You open your CV, scroll through years of work and feel oddly flat. You’ve calmed angry customers, corrected other people’s errors and kept things running the week the system went down. On the page, it reads like a notice taped to a staff room wall.

That doesn’t mean you have nothing to say. It usually means you’re standing too close. Doing a job well and describing it well are different skills, and hardly anyone is taught the second.

Here’s how to close the gap, including one exercise most CV guides skip.

Why Your Best Work Feels Invisible

Anything you do daily stops feeling like a skill. The shop assistant who catches a pricing error before the customer spots it doesn’t call that attention to detail. She calls it Tuesday.

The recruiter has never watched you work. With fifty applications and a few minutes each, they only have the page. If it says “served customers and stocked shelves”, that is exactly what they’ll assume you did.

The best CVs rarely belong to people with glamorous jobs. They belong to people who described ordinary work properly. And “it’s only admin” is not a verdict. Careful admin is what employers struggle to find.

The “Ask Me” Audit

Take a blank page and write across the top: “What do people come to me for?”

Ignore your job title. Maybe colleagues want you to read their emails before they hit send. Maybe the new starter always ends up beside you, or the awkward customer gets steered your way. Those requests are evidence, because people keep asking for what you’re reliably good at.

Then add a second column: “What goes wrong when I’m off?” If the filing slips or the rota gets muddled, that shows your value by its absence.

Picture a care home administrator who believes she has nothing to add. Her audit shows that upset families always ask for her, and that she rebuilt the visiting schedule after three double-bookings in a month. Neither was on her old CV.

She invented nothing. She just stopped treating her own habits as background.

Match Your Evidence to the Advert

Open the job advert and ignore the title, because two vacancies with the same name can want very different things. Pick out the three to five requirements that come up most in the essential criteria.

Then pair each with something from your audit. If they want someone who juggles deadlines and you once covered two roles during a staffing gap, there’s your example. If nothing honestly fits, leave it out. A gap is safer than a stretch.

I’ve lost count of the people who tell me they need someone to Write my cv for me, when what they really need is twenty quiet minutes with their own memory. A writer can only polish what you hand over.

Turn Duties into Evidence

For each example, ask three things. What was the situation? What did you do yourself? What changed afterwards?

You won’t need all three in every bullet; they’re for digging out detail. “Responsible for training new staff” becomes “Taught new starters the opening routine and checked their stock records until they could work alone”.

“Handled complaints” can become “Resolved complaints at the till where possible and left clear notes when I couldn’t, so nobody had to ask twice”.

Then try the “so what?” test. “Updated spreadsheets weekly.” So what? “So the monthly reports went out error-free.” Now it deserves a line.

What About Numbers?

Figures help when you genuinely have them. Many jobs don’t produce tidy percentages, and a clear account of a tricky situation handled well can persuade just as much.

What I’d never do is guess. If you don’t know how much time the new filing system saved, don’t write “30%”. Interviewers probe numbers, and an invented one collapses after two questions. The same applies to team results: say what you did within the team.

Rewrite the Personal Profile

The profile is usually the first thing read and often the weakest. “Hard-working, motivated individual seeking a challenging opportunity” says nothing, because everyone writes it.

Use three plain facts: what you do, what you’re best at, where you’re heading. For example: “Retail professional with three years in stock control and complaint resolution, moving into office administration.”

With ten years behind you, don’t list every employer. Find the thread running through them and lead with that.

UK Details That Trip People Up

Two pages is the norm. Put your latest role first and give most space to the jobs matching the vacancy.

Leave off the photo, date of birth and marital status. A gap in your history is fine too; one honest line beats a long apology.

Keep the formatting plain. Many employers run applications through screening software first, and columns or graphics can scramble the text.

Mistakes That Quietly Weaken a CV

Making every duty heroic is the big one. When everything is “spearheaded” and “transformed”, nothing stands out. Mix plain duties with a few stronger examples and it reads as true.

Copying the advert word for word is another. Recruiters recognise their own phrasing but still want proof. If they ask for analytical skills, describe the time you sorted messy information into a conclusion.

Career changers often assume transferable skills cover everything. Strong organisation helps in project support, but it won’t replace specialist software knowledge. Say what you’re still learning; it reads as confidence.

And don’t send one CV everywhere. Your history stays put. The emphasis shouldn’t.

Before You Send It

Read every line and ask: could I talk about this for a minute if someone asked? If you’d squirm, it’s too vague, too ambitious or not really yours.

Ask a friend to read it cold and tell you what they think you do. If their answer surprises you, the CV is hiding something. Print it out too if you can, because mistakes hide on screens and show up on paper.

The colleague who keeps records right, stays calm when people are cross and spots trouble early often has better evidence than whoever has the grander wording.

So go back to the blank page and start with the awkward customer who always lands on your desk.