Guide
How to write a CV that gets shortlisted
ONFIVEE Team · 20 Sep 2026 · 2 min read
Most CVs are rejected in under a minute. Not because the person is unqualified, but because the reader cannot find the proof quickly.
What to put at the top
- Your name, phone number, email and city. Nothing else.
- One sentence saying what you do and what you are looking for.
- Do not add a photo, your religion, your marital status or your national ID number.
The structure that works
- Contact details
- Professional summary — three lines, rewritten for each application
- Experience, most recent first
- Education
- Skills and certificates
- Referees, or "available on request"
Write results, not duties
A duty says what you were supposed to do. A result says what changed because you were there. Compare these two lines:
- Responsible for social media accounts
- Grew the company's Instagram from 400 to 6,200 followers in eight months, which brought in 31 enquiries a month
The second one is the same job. It just tells the reader something.
Use the words in the advert. Many employers search their applications for keywords. If the post says "reconciliation" and your CV says "balancing accounts", a keyword search will skip you. Mirror their language where it is honestly true of you.
Length
- Student or fresh graduate: one page.
- Two to eight years of experience: two pages.
- More than that: two pages still. Older roles get one line each.
Before you send it
- Save it as PDF, named Firstname-Lastname-CV.pdf.
- Read it out loud once. You will hear the mistakes you cannot see.
- Ask one person who does not know your work to read it and tell you what job you are applying for. If they cannot say, the summary needs rewriting.
Your ONFIVEE profile CV is the file employers open first, so keep the uploaded version the same one you would hand over in person.