Opinions vary on how to write a director CV.
These come from different sources including websites, headhunters, recruiters, CV companies, books, career services.
Much of the usual advice is flawed. Indeed, much of it is rehashed content from other articles or websites. Notably, not all the advice is even logical – let alone valuable.
This 2025 director CV guide looks at why typical director CVs are flawed, and it also gives advice on what directors can do to get a genuine top director CV (please note the stress on ‘genuine’, as most miss the mark).
This article has been written by Paul, our head writer.
Directors and C-level professionals come to us for expert CV help from all around the world. This isn’t a coincidence, and we didn’t just hit upon the secret for top quality CVs by chance either. An awful lot went into research and gaining the knowledge and expertise to write exceptional, world-class director CVs.
To get a better handle on what is involved, we recommend you read the Executive CV Service story.
In order to create a top director CV, you firstly should familiarise yourself with some fundamentals. This article helps explain key sales and marketing considerations.
It would be good to say that director CVs are better than those for candidates further down the career ladder. However, the reality is that this isn’t always the case. Indeed, some director CVs are far worse than those of professionals further down the career ladder. For example, many directors have vast experience, and rather than view the CV as a sales and marketing document, they try to cram everything in, listing their many skills, traits and strings to their bows. That's all well and good, but as mentioned, your CV is supposed to be a sales and marketing document, and overcomplicating things and adding as much as possible, is at odds good sales and marketing.
Rather than better and standout, many director CVs look a standard two-pages, and can include indiscriminate and overcomplex messaging. If this applies to your current CV then
consider refining it down to the optimum one page. This is far easier said than done, but CV length is very important and having the best CV length for directors can help in competitive job market.
In addition to length, your CV should also be in a great (not just ‘good’) format. Again, this usually isn’t the case with director CVs. Surprisingly, most (yes, most) director CV formats are flawed. They are not only flawed, but they are counter-productive, and out of sync with sales and marketing principles. Please read our article on director CV format for more details.
As far as visuals are concerned then, you should be aiming for concise, presentable, legible, with great horizontal and vertical words-to-space ratios. Most typical director, CVs are anything but concise, presentable, legible, with great horizontal and vertical words-to-space ratios.
Please see the sample below.
Please also don’t just look at it, but also read the body of the example for advice on why many typical director CVs are unsound. You can refer to this as a guide when creating your own CV.
The above CV sample is similar to those produced by CV companies, but other firms have different formats. Your CV format will often depend, not on what is best in terms of marketing you for well-paid director jobs, but more on just whichever format the CV firm happens to use. It could potentially end up looking like one of the examples below.
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Please click the link to view our executive CV example, and don’t just consider how it appears, but also read the body of the text on the sample, as that should explain the rationale behind our popular format, and why it has been aligned with sales and marketing principles to give you greater advantages in the executive job market.
Regarding format, there is a lot more to this than meets the eye. Please read our article on executive CV formats.
Most executives apply for competitive jobs with a bog standard two-page CV. That’s their prerogative, but if you reply with a CV that looks, reads and feels similar to those of the most of your competitors then this is hardly conducive to helping you stand out in the eyes of employers.
Please read this article on CV length to learn more about the importance of CV length for senior professionals.
Most executives have heard of ATS (applicant tracking systems), but it is not quite what some companies would have you believe.
Discover more about ATS in this article
Yes, and almost certainly dramatically.
You would be stunned at just what a real top writer can do for you.
The above tips and advice should give you an indication of some of the many things involved in creating a director CV. As you will note, some of the things that companies, advisors, books, and writers advocate don’t necessarily always make sense, and sometimes can be even counterproductive. If you would like to improve your own CV, then, even if you just implement some of the advice here, then, pretty much by default, you should be able to make your CV better. For example, aligning it better with sales and marketing principles alone should make a significant difference.
By necessity (and by default), we rip up all CVs that we receive (DIY and professional) and recreate them properly from scratch. It’s the only way to holistically improve everything. And if you want the best results, really you do need to improve everything from presentation, first impressions and legibility, to wording, pitching and powerful sales messaging. This article should give you an idea of just some of the many things we regularly enhance for executive clients.
We help executives, directors and C-level professionals from the UK and all around the world.
We are very different to all other CV firms. Please check out this page for more information on how we differ.
If you would like our unique assistance, then we would be happy to help you.