Choose from a wide range of NEWCV resume templates and customize your NEWCV design with a single click.
Use ATS-optimised Resume and resume templates that pass applicant tracking systems. Our Resume builder helps recruiters read, scan, and shortlist your Resume faster.
Use professional field-tested resume templates that follow the exact Resume rules employers look for.
Create Resume
Use professional field-tested resume templates that follow the exact Resume rules employers look for.
Create ResumeA strong Civil Service CV is not a general career history. It is a targeted evidence document. Your job is to show, clearly and quickly, that you meet the essential criteria in the advert and can operate at the required grade. That means your CV should not simply list duties. It should prove relevant experience, measurable impact, judgement, stakeholder work, delivery, policy awareness, operational understanding, technical capability or leadership, depending on the role.
The biggest mistake I see candidates make is treating a Civil Service CV like a private sector CV with a few government words sprinkled in. That rarely works. Civil Service applications are more structured. The recruiter or sift panel is usually looking for evidence against the advert, not trying to admire your career journey from a distance. Lovely formatting will not rescue vague evidence. Clear relevance will.
A Civil Service CV is judged against the vacancy requirements, not against your personality, potential or general impressiveness. That sounds obvious, but it is where many candidates quietly sabotage themselves.
In private sector hiring, a recruiter may scan your CV and think, “This person looks commercially strong, let’s speak to them.” In Civil Service hiring, especially for advertised roles with structured selection, the question is more specific: “Has this candidate shown enough evidence against what we said we are assessing?”
That changes how your CV needs to work.
A normal CV often focuses on:
Career progression
Job titles
Responsibilities
Skills
Achievements
Education
Professional background
A Civil Service CV still includes those things, but the emphasis is different. It needs to show:
How your experience matches the essential criteria
Evidence that you can perform at the advertised grade
The scale and complexity of your work
Your impact, not just your task list
Relevant technical, operational, policy, analytical or leadership experience
Clear examples that support the application, personal statement or behaviours
This is why a generic CV often underperforms, even when the candidate is genuinely capable. The panel is not there to decode your entire career. They are looking for evidence that fits the role. If you make them hunt for it, you are already losing points.
A blunt recruiter truth: candidates often think they have “mentioned” something, but panels need more than a mention. They need enough detail to believe it.
Most candidates read the Civil Service job advert to decide whether they want the job. That is normal. But once you decide to apply, you need to read it like the person scoring you.
The advert usually tells you what matters. Not always perfectly, because some adverts are written like they escaped from a committee meeting, but the evidence is there if you look properly.
Pay attention to:
The essential criteria
The person specification
The responsibilities
The grade
The Success Profile elements being assessed
Any required technical skills
Any profession specific framework
The wording used repeatedly
The difference between essential and desirable criteria
The essential criteria are not decorative. They are the heart of the sift. If the advert asks for experience managing competing priorities, do not simply write “excellent organisational skills”. That is a claim, not evidence. Show the situation, the scale, the pressure and the result.
For example:
Weak Example:
Managed multiple priorities in a busy team and worked well under pressure.
Good Example:
Managed a portfolio of 35 active cases across three workstreams, prioritising urgent ministerial requests, statutory deadlines and stakeholder queries. Introduced a weekly tracker that reduced missed internal deadlines and improved visibility for senior managers.
The good version works because it gives the reader something to score. It shows volume, complexity, prioritisation, stakeholder context and impact. The weak version is the sort of sentence everyone writes when they are trying to sound employable. It is technically positive, but practically useless.
When I review Civil Service CVs, I am not asking, “Does this person sound nice?” I am asking, “Can I see the evidence quickly enough to justify moving them forward?”
A Civil Service CV should be clear, focused and easy to score. Do not overdesign it. This is not the place for columns, graphics, icons, profile photos or creative layouts. The safer and stronger choice is a clean, ATS friendly document with obvious headings and direct evidence.
A strong structure is:
Name and contact details
Professional profile
Key skills or relevant expertise
Employment history
Selected achievements under each role
Education and qualifications
Professional training or technical certifications
Additional relevant information
The order can change depending on your background. If you are an experienced candidate, your employment history should usually come before education. If you are early career, education and relevant placements may carry more weight.
The key is not the structure itself. The key is whether the structure helps the panel find evidence quickly.
Keep this simple. Include your name, phone number, email address and location if relevant. You do not need your full address, date of birth, marital status, photo or national insurance number.
This section should not take up half the page. I have seen CVs where the header looks like a wedding invitation and the useful evidence starts halfway down page one. Nobody is shortlisting you because your name is in 28 point font. Calm it down.
Your profile should be short, specific and relevant to the Civil Service role. Avoid empty phrases like “hard working team player with excellent communication skills”. They add almost nothing because every candidate says them.
