How to Write a Personal Statement in a CV? Writing a personal statement is the most important part of a CV. A personal statement is used by potential employers as a way to get to know you.
A personal statement in a CV shows off your unique skills, qualifications, and experience, as well as gives an insight into why you want to work with the employer’s organization. It offers a great opportunity to highlight why you are fit for the job.
A good personal statement will not only give you a leg up in the application process, but also make it easier for you to get hired by your potential employer.
Have you ever wondered how to write a personal statement in a CV? In this article, I’ll show you exactly what to write in a CV personal statement so you can stand out from the crowd.
I have also put together a set of ATS-friendly CV personal statements samples to give you an idea about the structure and format of a personal statement or executive summary.
What is a Personal Statement?
A personal statement is a brief summary of your background that demonstrates your professional skills, experience, abilities, and accomplishments. It appears at the top of your CV and creates the first impression you make on a recruiter or hiring manager.
The personal statement is also known as an Executive Profile, Resume Summary, Executive Summary or Professional Statement.
A killer personal statement in a CV or resume is a great way to create a wow factor and get your foot in the door for a job. It is also a great way to highlight your personal qualities and professional value in a way that can help you stand out from the crowd.
Purpose of Writing a Personal Statement in a CV or Resume.
The purpose of a personal statement is to showcase candidates’ accomplishments, qualifications, skills and entice employers to invite you to interview. A CV personal statement or executive profile shows your unique selling proposition and summarises the benefits of hiring you and encourages employers to read your CV in full.
A great way to make sure that your CV stands out is to ensure that you have included a personal statement on it.
Your CV personal statement is the thing that makes you unique from the rest of the applicants and explains why you’re a strong candidate for the position you’re applying for.
A convincing personal statement or executive summary help you to show the prospective employers;
Who you are?
What you’ve achieved?
What makes you different?
Why you are perfect for the job?
What you can offer them?
Relevant Article: What Should a Professional Resume Have to Trigger the Interview Call?
How Long Should a CV Personal Statement be?
An impactful and compelling personal statement should include enough details to briefly explain your core competencies, education and experience, but not so much that it’s boring.
Writing a personal statement for a CV or resume can be tricky. You can be too brief and lose your reader’s attention, or not be concise enough and end up sounding overly verbose.
The key to writing a good personal statement is to keep it under 150 words. This will make your personal statement much easier to read and will allow you to convey your main points and professional value concisely.
How to Write a Personal Statement in a CV? What should be included in a CV Personal Statement?
The personal statement or executive profile or career summary section is a chance for you to highlight what you are capable of. Make sure that your personal statement is brief and compelling because it will be the first thing a reader sees when they arrive at your CV.
Therefore, it should be engaging, attention-grabbing, and tailored to the particular role you are applying for. Think about what you want to communicate through your personal statement, and make it clear that you understand how your message can be taken in a positive or negative light.
Just have a look at the structure and format of the following personal statement example.
HR Manager CV Personal Statement Sample:
How to write a personal statement in a CV? It’s not tough to do this. Here are the 6 steps you need to follow while creating a compelling and effective personal statement or resume summary for your professional CV.
Understand What the Recruiter Wants:
Recruiters typically have a lot of applicants for a single job and don’t have enough time to look through each resume. They’re looking for specific qualities and skills in applicants and they want to see how the applicant fits in their current company and the industry they work in.
Therefore, you need to read the job description carefully and identify the most important requirements about education, professional skills and experience. List down the skimmed detail and include them all over in your CV personal statement.
Personal statements must be tailored to each job, so they explicitly state the value that you’ll bring to the position you are applying for.
Choose the Right Structure and Style:
First of all compile your relevant information about qualifications, career history, skills and achievements you want to include in your CV summary.
Choose the most suitable approach while writing a personal statement or profile, either in the first person or 3rd person. Both approaches are fine but I will recommend you to use 3rd person approach and remove the pronouns (He, She, I,….) because 1st person approach is a traditional way of writing.
(I am a finance professional seeking a management role…’ would become ‘A Finance professional seeking a management role…’)
Whatever approach you choose, be sure to make it consistent, and engaging and don’t switch between the first and third person as that can confuse the employer.
You can write an executive profile section in paragraph form or bullet points both ways are fine but keep the formatting, font type, font style and text alignment consistent with the rest of your CV.
State Who You Are:
Your professional resume or personal statement should begin with the first sentence that tells the prospective employer where you stand in your professional career. You need to introduce yourself. So, open your CV personal statement with a professional title. This might be your current position, qualification title or even the position title of the job you want to apply for.
“Senior Human Resources Manager with MBA background…………..!
Mention Your Experience:
Your next step is to give a brief description of your work experience. You should focus on the work you did at each company, as well as the roles that you held within them. Here your focus should be on the relevant experience for the role you want to apply for.
Write how many years of experience you have and also narrate the key areas in which you have working experience. Mentioning experience will show that you can add value and know how to deal with work.
“21 years of comprehensive experience in the entire gamut of human resources and administration…………!
Include Your Top Professional skills or Expertise:
If you want to be considered for a job interview, it is very important to include your top professional skills or core competencies in your resume summary or executive profile. You need to state your top 3 to 5 skills as strengths relevant to the requirements of the target position.
You can also include these skills as keywords to make your CV or resume friendly for an Applicant Tracking System (ATS). Further, don’t include any achievement that is irrelevant to the job you are applying for, no matter how big or small it is.
