CV Format Guide for 2024 [With 10+ Examples]

In this CV format guide we'll show you exactly how to choose which CV format is best for you. We've also included lots of CV examples to get inspired from.

1/2/2024 9 min reading time Karin Lykke Nielsen Karin Lykke Nielsen

If you are looking for an academic position in the US, or you’re job searching in Europe, chances are that you will need a CV.

A CV is a document in which you list all of your professional and educational history. It’s short for the Latin phrase curriculum vitae - course of life. Like a resume its sole purpose is to provide potential employers with a detailed overview of just that - your course of life. At least in regards to your professional and academic achievements.

Formatting your CV correctly is important to make sure your information will stand out in a clear and concise manner. In this article we will focus on the top three CV formats; reverse-chronological, functional and combination.

The headlines will be:

What to include on a CV
The three top CV formats [with examples]
How to choose your CV format
CV formatting tips and tricks

What to include on a CV

Before we look into the different CV formats let’s get the basics covered. In the US there is a big difference between a CV and a resume while in Europe a resume and a CV is basically the same.

Differences between an academic CV and a European version of a resume

Your academic CV should contain the following sections:

Contact information: Include your full name, address, phone number and email address.
Academic history: List all of your educational and academic degrees from high school through postdoctoral (phd). Include the name of your title, your graduation year and the name of the school.
Professional experience: Include the name of the organizations where you’ve worked, your job titles, the dates you were employed and a summary of your most relevant experiences and achievements.
Qualifications and skills: List a combination of hard and soft skills you’ve developed throughout your career.
Awards and honors: For each award, add the name, year received, the organization that gave you the award and any pertinent details (such as how often it’s presented).
Publications: If you have any publications, provide a full citation including any co-authors, date, summary, volume, page, DOI number.
Presentations: If you have made any relevant presentations, provide the title, date and venue where you presented.
Professional associations: List the organization’s name, location or chapter and the dates of active membership.
Grants and scholarships: Provide the name of the grant or scholarship, date awarded and the institution that provided the award.
Licenses and certifications: Include the name of the license or certificate, the date you earned it and the institution that awarded it.

If you are not writing an academic CV but instead the European version of a resume, here’s what you should include:

Contact information: Include your full name, address, phone number, email address and perhaps a link to your LinkedIn profile or personal website.
Profile: A short summary of your professional life and achievements
Professional experience: Include the name of the organizations where you’ve worked, your job titles, the dates you were employed and a summary of your most relevant experiences and achievements.
Qualifications and skills: List a combination of hard and soft skills you’ve developed throughout your career.
Education: List all of your educational and academic degrees from high school through college. Include the name of your title, your graduation year and the name of the school.
Licenses and certifications: Include the name of the license or certificate, the date you earned it and the institution that awarded it.
Languages: List the languages you speak well enough to use professionally
Awards and honors: For each award, add the name, year received, the organization that gave you the award and any pertinent details (such as how often it’s presented).

Now that you know more about what to include on your CV it’s time to get a handle of the CV format.

The top three CV formats

The right CV format can make it or break it in your job search. It will open doors to hiring managers’ offices. It will land you a job. Learn about the different types of CV formats in our guide and get inspired from our CV examples.

No CV format is better than the next, per se. But some will work better than others. It depends on your situation.

The top three CV formats are

The reverse-chronological CV format
The functional CV format (also known as the skill based CV format)
The combination (hybrid) CV format

I’ll explain each CV format in detail below with pros and cons plus there will be CV examples that you can get inspiration from.

1. The reverse-chronological CV format

The reverse-chronological CV format is by far the queen of CV formats. It’s the most widely used and the one that recruiters and hiring managers are most familiar with. In this format you focus on your work experience, with the most recent (or your present) jobs listed in the top of your experience section. This way the recruiter will see your most recent experiences first, and as she moves down along the document she will get to your oldest experiences.

Reverse-chronological CV example:

reverse chronological CV format example

Pros and cons for the reverse-chronological CV format

Pros

The most recognized CV format out there, by recruiters as well as ATS
Great for showing your career progress
Ideal if you’re looking for a job in the same field as you’re currently in

Cons

Any gaps between employments will become very obvious
This CV format is not ideal if you are changing career path
Job hopping becomes very apparent

Create your CV

2. The functional CV format

In the functional CV you emphasize your skills and other qualifications rather than your professional experiences. When using this format you more or less ignore the when and where part of your professional life and instead focus on the what part. Your skills will be displayed at the top of your CV in order of most relevant to least relevant. However, make sure that even the “least relevant” skills are still relevant to the job in question.

Functional CV example:

functional CV format example

Pros and cons for the functional CV format

Pros

Good for hiding large gaps in your work history
Good for changing careers
Good for highlighting a specific skill or skill set

Cons

Doesn’t show off a clear career progress
This format is not good if you lack skills that come with experience
This format is not good if you lack transferable skills

3. The combination CV format

The combination CV format is, as the name implies, a combination of the two previous. Thus, it combines elements from both CV formats. You should begin your combination CV with a CV summary (your profile) followed by either a work experience section or a skills section. Additional skills can be added after the skills section. Since both work experience and skills play a big role there is not much room left on your CV for education.

Combination CV example:

combination CV format example

Pros and cons for the combination CV format

Pros

Good for showing off skills
Helps you hide employment gaps
Good if you have a lot of experience in one field

Cons

Not good if you don’t have any experience
Not good if you want to highlight your education
Not good if you don’t have a lot of skills to highlight

How to choose your CV format

Still not sure how to decide on which CV format to choose? Our CV format guide below will show you.

Reverse-chronological CV

Choose this if:

You are looking for a job within your current field
Your skills and work experience match each other
You are experienced within your field and haven’t had any large employment gaps

Most of our CV templates are based on a reverse-chronological format but there are also some that are great choices for either a functional CV or a combined CV.

Functional CV

Choose this if:

You have employment gaps you want to hide
You want to change careers
The job you’re applying to puts more emphasis on your skills rather than your experience

Combination CV

Choose this if:

You have specific skill sets you want to highlight
You have employment gaps you want to hide
You are applying for a job that requires a specific set of technical skills

Four CV formatting tips and tricks

Congratulations on making it this far in the read. The rest of our CV format guide is very hands on and practical. We’re going to guide you through the best way to format your CV so that you’re sure to get the best result from your efforts.

These four tips below are super easy to follow and can be applied to your already existing CV.

1. Length

An academic CV is typically longer than a resume or a European CV (which is normally one to two pages long). Most academic CVs are at least two pages long, most often much longer than that.

2. Fonts

As a rule of thumb you should always choose a font sans serifs. That means, a font that doesn’t have serifs. Fonts with serifs, such as Times New Roman, can make your CV look outdated. A sans serif font is also easier to read by the recruiter so to be on the safe side we recommend to use fonts such as Arial or Calibri which don’t have serifs.

Pro tip: all fonts in Jofibo’s CV builder are sans serif.

3. Alignment

Keep the body of your CV left aligned. It looks more clean and organized where any other alignment will easily make your text appear clumsy and messy.

4. ATS friendliness

All three tips above will increase your chances of getting read properly by the applicant tracking systems. But there are more things you can easily do:

Keep your CV format simple and avoid fancy graphics
Keep your bullet point symbols round
Use standard headings such as the ones in Jofibo’s CV builder

Key take aways

If you take only one thing away from this post, let it be this: choose your CV format with care. Make sure it matches both where you are in your career and the job you’re applying to. Below is a quick overview of what we’ve been through.