A good profile tells the reader:
What kind of professional you are
Your relevant area of experience
The type of work you have handled
The value you bring to this role
Weak Example:
Motivated and enthusiastic professional with excellent communication skills and a passion for public service.
Good Example:
Policy and operations professional with experience supporting high volume public service delivery, stakeholder engagement and evidence based decision making. Skilled in briefing senior leaders, managing competing deadlines and improving processes in regulated environments.
The good version is still concise, but it gives the reader substance. It shows policy, operations, delivery, stakeholder work, evidence and process improvement. That is far more useful than telling people you are motivated. Motivation is nice. Evidence gets scored.
This section can help if it is targeted. It should not be a dumping ground for every skill you have ever touched.
Use skills that match the advert, such as:
Policy development
Operational delivery
Stakeholder management
Casework
Data analysis
Project coordination
Governance
Risk management
Public consultation
Briefing and submissions
Do not list skills you cannot prove later in the CV. One of the fastest ways to weaken trust is to claim strategic stakeholder engagement and then show no stakeholder evidence in your employment history. The panel notices that gap.
This is where most of the scoring value sits. For each role, include:
Job title
Employer
Location if relevant
Dates
Short role context
Evidence based achievement bullets
Your bullets should not read like a job description. They should show what you did, how you did it and what changed because of your work.
A weak bullet says:
A stronger bullet says:
The second version gives context. It shows who, what and why. It also sounds like real work, not a copied job description.
The essential criteria are your map. If your CV does not clearly answer them, you are relying on hope, and hope is not a recruitment strategy. Tempting, but unreliable.
Start by copying the essential criteria into a separate document. Under each one, write down your strongest evidence. Then decide where that evidence belongs in your CV.
For each criterion, ask:
Have I shown this clearly?
Have I used evidence, not just claims?
Is the example recent enough or strong enough?
Does it match the level of the role?
Have I shown the outcome or impact?
Would someone outside my current organisation understand it?
That last question matters. Civil Service panels may not understand your internal acronyms, team names, systems or commercial shorthand. Your CV needs to translate your experience into language that travels.
For example, if you work in a private sector operations role, do not assume the panel will understand your internal metrics. Explain the relevance.
Weak Example:
Improved SLA performance across BAU workstream.
Good Example:
Improved service level performance for a high volume customer operations team by redesigning the task allocation process, reducing overdue cases and giving managers clearer daily performance data.
The good version removes unexplained shorthand and shows the practical value. It also makes the experience easier to compare against Civil Service delivery roles.
Civil Service applications are not only about whether you have done the work. They are also about whether you have done it at the right level.
A common mistake is applying for a higher grade with evidence that is too junior. The candidate may be capable, but the CV does not prove enough scope, judgement or ownership.
Grade level is usually shown through:
Complexity of work
Level of autonomy
Stakeholder seniority
Decision making responsibility
Leadership scope
Risk managed
Scale of impact
Policy, operational or financial consequences
Ability to influence beyond your immediate team
For example, if you are applying for an HEO role, a CV that only shows task completion may not be enough. You need to show judgement, prioritisation, ownership and contribution to improvements. For SEO roles, the panel may expect stronger evidence of leading workstreams, advising others, managing risk, analysing options or influencing stakeholders. For Grade 7 roles, evidence usually needs to show strategic thinking, leadership, ambiguity, decision making and broader organisational impact.
This is where candidates often misunderstand “transferable skills”. Transferable does not mean vague. It means clearly connected.
If you are moving from the private sector into the Civil Service, your job is to translate your experience into Civil Service relevant evidence. Do not just say you have leadership experience. Show the size of the team, the nature of the challenge, the decisions you made and the outcomes.
Your Civil Service CV should include the information that helps the panel understand your fit for the role. Anything else is secondary.
Include:
Relevant employment history
Evidence against essential criteria
Specific achievements with outcomes
Technical skills required by the advert
Qualifications where required or useful
Training linked to the role
Voluntary work if relevant
Public service, regulatory, policy, operational or stakeholder experience
Management or leadership evidence where relevant
Data, digital, finance or project evidence where relevant
You do not need to include every job you have ever had in equal detail. Older or less relevant roles can be shorter. The most relevant roles deserve more space.
For each role, give enough context so the reader understands the environment. “Managed projects” means very little on its own. A project could be organising a team rota or leading a national transformation programme. Both are projects. They are not the same evidence.
Better context includes:
Size of team
Budget or caseload
Type of stakeholders
Risk level
Volume of work
Policy area or service area
Systems or tools used
Delivery timescales
Regulatory or governance environment
This is not about making yourself sound grander than you are. It is about helping the panel judge the level of your experience accurately.
A Civil Service CV should be focused. More information is not always more persuasive. Sometimes it just creates more noise for the person trying to score you.
