How to write a Consulting CV

Called a resume in the US and a CV almost everywhere else — the same document, and these are the rules it gets judged by.

The conventions below are the ones this field actually uses. They are what the builder applies when you pick Consulting / Strategy, and what the rating checks a finished CV against.

What it must contain

Leave any of these out and the CV reads as incomplete to someone who hires in this field:

Work experience — One line per engagement: client type, problem, result. Firms read for structure.
Education — Consulting screens hard on academics. Keep scores and percentile in.

The order to put them in

Order is not cosmetic. What sits at the top is what gets read before someone decides whether to keep reading.

Professional summary
Work experience
Education
Skills
Achievements
Languages
Certifications

What to put numbers on

The single most common reason a CV in this field reads as weak is that nothing in it is measured. These are the figures that mean something here:

cost saving · revenue uplift · engagement length · team size · client size

Verbs that carry weight

Openers like “responsible for” and “worked on” describe a job description rather than a person. In this field these do the work instead:

Advised · Diagnosed · Restructured · Modelled · Recommended · Delivered

Length

One page is the norm here.

Build a Consulting CV See a worked example

Free, no account, and nothing is uploaded — the builder runs in your browser and the CV never leaves it.

Common questions

What should a consulting CV include?

A consulting CV has to carry work experience and education. The order this field expects is professional summary, work experience, education and skills.

What goes first on a consulting CV?

The professional summary. That is where this field's convention puts it, and it is what the builder applies when you pick Consulting.

How long should a consulting CV be?

One page is the norm here. Going longer does not add weight; it moves the thing being looked for further down.

Is a consulting CV the same as a consulting resume?

For applying to a job, yes - the same document under two names. Resume is the usual word in North America and CV almost everywhere else. The one real exception is the academic CV, which is long-form and lists publications.

Is there a free consulting CV template?

Yes. ihatejob builds one to this field’s convention for free, with no account and no upload: the section order, the section names and the rating all come from the consulting pack described on this page. It exports to PDF, Word and plain text.