Personal Statement for CV

Your personal statement for your CV (Curriculum Vitae) is a shortcut to highlight your skills, experience, and career goals.

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By Jagoda Obszarska, Senior Content Editor, TranslatorLast Updated: December 14, 2023
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Your personal statement or CV personal profile is the first thing a recruiter reads when they look at your Curriculum vitae.

As it is your opening paragraph, it’s vital that the personal statement for your CV draws recruiters in and gains their interest. Many recruiters will only read your CV personal statement and decide if you sound like a suitable candidate before reading anything else.

This guide will provide you with:

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Personal statement for a CV: Tips

Many people freak out when thinking about their CV personal profile because it’s the bit where they have to “think” the most. We have good news - there’s a straightforward approach to writing a personal statement on your CV that ensures you include all the best bits of your career and make the right impression!

  • Stay concise

    The most important tip we can give you is not to go overboard. You want to keep your CV personal statement clear, fluff-free, and above all else, factual.

  • Use the third person

    Another CV writing tip: write in the third person and drop all pronouns (I, me, he, she, they, them). It’s acceptable to write in the first (I), but trust us, using the third person sounds more professional. All our personal statement CV examples will show you how to draft your statement in the third person.

  • Three simple sentences

    Personal statements and CVs use an abbreviated sentence structure, which allows you to fit more information into limited space. We recommend following this format:

    • Sentence 1 (Who you are): Opening statement including years of experience and career focus.
    • Sentence 2 (What you can achieve): Results you can, or have accomplished.
    • Sentence 3-4 (How you can achieve it): Your unique skill sets or areas of expertise.

  • Sound confident

    Proudly highlight your true capabilities - it's essential to present your achievements in your CV personal statement. This isn’t the time to downplay the importance of your experience and skills. Remember: this might be all the recruiter reads about you - make it interesting!

  • Mention numbers

    Whether you’re in a sales career or not, numbers help to show recruiters how much you're capable of in your CV’s personal profile. How many people you’ve managed. How many facilities you’ve run. How many awards you’ve won. Quantifying your experience with numbers is only ever a positive - do it wherever you can.

  • Use adjectives

    All good personal statement examples are descriptive. Give your CV personal profile the energy it deserves by using adjectives to describe yourself and your abilities. A dull statement that reads like a list won’t turn heads.

  • Be clear and concise

    As with our CV profile examples, the ideal length for a personal statement is 50 to 200 words maximum. Note how this accountant’s statement concisely details their fundamental skills, relevant work experience, and future aspirations in a short paragraph:

    “Dependable accounting professional acknowledged for reliability, integrity, and quick-learning ability. Highly skilled with an eye for identifying and correcting errors. Brings enthusiasm for solving client’s challenges and providing first-class financial services.”

  • Use short, punchy sentences.

    Keep a neutral tone, taking care not to write in the first person. You can see how it’s done in this excerpt from one of our personal statement CV examples:

    “An ambitious and talented professional with a proven academic background in science and valuable experience in teaching and lecturing. Possess first-class academic written skills and is also an effective verbal communicator.”

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Personal statement for a CV: Common mistakes to avoid

  • Exceeding 4 sentences

    Though it can be tempting, keep the personal statement on your CV to a maximum of 3-4 sentences, depending on sentence length. You want to grab the hiring manager’s attention - but not bore them!

  • Telling the recruiter what you're looking for

    It can be very tempting to write sentences like “seeking a new role in a fast-paced environment where I can thrive.” Why not? Because that’s what a cover letter is for, and also it’s just a waste of space where you could be talking about your capabilities and achievements.

  • Including jokes

    While you want to inject some personality into your CV personal statement, humour and jokes will undermine your professionalism, and may even offend.

  • Forgetting to use the spell-checker

    There’s nothing more off-putting for a recruiter than reading personal statements for CVs that are littered with spelling and grammar mistakes. Take a moment to check over what you’ve written before hitting the ‘save’ button.

  • Copying someone else’s personal statement

    If you’re stuck on what to write or are short on time, it may be tempting to copy a friend’s or a colleague’s personal statement, or follow personal statement CV examples a bit too closely. Don’t do it — a recruiter may notice that what's written in your personal statement doesn’t reflect what’s in your CV. This could lead them to reject your application.

  • Making it difficult to find

    As with our CV examples, a personal profile should sit at the top of the CV between your contact details and work experience.

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Frequently Asked Questions about Personal statement for CV

What is a personal statement?

In simple terms, it’s a short paragraph of 3-4 sentences which introduces your experience, key skills, area of expertise, and results you can accomplish or have accomplished in your career to date.

What to include in my personal statement?

When you write your CV, use the personal statement to give the reader an introduction to your professional profile and your background. You can mention years of experience, exceptional achievements, plans or aspirations. The personal statement gives the hiring manager an insight into who you are as a candidate. For example, in addition to listing 'data analytics' in the skills section, you could describe yourself as 'data-driven' in the personal statement of your CV.

How to start my personal statement?

The first sentence of your CV’s personal statement establishes the years of experience you have and your career focus. It starts to build the foundation of who you're as an individual in the workplace.

Let’s look at some supporting statement examples for the first sentence:

  • Nurse “Energetic registered nurse with 10 years of experience caring for the elderly in care home environments.”
  • Electrician “Licenced electrician with over 15 years of hands-on experience leading large-scale, commercial electrical projects.”
  • Entry-level candidate “Confident and enthusiastic worker with assured customer service skills and a deep passion for the transport industry.”

What to include in the middle sentence of a personal statement?

The middle sentence of your personal statement will paint a picture of the things you’ve achieved in the past or are performing currently. Giving recruiters this information offers them a window into your capabilities.

Here are some CV personal statement examples demonstrating that:

  • Nurse “Maintained medical needs for 20 residents, leading in times of high-stress, administering high-level medical care to all individuals.”
  • Electrician “Responsible for Hightrees development which was given an industry award for low energy consumption.”
  • Entry-level “Exceptional communication and PR skills honed while editor on engineering faculty newspaper during university.”

How to end a personal statement?

The closing sentence of your statement is all about your unique skill set, including hard (learnt) and soft (personality-based) skills, as with these examples of personal statements for CVs:

  • Nurse “Cool and calm at all times, ready to handle medical emergencies.”
  • Electrician “Offering both practical and strategic project management skills.”
  • Entry-level “Hard-working and diligent with outstanding attention to detail.”

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Create the perfect CV personal profile and get seen!

The key to a robust personal statement for a CV is to include as much information as clearly and as briefly as you can. With a perfect CV profile in place, you can be sure recruiters will want to keep reading your application.

Hopefully, our tips and CV personal profile examples have given you a better idea for your own CV’s personal statement. The next step? Head on over to our CV builder and choose a CV template to start building your detail-packed personal statement and get your CV placed on a recruiter’s ‘interested’ pile. Good luck!

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