Avoid:
Long personal statements inside the CV
Generic soft skills without evidence
Photos, graphics or decorative design
Unexplained acronyms
Internal company language
Irrelevant hobbies
Outdated school details if you are experienced
Every task from every job
Claims you cannot support
Dense paragraphs that bury key evidence
Copying the job advert word for word
Copying the advert is a particularly lazy trap. Candidates sometimes think if the advert says “stakeholder engagement”, their CV should repeat “stakeholder engagement” as often as possible. Search engines may tolerate keyword repetition. Sift panels are less impressed.
Use the language of the advert naturally, but back it up with real examples.
There is also no need to write dramatic statements about being passionate about public service unless you can connect that motivation to useful evidence. I know that sounds harsh, but panels are not shortlisting passion. They are shortlisting suitability.
Strong bullet points do three things. They show the action, the context and the result. If one of those is missing, the bullet may still be readable, but it is usually weaker.
A useful structure is:
Action taken
Context or challenge
Skill demonstrated
Outcome or impact
You do not need to force every bullet into the same formula, but you should make sure each one carries evidence.
Weak Example:
Worked with stakeholders to improve processes.
Good Example:
Worked with policy, operations and digital colleagues to redesign a manual reporting process, reducing duplication and giving senior leaders clearer weekly performance insight.
Weak Example:
Handled customer complaints.
Good Example:
Managed complex customer complaints involving sensitive information, policy interpretation and tight response deadlines, ensuring accurate case records and consistent escalation of risk issues.
Weak Example:
Led a team.
Good Example:
Led a team of eight advisers through a period of increased demand, reallocating workloads, coaching new starters and maintaining service standards during a 30 percent rise in case volume.
The good examples are not longer for the sake of it. They are more useful because they answer the questions a recruiter or panel is already asking.
Those questions are usually:
What did you actually do?
How complex was it?
Who did it affect?
What skill does this prove?
What was the result?
Can I score this against the advert?
If your CV bullet does not answer at least some of those questions, improve it.
Your profile should be adapted to the role. Here are examples of the kind of positioning that works better than generic career language.
Example for an Operational Delivery Role:
Operational delivery professional with experience managing high volume casework, customer queries and service improvement in deadline driven environments. Skilled in prioritising workloads, resolving complex issues, supporting team performance and using data to improve service outcomes.
Example for a Policy Role:
Policy professional with experience developing evidence based recommendations, coordinating stakeholder input and preparing briefings for senior audiences. Comfortable analysing complex information, balancing competing priorities and translating policy objectives into practical delivery considerations.
Example for a Project Support Role:
Project support professional with experience coordinating workstreams, tracking risks and actions, preparing governance documents and supporting delivery teams across changing priorities. Strong background in stakeholder communication, reporting and process improvement.
Example for a Data or Analysis Role:
Analytical professional with experience using data to identify trends, improve reporting and support evidence based decisions. Skilled in data quality checks, dashboard preparation, stakeholder engagement and explaining findings clearly to non technical audiences.
Notice what these examples do not do. They do not say “I am a hard worker”. They do not say “I can work independently and as part of a team”. They do not waste space on personality claims. They position the candidate around evidence the Civil Service can actually use.
Below is a focused example of how a role can be written for a Civil Service CV. This is not a full CV template, because the right content depends heavily on the advert. But the style is what matters: clear context, relevant evidence and outcome focused bullets.
Employment History
Senior Operations Coordinator, Public Services Provider, Manchester
March 2021 to Present
Managed operational delivery for a high volume public facing service, supporting case progression, stakeholder communication, reporting and process improvement across a regulated environment.
Coordinated a caseload of more than 250 active service requests, prioritising urgent cases, statutory deadlines and complex escalations while maintaining accurate records
Worked with internal teams, local authority contacts and external partners to resolve service issues and improve the quality of weekly performance updates
Introduced a case tracking spreadsheet that improved visibility of overdue actions and helped managers identify recurring bottlenecks
Prepared briefing notes for senior managers on service pressures, complaint themes and operational risks, supporting better resource planning
Coached four new team members on case handling standards, escalation routes and customer communication expectations
Supported a service improvement review by analysing complaint data, identifying common failure points and recommending changes to internal guidance
This works because it gives the panel several scoring routes. It shows delivery, prioritisation, stakeholder management, data, briefing, coaching, improvement and operational judgement. It also avoids the classic mistake of saying “responsible for” six times and expecting the reader to be thrilled.
Civil Service recruitment uses Success Profiles, which means different roles may assess different elements. Your CV will not always be assessed in isolation. It may sit alongside a personal statement, behaviours, technical questions, online tests or an interview.
That matters because your CV should support the whole application, not repeat it lazily.
