How we make our CV templates
Our template library starts with a writing task: make the most relevant evidence easy to find. We use different section orders for established work experience, transferable skills, graduates, school leavers, career changes, academic applications and technical roles.
Guidance and original examples
The National Careers Service informs our core sections, readable formatting and contact-detail guidance. Prospects’ format guidance informs the differences between chronological, skills-based and academic CVs. Each template links to relevant guidance.
We write the CV and cover-letter examples and document layouts for this site. All sample identities and achievements are fictional. They are teaching examples, not biographies, employer endorsements or evidence of recruiting experience.
Document design
The downloads use one text column, conventional headings and real text. Contact details are in the document body. There are no photographs, skill bars, decorative text boxes or layout tables. The Word files are editable; the PDFs are reference versions of the examples.
We check document text, paragraph structure, reading order and rendered pages. The current render uses a browser DOCX renderer and Chromium PDF export. This does not establish identical pagination in every version of Microsoft Word, LibreOffice or Google Docs. Reopen your final file in the application you will use and check all pages after editing.
What the structure check can tell you
The optional tailoring worksheet lets you connect job requirements to your own evidence. The checker flags requirements without evidence notes and prompts you to review relevance; it does not assess or match the meaning of those notes. They are excluded from application exports.
The browser tool looks for missing name or email, empty or repeated section headings, common evidence sections, unchanged sample text, unfinished placeholders, some reversed year ranges and a mixture of numeric months and month names. These checks are prompts to review, not requirements every CV must meet.
It cannot verify your claims, understand the job advert, proofread every sentence, detect all date problems or test an employer’s software. The word count is a count, not a page guarantee. Academic CVs can legitimately be longer.
File type and screening systems
Follow the application’s requested file type. Screening software varies. Greenhouse supports several document types, while its parsing guidance describes problems with complex layouts and image-based documents. We do not assign an ATS score or guarantee a screening result.
Corrections and commercial links
Guidance and source pages were reviewed on 7 September 2026. Report a problem through Contact. There are currently no paid placements, affiliate links or sponsored template rankings on this site.