Writing a CV and Cover Letter in English

A CV translated word for word from another language usually reads as English but doesn't work as a CV — the sentences are correct and the document still gets ignored. The problem is almost never grammar. It's structure and register: what an English-language CV includes, what it leaves out, and how directly it's allowed to state what you achieved.

What goes in, and in what order

• Contact details — name, phone, email, city (not full address), and a LinkedIn or portfolio link if you have one.
• A short summary (optional, 2–3 lines) — what you do and what you're looking for, not a life story.
• Work experience, most recent first — this is the section that gets read.
• Education, usually brief unless you're a recent graduate.
• Skills — languages, tools, certifications.

Left out by convention, and worth knowing why: a photo, date of birth, marital status, and nationality. Some countries expect these; English-language CVs (UK/US/most international hiring) generally don't, and including them can read as slightly old-fashioned rather than thorough.

The line that actually gets read: one bullet per achievement

The single biggest change from a translated CV to a working one is this: don't list responsibilities, state results.

❌ Responsible for the sales team. ✅ Led a team of six and grew regional sales by 18% in a year.

The situation → action → result pattern that works in interviews works here too, compressed into one line: what you did, and what happened because you did it. A number is worth more than an adjective — grew sales by 18% says more than significantly improved sales.

Start with a verb, and vary it

Every bullet should open with a past-tense action verb — never responsible for, worked on, or helped with, which all hide who actually did the work.

Strong verbs by type of work:

Built something	Improved something	Led people	Solved a problem
built, developed, designed, launched	improved, reduced, increased, streamlined	led, managed, mentored, coordinated	resolved, diagnosed, fixed, prevented

• Reduced page load time by 40% by rewriting the caching layer.
• Negotiated a contract renewal that cut supplier costs by 12%.
• Mentored two junior developers, both promoted within a year.

Repeating the same verb across every bullet is the second most common problem after passive, duty-based phrasing — it reads as though nothing you did was actually different from anything else.

Tense: past for past roles, present for your current one

• I managed the migration. (a job you've left)
• I manage a team of five. (your current role)

Mixing this up in one CV — some past-tense bullets under a job still marked as current — is a small error that a native-speaking reader notices immediately, because it reads like the CV wasn't checked.

The cover letter: shorter, and more direct than you'd expect

A cover letter in your own language may open with several polite lines before getting to the point. In English, that reads as padding. Three short paragraphs is the expected length, not a minimum to reach.

1. Why you're writing and the role, in one line.
2. One or two specific reasons you fit — tied to something in the job post, not a general claim.
3. A short, confident close.

• I'm writing to apply for the Backend Engineer role at [Company]. I've spent four years building Python services at scale, most recently leading the migration your job post describes needing help with.
• I'd welcome the chance to discuss how my experience with [specific thing] could help your team. Thank you for considering my application.

Avoid I am very interested in this exciting opportunity — it says nothing a reader hasn't already read fifty times that week. Naming something specific from the job post in your second line does more work than any amount of enthusiasm in the first.

Formal, but not stiff

The register sits closer to a professional email than to a legal document. I would be delighted to and I am writing to enquire are correct but read as overly formal from most candidates; I'm writing to apply for and I'd welcome the chance to are the more natural modern register, still fully professional.

A common translation trap

Many languages have a single word that covers both a CV and a résumé, and some also have a formal noun for "experience" that gets over-translated as the experience of rather than experience in.

❌ I have the experience in project management. ✅ I have experience in project management. / I have five years' experience managing projects.

❌ My professional experiences are... ✅ My experience includes... (uncountable in this sense — no plural)

Try it yourself

The quiz below focuses on turning a duty into a result, and on the verb choices that make a CV read as written by a native speaker rather than translated into one.