The main Success Profile elements are:
Experience
Behaviours
Strengths
Ability
Technical
Your CV is usually strongest for showing experience and technical suitability. It can also support behaviours by showing patterns of how you work, but behaviour examples often require more structured detail elsewhere in the application.
For example, if a role assesses “Communicating and Influencing”, your CV can show stakeholder briefings, negotiation, consultation, presentations or cross team collaboration. But if the application asks for a behaviour example, you may still need a separate STAR style answer with more detail.
Do not confuse the CV with the personal statement. The CV summarises evidence. The personal statement usually argues fit against the job requirements in a more direct way. They should complement each other.
A good application feels consistent. The CV shows the experience. The personal statement explains why that experience matches the role. The behaviours prove how you operate. The interview tests whether the evidence holds up when questioned.
That is the real process. Not mysterious. Just structured, evidence led and occasionally more clunky than anyone wants to admit.
Good candidates fail Civil Service sifts all the time. Not because they lack ability, but because the evidence is not obvious enough.
The most common mistakes are:
Writing a generic CV and hoping relevance is implied
Listing responsibilities without outcomes
Ignoring the essential criteria
Using private sector language without translating it
Applying for a higher grade without grade level evidence
Making the CV too dense to score quickly
Overusing soft skills
Including irrelevant career history in too much detail
Forgetting technical requirements
Assuming the panel understands the candidate’s current organisation
Treating the personal statement and CV as separate unrelated documents
The hidden mistake is often this: candidates write from memory instead of writing from the advert.
They sit down and think, “What have I done?” That creates a career history. The better question is, “What does this role need me to prove?” That creates a targeted Civil Service CV.
There is a big difference.
Another issue is modesty. Some candidates understate their impact because they do not want to sound arrogant. I understand the instinct, especially in the UK where sounding too pleased with yourself can feel like a social offence. But a CV is not the place to be cryptic. You can be factual without being boastful.
Instead of saying:
Weak Example:
Helped improve reporting.
Say:
Good Example:
Redesigned the weekly reporting template to give managers clearer visibility of demand, overdue cases and resource pressures.
That is not bragging. That is evidence.
For most Civil Service applications, aim for a focused CV of around two pages unless the application system specifies a different limit. Some online forms have strict word or character limits, so always follow the instructions in the advert.
Length is less important than relevance. A two page CV full of vague duties is too long. A three page CV with tightly matched, senior level evidence may be justified for some technical, specialist or leadership roles. But do not mistake volume for strength.
A panel would rather read clear, relevant evidence than wade through every responsibility you have had since 2009.
Use more space for:
Recent relevant roles
Evidence matching the essential criteria
Technical or specialist experience
Leadership or delivery achievements
Work that shows the right grade level
Use less space for:
Older roles
Irrelevant jobs
Repeated duties
Basic responsibilities
Training that does not support the role
If you are struggling to cut your CV, ask yourself: “Would this help someone score me for this specific job?” If the honest answer is no, remove it or reduce it.
Before submitting your CV, check it against the role like a recruiter would.
Ask yourself:
Have I clearly addressed the essential criteria?
Is my strongest evidence easy to find?
Have I shown outcomes, not just duties?
Does my CV reflect the grade I am applying for?
Have I removed vague claims and replaced them with proof?
Have I explained acronyms and internal language?
Is my profile specific to this type of role?
Do my skills match the advert naturally?
Have I included technical requirements where needed?
Does my CV support my personal statement and behaviours?
Would someone outside my organisation understand my impact?
Is the formatting clean and ATS friendly?
The best Civil Service CVs do not make the panel work hard. They make relevance obvious.
That does not mean dumbing down your experience. It means presenting it with discipline. Civil Service recruitment can be structured, imperfect and sometimes painfully literal. Your CV needs to meet that reality rather than the version of hiring we all wish existed, where everyone has unlimited time and psychic powers.
A strong Civil Service CV is not about sounding impressive in a general way. It is about proving suitability for a specific role, at a specific grade, against specific criteria.
The candidates who do well usually understand the real game. They do not write everything they have ever done. They select the evidence that matters. They translate their experience into the language of the advert. They show scale, impact and judgement. They make the panel’s decision easier.
That is what your CV needs to do.
Do not rely on generic statements. Do not hide your best evidence in dense paragraphs. Do not assume the recruiter will connect the dots. Give them the dots, the line and the reason it matters.
Civil Service applications reward clarity. If your experience is strong, your CV should make that strength impossible to miss.
Written by Simar Malhi, a recruiter and headhunter with international recruitment experience. I write about CVs, job applications, hiring decisions, and the reality behind recruitment processes. My goal is to help candidates understand more honestly how employers, recruiters, and hiring managers actually select candidates.
Budget monitoring
People management
Service improvement
Regulatory compliance
Digital transformation
Procurement support
Customer service in complex environments
Upload Resume
Import from Linkedin