CV Personal Statement: Examples and How to Write One
The CVera Team · · 8 min read
The personal statement is the short paragraph at the top of your CV, just below your name and contact details. In the UK and Ireland it is also called a profile, a professional summary or a career summary; they all mean the same thing. It is often the first thing a recruiter reads, so it decides whether they read the rest with interest. This guide gives you a simple formula, the most common mistakes and examples for different career stages and jobs.
What a CV personal statement is for
A good personal statement does three things in three to five lines:
- Says who you are professionally: your job title or field and your level of experience.
- Shows what you are best at: two or three strengths relevant to the job, ideally backed by a fact or a result.
- States what you want next: the kind of role you are applying for.
It is a summary, not a cover letter. Keep it to roughly 50 to 100 words. Anything longer becomes a block of text that busy readers skip.
Do not confuse it with the UCAS personal statement used for university applications. That is a long essay about why you want to study a subject; a CV personal statement is a short, factual pitch to an employer.
A simple formula
Most strong personal statements follow this pattern:
[Job title or field] with [experience] in [area or sector]. [Key strength with proof]. [Second strength or qualification]. [What you are looking for].
For example:
Registered general nurse with six years' experience on busy acute medical wards. Experienced in managing a bay of eight patients, mentoring student nurses and leading on falls prevention, which reduced falls on the ward over twelve months. Looking for a band 6 role in acute medicine.
You do not need to follow the formula word for word. The important thing is that every sentence contains something specific: a number, a skill, a qualification, a sector, an outcome.
First person, third person or neither?
In the UK and Ireland, the most common style is implied first person: you drop "I" and start with your job title or a verb. "Qualified electrician with…" rather than "I am a qualified electrician with…". It reads crisply and avoids a paragraph full of "I".
Full first person ("I have five years' experience…") is also acceptable, particularly for entry-level CVs, as long as you are consistent. Avoid the third person ("Sarah is a dedicated professional…"), which sounds odd when everyone knows you wrote it yourself.
Common mistakes to avoid
Clichés without evidence
Phrases such as "hard-working", "team player", "excellent communication skills", "self-motivated" and "passionate" appear on a huge number of CVs. They are not wrong, but on their own they say nothing. Replace each one with evidence.
| Cliché | Evidence instead |
|---|---|
| Excellent communication skills | Present monthly results to the senior leadership team |
| Team player | Coordinate a team of five across two shifts |
| Hard-working | Completed a CIPD Level 5 qualification while working full-time |
| Detail-oriented | Maintained 100% audit compliance across three annual audits |
Being too general
"Looking for a challenging role in a dynamic company" could be anyone. Name the type of role: "Looking for a senior bookkeeping role in a practice".
Writing about what you want, not what you offer
The employer cares most about what you bring. Keep the "what I want" part to one short clause at the end.
Not tailoring it
Your personal statement is the easiest part of the CV to tailor. Adjust it for each application so that the job title and the top skills mirror the advert. This also helps with applicant tracking systems that search for job titles and key terms; see our guide to an ATS-friendly CV.
Personal statement examples by career stage
School leaver
Friendly and dependable school leaver with five GCSEs including English and Maths, currently completing a Level 2 hospitality course. Two summers' experience serving customers at a seaside café, including handling payments and cleaning to food hygiene standards. Looking for a full-time front-of-house role or apprenticeship.
Graduate
Business Management graduate (2:1, University of Galway) with a twelve-week marketing internship at a regional food brand, running social media campaigns that grew Instagram followers from 2,000 to 3,500. Confident with Google Analytics, Canva and Meta Business Suite. Seeking a graduate marketing executive role.
For more on CVs for career starters, see our guide to a CV with no work experience.
Experienced professional
Chartered accountant (ACA) with eight years' experience in practice and industry, currently Financial Controller for a £30m turnover manufacturing group. Led the move to a cloud ERP system and cut the month-end close from ten to five working days. Looking for a Head of Finance role in a growing business.
Career changer
Secondary school science teacher with seven years' experience, moving into learning and development. Designed and delivered training for colleagues on assessment and digital tools, and built online courses used across the department. Recently completed a CIPD Level 3 Certificate in Learning and Development. Seeking a learning and development coordinator role.
Returning after a career break
Experienced HR administrator returning to work after a three-year career break raising a young family. Five years' previous experience managing recruitment administration and HR records for a 300-person organisation. Recently refreshed skills with an online course in UK employment law updates and the BambooHR platform. Looking for a part-time HR administrator role.
Our guide to explaining gaps in your CV covers career breaks in more detail.
Examples by job
Customer service adviser
Customer service adviser with four years' experience in energy-sector contact centres, handling inbound calls, emails and live chat. Consistently in the top quarter of the team for first-contact resolution. Trained in complaint handling and vulnerable-customer procedures. Looking for a senior adviser or team leader position.
Software developer
Full-stack developer with five years' experience building web applications in C#, .NET and React. Led the rebuild of a customer portal used by 40,000 users, improving page load times by half. Comfortable with Azure, CI/CD pipelines and automated testing. Looking for a senior developer role in a product team.
HGV driver
Class 1 HGV driver with ten years' accident-free experience in multi-drop and trunking work across the UK. Holds a valid Driver CPC, digital tachograph card and ADR certificate. Known for on-time delivery and careful load security. Looking for a permanent night trunking role.
Chef
Sous chef with seven years' experience in fresh-food restaurants serving up to 150 covers. Runs the kitchen on the head chef's days off, manages ordering and stock, and has developed seasonal specials that became permanent menu items. Level 3 food hygiene. Looking for a head chef role.
You will find more role-specific examples, with full CVs around them, in our CV examples by job title, including the customer service CV example, the software developer CV example and the chef CV example.
How to write yours in four steps
- Write your opening line: job title or field plus years of experience or qualification.
- Pick your two best pieces of evidence for this job from your work experience section, ideally with numbers.
- Add one qualification, licence or tool the advert asks for.
- Finish with the role you want, matching the advert's job title.
Then cut every word that does not add information. Read it aloud: if it sounds like a sales brochure, make it plainer.
Personal statement checklist
Before you finalise your personal statement, check it against these points:
- Length: three to five lines, roughly 50 to 100 words.
- Opening: it starts with your job title, field or qualification, not with "I am a…".
- Evidence: it contains at least one number, result or named qualification.
- Relevance: the skills it mentions are ones the advert asks for.
- Goal: it ends with the role you want, using a job title close to the advert's.
- Clichés: any word such as "passionate", "dynamic" or "go-getter" is either removed or backed by proof.
- Consistency: it uses the same voice (implied first person or full first person) throughout.
- Spelling: British spelling for UK and Irish employers.
If you are struggling to make it specific, the problem is often in the rest of your CV. Go back to your work experience and make sure each role includes results; the personal statement can then borrow the strongest of them.
Where it fits on the page
Place the personal statement directly under your name and contact details, with or without a heading. "Profile" or "Personal statement" are both fine. Keep it in normal body text, not in a box or graphic, so that both people and software read it.
Our CV templates include a profile section in the right place, and our step-by-step guide on how to write a CV covers every other section.