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CEO
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Build my resume As the chief executive, you’re someone who can grasp the overall vision while paying attention to the details that ensure operations run smoothly. The future direction of the company, including profitability, rests on your shoulders, so this means you’re a skilled communicator and leader who’s able to delegate, challenge, and guide others towards achieving the company’s mission.
For such a tall order, build your CEO CV and create a cover letter with your competency to direct a company in mind. We’re here to help.
With our 5 CEO CV samples and guide, you’ll be equipped to write an award-winning CV quickly, so you can secure your next job in 2025 and get back to what matters most—focusing on the operations and people that drive a business forward.
Why this CV works
- Creating a CEO CV that truly delivers is not just about listing previous roles on a page. You want to portray a visionary leader who is prepared to steer through challenging times and guide the team to a wealth of success. Let’s draw inspiration from Christianne’s outstanding CV to get those creative ideas flowing:
- Highlights such as increasing international interns and employees by 48%, reducing onsite accidents by 11%, and improving by 16% with clearer, measurable objectives are classic ways to showcase your achievements with some impressive figures.
Why this CV works
- Leading a healthcare organisation isn’t for the faint-hearted—it’s about balancing business acumen with patient care. So prove that you have what it takes to drive impact using quantified metrics.
- Liora’s healthcare CEO CV is a good example to follow. She includes metrics such as “achieved £47,441 cost reduction” and “boosted patient engagement scores by 6%,” which demonstrate she’s independently managing the entire operation to help patients recover while also ensuring hospitals improve their financial performance.
Why this CV works
- A tailored hospital CEO CV like Mia’s highlights your professional achievements and makes full use of action verbs, proven skills, and figures to help you stand out from the competition.
- Integrating your skills and expertise in industry-relevant software, such as IBM Watson Health, MedTrainer and Tableau, into your work history is a classic tip that demonstrates your competence and simplifies your job search.
Why this CV works
- Step into the spotlight with a modern CEO CV that makes a strong impression before you even reach the interview. This means ensuring every bullet point is impactful and clearly positions you as the visionary leader no recruiter would want to overlook.
- Let’s face it, a CV without numbers just doesn’t cut it, which brings us to the need to make metrics your new best friends in your job search. See how phrases like “manage 520+ employees and expand the mission” and “attending 80% to lead, train, or capture takeaways” pop up in Malone’s CV.
Why this CV works
- Creating an impressive startup CEO CV might seem like a daunting task, but it’s actually more straightforward than you think when you know the ropes. Here are the essentials: you’ll want to quantify your achievements. Include action verbs and numbers and highlight your skills. It’s that simple! Just take a cue from Lucas’ CV.
- Incorporating some figures can make all the difference in your achievements. Consider phrases like “improved employee productivity by 33%” and “resulting in a 60% increase in total product sales”. That’s the sort of detail that prompts the hiring manager to sit up and take a closer look.
How to Write a CEO CV
As the CEO of an organisation, you already know you’re modestly acknowledging you’re quite significant. You’re the visionary, the one everyone turns to for creating a strategy and a route to success. However, being the top executive doesn’t mean you’re lingering to enjoy the accolades. You became a CEO because you understand the importance of hard work, and you’re held to a high standard. Your CV is, too. Let’s explore these essential ways to build your CV to highlight your strengths and capture the attention of any hiring manager:
- CEO skills
- Formatting your CEO CV
- Measuring your previous impact
- Tailoring your CV for each job
What skills should a CEO have on a CV?
As a current or aspiring CEO, you understand that competition in the job market is fierce. In fact, when you submit your application for a job advert, there may be over 100 other candidates applying. Increasingly, hiring managers are using Applicant Tracking System (ATS) software to filter out candidates whose CVs don’t contain enough of the desired keywords.
Including a skills section on your CV can be the difference between Applicant Tracking System software being your best friend or your worst nightmare. That’s because, without a skills section, you’re unlikely to include the keywords ATS is searching for.
It turns out you don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to work out what the right skills are for the CEO position you’re interested in. Just have a look at the job description. Simple!
The example below shows keyword skills the candidate likely extracted from a company’s job description:
Ensure your CEO CV format is effective
A 1.15-page CV is enough of a formatting error to disturb some hiring managers. We don’t make the rules, but one of the most important formatting “DOs” is to ensure your CV is exactly one page. Though most people know this rule, some of the other important CV formatting ones go unnoticed.
CV formatting tips for ensuring ATS and hiring managers are happy:
- The One-page Rule: As we’ve already mentioned, this rule is important. Hiring managers want the highlights, not your entire life story.
- Bullet Points: Bullet points break up chunks of text in your work experience, making them easier to read and more visually appealing.
- Avoid Icons/Images: Pictures, as appealing as they may be, don’t work for ATS and should be avoided.