“Proficient in talent identification, hiring, organizational development, retention planning, and performance management………..!
Focus on Achievements and Value:
Make sure your CV has something for every recruiter to grab. Include your top achievements or accomplishments to demonstrate what you’re capable of and what you can bring to the table for the job.
When describing your achievements in your resume profile or CV summary, choose the ones that are directly related to the target position and quantify them. By doing so, you can easily demonstrate your value and establish yourself as the right candidate for the job.
“Successfully hired over 200 people throughout my career. Designed and implemented compensation policies to increase employee retention rate by 35%. Crafted training programs, arranged CPD courses, and maximized employee knowledge & productivity by 27%…………..!
Related Articles: How to Stand Out in a Competitive Job Market?
Mistakes Need to be Avoided While Writing a CV Personal Statement
The personal statement is a way to introduce yourself to an employer in the hopes that you will stand out among the many others who apply for that job opening. Because of this, it’s incredibly important that you craft a perfect personal statement for your Achievement-Based CV.
When writing a personal statement to accompany a CV, there are a few mistakes that need to be avoided if you want to get the job.
- Don’t include any information that is irrelevant to the job you are applying for. For example, you were a professional athlete 4 years ago and won medals, but it’s not relevant if you’re applying for a finance role.
- Avoid the excessive use of clichés, jargon, and buzzwords like; innovative, hard-working, out-of-the-box thinker, trustworthy, creative, etc. These types of words don’t provide any factual detail. You need to focus on value, achievements, skills, and experience to make your document an achievement-based resume.
- Don’t write too much detail. Be specific and engaging to make the personal statement or resume summary impactful and convincing.
- Avoid being too vague. When people look at your CV, they don’t know what to expect.
How Can You Make It Stand Out to Employers?
A well-written and thoughtfully composed personal statement is an integral part of your ATS-friendly CV. Why? Because it’s an effective marketing area to gain attention for your CV or resume and improve your chances of getting an interview.
- You should consider creating a specific personal statement for each position you apply to, whether it is a professional resume or CV.
- If you have a generic personal statement or executive summary, tailor your personal statement for each application as per the job requirements.
- Employers always love to see evidence of your performance. That’s why quantify your achievements or top wins.
- Proofread and spell-check your CV personal statement. Your personal profile sits at the top of your CV and any spelling or grammar mistakes will be quickly noticed.
- Don’t lie! Lying is being dishonest, and you’ll get caught eventually in the interview.
Examples of CV Personal Statement or Executive Profile
Here are some examples of how to write a CV personal statement. I hope these will help you in understanding how you can create a killer personal statement or resume summary for your CV.
Finance Manager CV Personal Statement Example:
“A Finance Manager with CPA certification having over 15 years of experience in Accounting, Finance and Internal Auditing. Expert in Financial Reporting, Financial Statements, Financial Analysis, Budgeting, and Planning.
Excelled in the developing accounting system, generating accurate & precise financial results, and managing KPIs reports. Raised funds from investors, devised accounting & operational SOPs, streamlined finance team to optimize the business operation and saved costs by $350k per year.
Developed a financial roadmap with a $200 million yearly budget, which resulted in a 13% business growth. Managed business deals with excellent business acumen and implemented finance strategies to attain organizational objectives.”
Project Management Director Executive profile Sample:
“Seasoned Project Management Director with 18 years of experience in managing Construction and Restaurants Development industry projects with multinational companies in the UK and the USA. Highly qualified and PMP® certified with practical exposure in devising and executing growth-oriented business strategies.
Executed $4 projects just in last 2 years, took strategic business initiatives to generate revenue growth by 17% and ROI. Raised high-impact teams to attain business objectives and implemented progress tracking & recourses management system to cut cost by 7%, reduce tracking time by 35%, and foster project value chain.”
Business Development Director Executive Summary Sample:
- C-Level Business Development Professional with over 27 years of exceptional experience in the Aviation, Information Technology, and Telecom Industry.
- 17 years of aviation experience with commercial Airlines, Private Jets & MRO facilities. Offered business acumen, built operation teams and implemented policies & strategies to achieve organizational objectives.
- Negotiated multi-billion dollars deals. Derived 11% business growth by identifying opportunities, winning projects, and building sustainable client relationships.
- Directed business transformations, performance management, and strategic planning with strong tactical leadership and collaborated with key industry stakeholders to increase a market share of 14%.
- Positioned business to thrive through a change in Covid crises, spearheaded high-value projects from inception to completion in the aviation industry.
Conclusion
The personal statement is the first impression you make on a recruiter or hiring manager. The Executive Summary, Resume Summary or Executive Profile is the perfect place to demonstrate the reasons why you want to work for a particular company, which experience and skills you bring to the table, and how you would benefit their team.
This section is actually a selling area of your winning CV or resume. It’s important that you tailor this section to suit the needs of a specific job posting. The length of your personal statement is limited by the amount of space available on the page. Make sure you don’t go over this limit. You could get rejected due to poor formatting and spelling mistakes.
In addition, you should make sure that your personal statement is unique, clear and concise. Don’t try to pack too much information into one sentence.
Follow the above-mentioned guidelines while writing a convincing personal statement for your achievement-based CV, by using them you will be able to create one which shows recruiters everything they need.
Laughing is not a sin, but admitting it while reading such information at least surprised me! :))