How to Write Work Experience on a CV (With Examples)

The work experience section is the centrepiece of almost every CV. It's where recruiters spend most of their time, and it's where most CVs fail, not because the underlying experience is weak, but because it's presented badly.

The difference between a CV that gets interviews and one that doesn't is almost always in this section. Here's exactly how to write it.

The Basic Structure for Each Role

Every role in your work experience section should follow the same format:

The key elements: job title, company name, location, dates (month and year), and 3–5 bullet points. That's it. No paragraph descriptions, no lengthy introductions to the company.

The Most Important Rule: Achievements, Not Duties

This is where most CVs go wrong. The majority of bullet points describe what the role was supposed to involve, the job description, rather than what the person actually did and achieved.

Duty-based bullets tell the recruiter nothing they don't already know from the job title. Achievement-based bullets tell them what you specifically contributed.

The second set of bullets is specific, quantified, and interesting. A recruiter reading them gets an immediate sense of scale, capability, and impact. The first set could describe anyone who has ever held a social media role.

How to Quantify Everything (Including the Difficult Stuff)

Numbers make bullets credible and memorable. But not every role has obvious metrics, and many people feel they don't have anything meaningful to quantify. That's almost never true.

Here's how to find numbers even in roles that seem unmeasurable:

• Team or scope size: "Managed a team of 8" / "Supported 120 clients across 6 countries"
• Time saved: "Reduced report generation time from 3 hours to 20 minutes"
• Volume: "Processed 200+ applications per month" / "Delivered 40 client presentations per year"
• Budget managed: "Oversaw a £1.2M annual marketing budget"
• Growth: "Department headcount grew from 4 to 14 during my tenure"
• Before/after: "Customer satisfaction score improved from 67% to 84% following process changes I led"

You don't need exact figures, reasonable estimates are fine. "Approximately 40% reduction" is credible. What matters is that you're signalling scale and impact, not inventing specific numbers you can't defend.

Strong Action Verbs to Start Every Bullet

Each bullet point should start with a strong past-tense verb (or present tense for your current role). Avoid starting with "Responsible for", it's passive and weak.

Good action verbs by category:

• Leadership: Led, Managed, Directed, Oversaw, Mentored, Coached, Scaled
• Growth / commercial: Grew, Generated, Drove, Increased, Expanded, Secured
• Efficiency / process: Reduced, Streamlined, Automated, Redesigned, Cut, Optimised
• Creation / delivery: Built, Launched, Delivered, Developed, Designed, Produced
• Analysis / strategy: Analysed, Identified, Evaluated, Defined, Prioritised, Forecasted

How Many Bullet Points Per Role

This depends on recency and relevance:

• Current or most recent role: 4–6 bullets, this is what recruiters spend the most time on
• Roles 2–5 years ago: 2–4 bullets, enough to show progression without excessive detail
• Older or less relevant roles: 1–2 bullets, or just the role header with no bullets if truly irrelevant

The further back a role is, the less space it should take. A 10-year-old position shouldn't have the same level of detail as your current one, unless it's directly relevant to the role you're applying for.

Handling Gaps, Short Tenures, and Freelance Work

Employment gaps

Short gaps (under 6 months) don't need explanation, most recruiters won't notice unless you draw attention to them. Longer gaps can be addressed briefly: "Career break, parental leave (2023–2024)" or "Career break, caring responsibilities (2022–2023)" is enough. Don't over-explain or apologise.

Short tenures

If you left a role after less than a year, include it but be factual about the dates. A pattern of short roles is a genuine flag for recruiters, if there's a good reason (company restructure, contract role), a brief parenthetical note helps: "Senior Analyst, Barclays (redundancy, June 2024)" removes the ambiguity.

Freelance and contract work

Group it under a single header: "Freelance [Job Title], 2021–2023" followed by a line listing key clients, then bullet points for your best achievements across the period. This avoids a fragmented-looking career history.

Tailoring Work Experience for Each Job

Your work experience section shouldn't be identical for every application. Two things to adjust:

Order of bullets: Within each role, lead with the achievement most relevant to this job posting. If you're applying for a client-facing role, your client relationship wins go first, even if you're prouder of something else.

Language: Mirror the terminology in the job posting. If they say "cross-functional collaboration", use that phrase. If they say "pipeline management", don't say "deal management". Exact language matching matters for ATS and signals cultural fit to human readers.

Your work experience isn't a historical record, it's a tailored argument for why you're right for this specific job. The facts stay the same; the framing and ordering change.