How to write a Social Work 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 Social Work / NGO, 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 — Beneficiaries reached, geography covered, budget handled and the funder behind the programme.
Education

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
Grants & Recognition
Projects
Certifications
Languages
Publications

Section by section

Grants & Recognition — Grants secured with amount and funder.

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:

beneficiaries · villages covered · grant amount · programme budget · retention

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:

Reached · Mobilised · Trained · Secured · Evaluated · Advocated

Length

1 to 2 pages is normal for this field.

Build a Social Work 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 social work CV include?

A social work 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 social work CV?

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

How long should a social work CV be?

1 to 2 pages is normal for this field. Going longer does not add weight; it moves the thing being looked for further down.

Is a social work CV the same as a social work 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 social work 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 social work pack described on this page. It exports to PDF, Word and plain text.

Related fields

Defence · Government · Law