How to write a CV for a job in Ireland

An Irish CV is short, plain and factual. Two pages, your most recent job first, no photo and no date of birth. If yours looks different, it is probably costing you interviews. This guide goes through each part in the order an employer reads it. When you have a draft, check your CV for free and you will see in a few seconds what to fix and which open roles it fits.

How long should a CV be in Ireland?

Two pages. That is what most Irish employers and recruiters expect. One page is fine if you are early in your career. Three is acceptable for senior, clinical or academic roles where the detail matters.

If you are over the limit, keep the last ten years in full and cut everything older to one line per job: title, employer, dates.

What goes at the top

- Your name, in the largest type on the page.
- Phone number and email address.
- The town and county you live in. You do not need your street address.
- A link to your LinkedIn profile, if it is up to date and matches the CV.

Put these in the body of the page. Details placed in a header, footer or text box are often missed by the software employers use to sort applications.

What to leave off

- A photograph. It is not expected in Ireland and many employers would rather not have one.
- Date of birth, marital status, religion and nationality. The Employment Equality Acts 1998 to 2015 stop employers from treating applicants differently on nine grounds, including age, gender, civil status, family status, religion and race. An employer does not need this information to shortlist you.
- Your PPS number. Never put it on a CV. An employer only needs it once you have accepted a job.
- Your referees' phone numbers. Write "References available on request". It protects their privacy and gives you the chance to tell them a call is coming.

The profile

Three or four lines under your contact details. Say what you do, how long you have done it, and what you want next.

A weak profile: "Hard-working team player seeking a challenging role in a dynamic company."

A better one: "Staff nurse with seven years on acute medical wards, the last three as preceptor to student nurses. Registered with NMBI. Looking for a clinical nurse manager post in the midlands."

The second one could only be about one person. That is the test.

Work experience

List your jobs newest first. For each one give your job title, the employer, the town, and the month and year you started and finished. Years on their own are not enough: 2021 to 2022 could be two months or two years.

Under each job write three to five bullet points. Start each with what you did, and put a figure in wherever you honestly can:

• Ran a 32 bed medical ward on nights with a team of five.
• Cut batch record review time from four days to two.
• Managed month end for a company with 140 staff.

If there is a gap of more than a few months, say what it was in one line. Travel, caring for family, study and redundancy are all normal. An unexplained gap is what makes an employer wonder.

Education and registration

Give the award, the college and the year. Once you have a degree or a few years of work behind you, your Leaving Certificate results can come off.

Irish qualifications sit on the National Framework of Qualifications, which runs from Level 1 to Level 10. An honours bachelor degree is Level 8 and a master's degree is Level 9. If you qualified abroad, it helps to say which level your award compares to. NARIC Ireland, run by Quality and Qualifications Ireland, publishes comparability statements for foreign qualifications.

If your job is regulated, put your registration near the top of the CV, not at the bottom:

• Nurses and midwives: NMBI, with your PIN.
• Physiotherapists, radiographers, social workers and other health and social care professionals: CORU.
• Pharmacists: the PSI.
• Doctors: the Medical Council.
• Teachers: the Teaching Council.

If your application for registration is still in progress, say so and say when you applied.

Skills

A short list of the systems, equipment and methods you use, in the words a job advert would use. Recruiters search for these words, and so does their software. "SAP, Sage 200, month end, VAT returns" will be found. "Excellent IT skills" will not.

If you are applying from abroad

Tell the employer where you stand on working in Ireland, because it is the first thing they will ask.

• Citizens of the EU, the EEA, Switzerland and the United Kingdom do not need an employment permit to work in Ireland.
• If you already hold an Irish immigration permission, name it, for example Stamp 4 or Stamp 1G.
• If you will need an employment permit, say so plainly. Employers who hire from overseas expect it.

Add the date you could start or move, and give a phone number with its country code.

Layout and file type

- One column. Two column layouts and tables look smart but are often read out of order by applicant tracking software.
- An ordinary font at 10.5 to 12 point, with clear headings: Profile, Work experience, Education, Skills.
- Save it as a PDF so it looks the same on every screen, unless the advert asks for Word.
- Name the file with your own name, for example Aoife-Brennan-CV.pdf.

Before you send it

Read it aloud once. Check every date. Ask someone else to read it for spelling. Then run it through our free CV check. It looks for everything in this guide, shows you the roles on our site that fit, and you can ask a consultant to read it and send you written feedback. None of it costs anything.

This guide is general information, not legal or immigration advice. Check the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment or Citizens Information for the current rules on permits and equality law.