optic equipment calibration techniques, to show you're qualified for the optical assistant position and to put you in a strong position to progress.

Hard Skills

Hard skills and technical skills are the specialist skills required for completing the everyday duties of the role, such as the use of certain software or equipment, or specialist industry knowledge. You can develop these skills through study, training, on-the-job or through completing industry certifications. For optical assistant jobs, essential hard skills from your career-to-date might include optic equipment calibration techniques, and accurate spectacle lens measurements. Check the skills specified in the job description, and add four or five key hard skills to your CV that show employers you're capable of completing the key duties of the role.

The best hard skills section will contain a mix of your strongest technical skills and those listed in the job description as 'essential' or 'desirable'. The closer your skills list is to matching the essential job description skills, the better your chances of success.

The following section highlights skills that are commonly listed under hard skills in an optical 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. The world of work is evolving at a rapid pace, changing the types of hard skills required for many roles, and therefore rendering soft and transferable skills more valuable than ever. Soft skills are also extremely valuable for junior and entry-level roles, where candidates aren't necessarily expected to have a wealth of relevant work experience.

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 optical assistant 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 an optical assistant CV.

Languages

If you speak any languages in addition to your mother tongue, you might want to include them in your optical assistant CV as a languages section. These can be valuable for your application, whether languages are specified as a requirement in the job description or not. In the languages section, list the languages you speak to at least a reasonable level, with an indicator of your competency level.

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

Certifications and Licences

To showcase additional qualifications and training beyond the basic requirements for the role, consider adding a certifications section to your CV. If you've been proactive in pursuing professional development opportunities throughout your career, it's worth showcasing them. Not only do they make you more qualified, they also show a proactive and motivated mindset. 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.

These example certifications and licences are ideal for candidates applying for optical assistant roles:

Optional Sections

Adding optional sections to the end of your optical assistant CV is a good way of showing you have the necessary skills for the 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

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. In addition, you can use hobbies and interests to show elements of your personality that might not shine through otherwise, giving you a chance to offer something different to most candidates. However, a hobbies and interests section is only valuable if it helps you to show relevant skills you've been unable to evidence in other parts of your CV. If your hobbies and interests are unrelated to the job, it's best to leave them off your CV.

Career Achievements

Compiling your key career achievements into a single list is an effective way of making your CV more readable at a glance. If you've won any awards or achieved any key milestones in your career to date, you might want to mention them here.

Volunteer Roles

Listing volunteer roles is another effective way of showing employers your skills and experience. If you're lacking work experience, either as a junior candidate or a career changer, adding volunteering activities gives you a chance to show how you've put your skills into action. 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.

Best action verbs for an engaging optical assistant 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. You'll also want to back up any action verbs you're using with quantifiable evidence that showcases the value you added for previous employers. Use the past tense for action verbs that describe previous roles, with the present tense for any current responsibilities and achievements.

Optical assistant CV sample

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

To get an idea of how your completed, one-page CV will look once its been fully designed, see our selection of CV examples.

How to make your CV ATS compatible

Applicant tracking systems (ATS) are becoming more and more integral to the recruitment process for many employers. These systems ease the burden of the recruitment process by performing various tasks, including scanning and ranking CVs based on their likely fit 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 growing prevalence of ATS apps requires a shift in approach by jobseekers, to prepare a CV with the best chance of passing the ATS screening stage. That's why we've put together a list of key ATS CV tips, to maximise your chances of success:

• Include keywords and phrases from the job description that are easy for ATS apps to identify, and help make you appear a strong fit for the role.
• Use clear, standard CV headings that are easily recognisable, 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'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 optical 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 an impactful optical assistant 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. Select a suitable CV format that reflects your experience level, and focus on highlighting your key skills, and demonstrating how you've put them to good use to achieve positive outcomes in your career to date.

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.

References:

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