Keeping your CV updated is a great habit to get into. As you move through your education and career, you’ll gain lots of new skills, experience and knowledge – and your CV needs to showcase these.
Estimated reading time: 1 minute
How to update your CV
1. The personal summary should reflect your most recent experience
The short paragraph at the top of your CV, also known as the personal summary, needs to highlight any recently gained skills and experience, or any current goals or objectives you have.
This is important if you haven’t updated your CV since the last time you were searching for a job. Your most recent employment or education will have strengthened your skillset, and talking about this in the first paragraph will show the hiring manager what a great candidate you are straight away – making them more likely to continue reading.
2. Mention your career successes or highlights
Detailing the everyday tasks you’re responsible for is a really important aspect of your CV. However, when carrying out your CV update, consider how you could showcase any successes or highlights you’ve had in your career.
Perhaps you have boosted sales of a certain product or service? Or maybe you’ve streamlined a process, or introduced new software or tools to your company – resulting in an increase in efficiency and productivity? Your biggest achievement may be less task or project focused – for example, introducing a new staff wellbeing initiative or helping to implement your organisation’s new environmental strategy.
With lots of candidates applying for jobs with the same level of experience, highlighting your successes or the impact you’ve had could set you apart from others. If you can back up your impact with results or statistics – even better.
3. Remove older pieces of information
The further you get into your career, you’re going to want to remove old jobs from your CV – especially if you have changed careers or moved into a different area within your industry. If you’re a university graduate who is several years into their career, we’d suggest removing any non-university qualifications (such as A Levels) too.
This frees up space for you to discuss your most recent job, qualifications or experience. It also keeps your CV succinct, tidy and relevant for the hiring manager, helping them to stay engaged with your CV throughout.
4. Update your CV structure
There are a few reasons why you may consider changing the structure of your CV:
- You’re looking to change career paths – you may want to devote less space to your employment history if it’s not strictly relevant to the industry you want to move into. Instead, you may want to use this space to talk about your transferable skills, hobbies or commitments outside of paid employment (such as volunteering). You could also include a sentence or two about why you are looking for a career change.
- Your last CV was written before you had any formal work experience – if the most up to date CV you have is a skills-based CV, or a graduate CV, which focus more on transferable skills and what you learned at university, then you may want to swap the structure to a more conventional CV layout.
5. Think about how your updated CV reads as a whole
When updating a CV to include information about your most recent job role, it’s tempting to add in the new information without checking how it fits alongside the rest of your document. You may think that the rest of your CV is fine, because it was good enough to land you a new job last time – but as time has gone on, you may prefer to highlight different skills from previous roles or use different language to talk about your experience. Read our article on knowing what skills to put on your CV.
After adding in the new information, read your CV through from beginning to end and think about whether it flows nicely. Avoid repetition of the same phrases or words, and ensure that your work history, education and qualifications all complement one another and show the breadth of your knowledge and skillset.
6. Take into account whether you are moving up the career ladder
Are you updating your CV because you are applying for a promotion? As you move up in your career, we’d recommend updating your CV so that it highlights the skills hiring managers look for when recruiting for senior positions. For example, you may want to include your experience of leadership and management, decision-making and strategic thinking.
7. Check your contact details (and other details aside from your work history)
It’s easy to skimread the contact details section of your CV and submit it, before suddenly realising that you didn’t update your CV to include your new email address. So make sure you double check every part of your CV, especially if it is at least a year old, to avoid this mistake.
Another part that it’s easy to overlook is the education and qualifications section. If you’ve studied for another qualification within the past couple of years, but haven’t changed jobs within that time, make sure you include it as part of your CV update.
8. Proofread it
When proofreading your updated CV, the major thing is to check for any errors in the spelling and grammar.
But we would also suggest taking note of whether you have used any keywords from the job description of the role you are applying for. If you haven’t included any, this is the time to add a few in. This should help in situations where your CV is being put through applicant tracking software – a tool that checks CVs for particular words or phrases related to the role in question.
Why you should keep your CV updated
Keeping your CV up to date is a good habit to get into – even if you are happy within your current role and not actively looking for a new job. Not only is it easier to write about a new achievement, skill or experience when it’s still fresh in your mind – but it also means there is less work for you to do if you do start looking for another job.
How often you should update your CV
If you’re not looking to find a new job, it’s good practice to review your CV semi-regularly, ideally once a year so that you can include any updates from the last 12 months. It’s also a good idea to do some research into best practice on how to design and structure your CV, to stop it from looking old or dated.
If you are currently jobseeking, you need to do a CV update every time you apply for a new role. Every CV needs to be tailored for the position you are applying for, and it’s better to spend the time submitting two high-quality CVs than sending the same CV to five different vacancies.
Looking for more career advice? Unitemps’ expert team has tips on all things job-related – from looking for a job and interview tips, through to career development and life at work. Take a look.
Last updated on 19 August 2026
Share this article