Which sections belong in every CV?
A complete Swiss CV has five core sections: contact details, a short profile, work experience, education and skills. In Switzerland an application photo belongs there too. Everything else is optional and should only go in if it strengthens your application.
Contact details go at the very top: name, address, phone number and a professional email address. Below them comes a short profile of two to three sentences that sums up your key strengths. Then work experience, which takes up the most space, followed by education and skills such as languages and IT. Our article on the tabular CV shows how to structure this cleanly.
Presenting your work experience
List your roles in reverse chronological order, the most recent first. For each position, give the dates, title, employer and location, and add two to four concrete tasks or achievements. Numbers land harder than adjectives.
Weak: Responsible for sales and looking after customers.
Strong: Managed 40 existing accounts, grew revenue by 18 percent in the first year.