- Job Title: List the job title you want at the top of your CV, not the one you currently have.
- Decide: Should you add a CV objective or summary?
CV Summary
- This is a highlight reel of your work experience and relevant skills. A summary could benefit you if:
- You have many years of experience (preferably more than ten years)
- You have specific, relevant achievements that effectively highlight your work contributions
This summary example gives you a good idea of how detailed and customised yours should be:
On certain occasions, you might want to consider adding a CV objective or summary statement to your CEO CV. They’re both short, two to four-sentence paragraphs, but the objective works best for individuals with limited work experience or those changing careers (possibly applicable to you!).
The summary, on the other hand, is for seasoned professionals who have over 10 years of experience in the field. It offers you an opportunity to discuss your career history, your achievements, and the skills you’ve developed.
Weak and strong objectives
- Weak Resume Objective: Executive with experience in leading people. Looking to continue climbing the corporate ladder and making decisions for an organization.
- Why it’s weak: Lacks specificity, does not mention particular skills, a job title, metrics, or how the applicant would benefit the organisation.
- Strong Resume Objective: CFO for 3+ years with Pearsons Co. Seeking a change of career as the CEO at CoreOps, where my background in financial analysis and strategic decision-making would strengthen the company’s long-term fiscal trajectory and develop a greater sense of accountability from within the organization.
- Why it’s strong: It is specific, with a target company and position explicitly mentioned. The applicant’s skill set is highlighted, as well as how those skills make them a valuable candidate.
Weak and strong summaries
- Weak Resume Summary: CEO who’s been in the industry for years, many of which resulted in growth for companies. Motivated to become the CEO of your company and help it grow.
- Why it’s weak: Non-specific, vague, lacks metrics, and a general waste of valuable CV space.
- Strong Resume Summary: Seasoned CEO with 15+ years of executive experience. Specialized in improving long-term financial outlooks, enabling InkStaple to maintain 2020 performance despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Managed companies with over 1.5K employees, strengthening brand buy-in and work output from the ground up. Motivated to lead strategic vision changes for Fisco Supplies to improve public and staff perception and support.
- Why it’s strong: It’s specific, mentioning job titles, number of years of experience, relevant skills, and how they’ve benefited companies throughout their career.
Measure your achievements as a CEO
You’re a CEO. You know everything always comes back to those pesky numbers. As much as it may pain you to crunch more numbers to include on your CV, trust us when we say it’s worth it. Not only do numbers demonstrate your performance but also catch the eyes of hiring managers and encourage them to keep reading.
Make use of metrics, as in the example below, to demonstrate the following:
- How recruitment policies and training improved under your leadership
- Improvements in long-term company forecasts and ROI
Tailor your CV for each CEO role
Let’s be honest—would you rather hire the person who’s passionate about the company and has been interested in working with you for years, or the person who’s probably sending out their CV to your company and 50 others just to see who they can negotiate with to get the highest salary?
As much as it can be annoying to customise your CEO CV, we suggest you do it.
So, how do you customise your CV?
- The objective/summary: If you include one of these sections on your CV, make sure to mention a specific job title, company name, and skills that are particularly relevant to the role (hint: read the job description).
- Skills: Read the job description to create a fully customised skills section according to the keywords found.
- Work experience bullet points: Is the company hoping you’ll enhance its reputation among customers? Then you should emphasise occasions when you’ve acted as the public face of the business or approved funding for popular campaigns on social media. If they require stronger internal leadership, reshape your bullet points to highlight your relevant experience.
Key Takeaways for Your CEO CV
We know that updating your CV may be a task that comes with plenty of groaning, furious keyboard typing, and sighs. But, you’ve already taken a major step in the right direction by preparing. You now know the CV secret sauce: good formatting, customisation, key skills, and quantification.
Parsing your CV is a great next step to see how your application stands up to the ATS.
CEO CV FAQs
Your CEO CV must demonstrate your leadership experience and ability to manage and be responsible for projects and teams. You must show a high level of accountability and ownership of whatever you’re doing to convince employers that you’re worth considering for the top-level position.
A CEO manages a company’s resources and processes and provides the overall direction for all human resources towards meeting set goals and objectives. In doing so, you must demonstrate your leadership and management skills and use relevant tools to fulfil the responsibilities of this senior role.
It demonstrates the ability to lead, manage, and organise all the aspects of a company to drive success in every area. As such, a CEO CV must emphasise leadership, management, and organisational skills. Moreover, it should include work experiences with metrics to show the impact of similar high-ranking roles.
Your employment history should include transferable skills from other senior roles. Also, highlight your proven track record of excelling at such high levels. You want to earn the trust of recruiters, and you can only do that if you demonstrate the value you bring in leading, managing, and making decisions to successfully drive companies forward.
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