How to write a personal statement for a CV?

A personal statement comes in two main guises.

The first is a document that is used instead of a CV when applying for certain roles e.g., in the education sector.

The second is what some people call the first paragraph on a CV which could also be called a personal profile, professional summary or executive summary.

I don't like calling it a personal profile because it shouldn't be about your person. The phrase "personal profile" kind of leads you down the wrong track really. It should be more about your professional experience, which is why calling it a professional profile or professional summary makes more sense. So, how do you write an opening statement on a CV?

Where does your personal statement for a CV go?

Well, your CV profile is that paragraph at the top of your CV. It’s more or less the first meaningful text that someone reads after your name and contact details before the skills section, and it’s positioned in that valuable space at the top of your CV.

The personal statement is usually six to nine lines long and should provide a brief overview of your talents in a short paragraph. The relevance of this section will have a direct bearing on your job search success.

What's the purpose of your personal statement?

The purpose of your opening statement is to explain to the hiring managers and other readers of your CV, what you are and what you have to offer.

It should align with the job description and focus on relevant skills that a future employer is looking for. If you are at an early stage of your career, you may also mention your career goals in your CV personal profile.

You might mention your key technical skills, but unless you are junior e.g., a recent graduate, don’t mention academic achievements or soft skills such as analytical skills, communication skills, problem solving or being highly motivated – these are too basic and hard to evidence.

Focus on hard and functional skills that you have extensive experience of using. 

How long should your personal statement be?

I would suggest keeping that opening statement to no longer than nine lines. Eight lines is nice. Seven lines if you can get everything in. You don't want to make personal statements too long, but you also need to give yourself enough opportunity to say what you want to say.

Personal statements can mention transferable skills if you are looking for a career change or if you are a recent graduate, but everyone else should focus on their recent skill set that a hiring manager will be interested in. 

So, the formula that I would suggest is as follows.

1. Tell people what you are

Start by telling people what you are (professionally of course). This is the first thing that people need to know.

If they are looking for a Management Accountant, the only thing they care about right there and then is "are you a Management Accountant?". If they're looking for an "IT Project Manager" the only thing they care about when they open up that CV is "are you an "IT Project Manager?".

Same if you operate in the mechanical engineering field “are you a Mechanical Engineer”. When writing personal profiles, be specific and not overly ambiguous. What you call yourself doesn’t have to be your current position; more important is aligning it with the job title of the job you are applying for. 

Recruiters spend just seven seconds looking for relevance, so you need to get this bit right.

It's not that recruiters can read an entire CV in seven seconds; that would be impossible (they're not superhuman), but you need to get their attention.

It's a little bit like when you're looking at an advert in a newspaper or online. If the headline of the advert doesn't get your attention immediately, you won't read the rest of the advert, and it's the same with writing a CV to get the attention of a recruiter or potential employers.

So, you've got this short space of time to get a prospective employer to take an interest in your professional career, so you need a personal statement that hits them squarely between the eyes.

Obviously, a good place to start is to know what a recruiter or a hiring manager is looking for, as their first question will be "are you an appropriate and relevant candidate for the job?". So, to summarise, you must tell people what you are and that should tie in with the title of the job.

This is probably a good place to mention that you should avoid grammar mistakes in your personal summary at all costs. It should be written in implied first person (no pronouns) rather than third person format, and where possible, your CV should be written in active voice (apart from the key skills section).

2. Explain your value proposition

You then should go on to discuss and explain what your value proposition is.

What does value proposition mean?

That might sound a little bit fancy pants, but a value proposition is just the value that you're suggesting or proposing you can offer a future employer. It's your value proposition and is crucial to your own personal statement. Job seekers must demonstrate their professional worth through their personal statements and CV in general.

An example of value proposition

So, let's take one of my team as an example. So, I've got a team of 30 people over here and they write CVs for people. Their value proposition might be something along the lines of the following:

"Experienced Personal Branding Specialist and CV Writer, expert in developing leading edge personal branding collateral such as CVs and LinkedIn profiles that significantly improve job seeker’s ability to secure high paying jobs".

It's a "does what it says on the tin" statement. This is what they are and what they can offer. It’s the purpose of their professional existence. 

Obviously, this example would be very different if you were, for example, in the data engineering or automotive industry with a very different career and professional goals. Different job seekers will have a different focus with their personal statement value proposition, depending on their career objective.

An example of value proposition for senior roles

Let's imagine someone senior in the accountancy profession and their career path has led them to a Director level role. They might say they're an experienced Finance Director and they're an expert in embedding robust financial management and financial governance capability across organisations to protect cash flow and profit. That makes for a pretty compelling and obvious start to their CV personal statement.

3. Follow up with key strengths

Once you've done those two bits on your personal statement, you then follow that up with your key strengths. This would revolve around the four things that you're really good at.

For example, if you work in IT, you might be really good at leading development projects that deliver software solutions to save organisations time and money. 

These sentences focus on job-based skills rather than educational background and are a little bit more robust than just listing your skills. 

You may have noticed from the example that we write these in a features and benefits style where the benefit derived from the skill is mentioned.

So, this is a marketing technique where you don't just describe the feature of the thing you're selling. You describe the feature and then the benefit of it. It then resonates much better with your target audience.

Career change professionals would focus more on transferable skills in their CV personal statement, and in absence of already having the exact skill set required, may also mention relevant qualifications. In this case, whether it be for a full-time job of part time job, a solid cover letter is also worth its weight in gold.

An example of how to use the marketing technique in your personal statement

So, do this on your CV if you want to tell people what you're good at. 

You could say that you are good at "embedding performance management across organisations" and that's fine, but go on to explain how that might have some benefit.

For example: "Proficient at embedding performance management frameworks across organisations to drive superior productivity and service delivery capability"

You're not just saying what you're good at, you're saying how being good at that benefits the organisation that you are proposing to work for, and this makes for a more powerful statement that demonstrates the value in your professional career and talents.

Now, as mentioned earlier, you don't write that in the first person using "I" and "my". We actually write CVs in a style called implied first person, which is first person but with no pronouns.

So, there’s lots of top tips there but the key takeaway is to use features and benefits statements when you write a personal statement at the start of your CV.

Recap: How to write your personal statement

• Start by saying what you are and make sure that aligns with the job title.

• Describe your value proposition and talk about your four key strengths.

• Write them in a features and benefits style.

• When you put that together it should be a paragraph that is maybe eight lines long. It should really tie in with the key requirements of the position you are applying for.

FAQs about writing your personal statement

What is a CV personal statement?

A personal statement in general is a glorified cover letter for a job application but when referenced as a CV personal statement, it is the opening paragraph on a CV that gets the reader's attention and describes your professional worth.

What makes a bad personal statement?

There are lots of bad CV personal profile examples and they are usually ones that focus too much on generic and cliched personality traits such as working in a team and having excellent communication skills.

What should you avoid in a personal statement?

If you search online, there are lots of CV personal statement examples that include the wrong information. Soft skills, non-professional information, career objectives and interests are all frowned upon for different reasons.

How do you write a killer opening to your personal statement?

A high impact opening sentence would reference what you are and go on to describe your value to a future employer by describing the key / overarching thing that you are good at. Feel free to contact us for a good personal statement example.

What is an example of a generic personal statement?

A generic personal statement would be one that is ambiguous in how it positions the job seeker. For example, describing yourself as an IT professional is just too woolly and not specific enough. Following that with lots of generic and cliched soft skills would compound this and render the personal statement / personal profile ineffective.

Next, learn what action words are in a CV and find out how long your CV should be depending on your level of seniority and industry. Discover how our professional CV writers can help.