Fire protection engineer CV example

How to write a CV for a fire protection engineer

Now you’ve picked an attention-grabbing format, let’s run through how to write a CV for a fire protection offer. The following sections explain what information to include and how to present it for maximum impact. Plus, we’ll answer some of your most common CV writing questions towards the end. Read on for expert guidance covering:

• Adding contact details to your fire protection engineer CV
• Start your fire protection engineer CV with a personal statement
• How to present your work history on a fire protection engineer CV
• Top skills for your fire protection engineer CV
• Outlining education on a fire protection engineer CV

Adding contact details to your fire protection engineer CV

Adding your most up-to-date contact information at the top of your CV is so obvious it’s easy to forget. However, it’s the only way hiring managers can contact you about the next steps. Place your details somewhere near the header and make them visible in a slightly larger or bolder font. Remember to note:

• Full name – first name and surname
• Location – including county and postcode
• Phone number – the best one to reach you on
• Email address – keep it professional

Example of contact section for a fire protection engineer CV

Start your fire protection engineer CV with a personal statement

Your personal statement is often the first time an employer “meets” you. It introduces who you are and summarises your most desirable qualities and achievements. While it might be tempting to include all your top talents, you only have three to four sentences to get the main points across. Need a little help? Use our trusty formula below.

Sentence one is an icebreaker, opening with your years of experience and career focus. Sentence two is the meat of your statement. Here, explain what you can achieve, backed up with a showstopping statistic. Finally, sentences three and four underline your unique skills and areas of expertise. Perhaps, you have experience in social housing or an exhaustive understanding of home insurance policies.

As for the statistic, this is a concrete fact or figure that lends weight to your claims. You might have trained a large team of employees, won several awards, or saved the organisation money. Whatever the accomplishment, be as specific as possible to convince the employer you’re the right person for the job!

What else can make or break a statement? You should:

• Write in the third person to sound more professional
• Stick to the word count – between 50 and 100 is ideal
• Keep the tone formal, polite, and friendly
• Sprinkle in a few keywords – you can find these hard and soft skills in the job advertisement
• Only discuss what you can offer the company – save career ambitions for the cover letter or interview

Example of personal statement for a fire protection engineer CV

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How to present your work history on a fire protection engineer CV

Employers love the work history section because it opens the door to your professional life. They can quickly establish your core strengths and achievements – not to mention how long you typically stay with an organisation. Our top advice? What you don’t say is equally important as what you do. The reader will jump on any gaps in your knowledge and wheedle out weaknesses in the interview stage.

When writing about work experience, start from your current or most recent role and note up to six responsibilities for each. We advise adding more detail for relevant positions that reflect the job advertisement. Here’s what to include:

• Job title
• Employment start and end dates
• Company name
• Company location
• List of duties
• Workplace achievements

Above all else, keep relying on evidence and numbers to substantiate your expertise. The strongest applicants don’t simply tell the employer what they’re good at – they show them with tangible results. Let’s say you “made recommendations for fire-safe materials”. Can you expand on this? You might have “suggested a brand-new fire-proof cladding that reduced accidents by 34%” or “changed supplier, saving the company £300,000 on the same high-quality materials”.

Figures aren’t the only way to wow the employer. Show them the scope of your capabilities by covering as many different duties as possible. For example, if you’ve mentioned “mentoring junior team members” underneath one position, talk about “visiting building sites” in another. On top of this, there’s no need to mention obvious duties like “replying to emails”. Everyone should be able to do this, so it’s not adding to your application.

Lastly, use plenty of positive adjectives and action verbs to engage the reader. You might be “organised”, “reliable”, and “thorough”. Action verbs are powerful alternatives to “responsible for”. Some of our favourites for fire protection engineers include “proposed”, “supervised”, and “consulted”.

Example of work experience for a fire protection engineer CV

Top skills for your fire protection engineer CV

If key decision-makers are busy, they might skip straight to your CV skills. This section curates your best practical and personality-based qualities, presenting them in a digestible and easy-to-scan format. Additionally, ATS software relies on this collection of keywords and phrases. As a rule, you should use the skills in the job advertisement to form your answers.

Add around 12 skills in total, split equally between hard and soft skills. The former are technical and learnt on the job or via education, such as “servicing fire protection equipment”, “completing basic repairs”, and “writing detailed health and safety reports”. The latter are character-based and much harder to learn, therefore priceless to employers. Examples include “analytical reasoning”, “risk assessing”, and “collaboration”.

It’s crucial to balance both. The most qualified and experienced candidates in the world don’t get very far without a positive attitude to match. Similarly, friendliness doesn’t compensate for poor practical knowledge. Alongside re-reading the job spec, you could always ask former colleagues and employers to help pinpoint your strengths.

Need more ideas? Check out the following lists:

Outlining education on a fire protection engineer CV

Education provides the building blocks for experience, and your application will be more attractive if supported by watertight qualifications. You can talk about school, college, and university courses, professional training, and memberships to governing bodies. Basically, anything that proves you have the brains to succeed!

There are a few things to keep in mind. Don’t highlight bad grades or incomplete courses because they don’t come across particularly well. Also, you only have limited space to play with, so there’s no need to outline older, less relevant qualifications in minute detail. For instance, you can omit GCSEs if you’ve completed an undergraduate or postgraduate course.

How do you become a fire protection engineer? There are several routes to choose from, the most popular being university or college. University candidates can complete a foundation degree in Engineering followed by an undergraduate or postgraduate specialism in Fire Safety Engineering. Popular college courses include the Level 4 HNC in Engineering and Level 5 HND in Engineering. Alternatively, you might prefer a more hands-on Fire Safety Engineer Degree Apprenticeship.

When listing your education, run through:

• Name of school, college, university, or other awarding body
• Study start and end dates
• Subject title
• Qualification level – e.g. A level or undergraduate degree
• Qualification result

Example of education for a fire protection engineer CV