What we're talking about today is some language and phrases you can use for your English CV
or your covering letter if you want to apply for jobs.
So, we're going to break it down and you can put together the different pieces to make
So, what we're going to talk about first of all is the personal summary.
In a British English CV it's become fairly common to have a personal summary, and this
is one or two sentences that show what kind of job you're looking for, and then give a
So this is going to be part one of the personal summary, and when we come back I'll show you
the rest of the personal summary.
So here are some different adjectives you might want to use.
Choose which one fits the job or explains you best.
Some of these adjectives are more suitable for some kind of jobs.
The idea to make a really good CV or covering letter is to tailor it to every job, and that
means that you change it slightly so that when you're applying for a job you can make
So, I would suggest to you that you change your personal summary for every job just to
make it more perfect for that job.
So we'll go through these adjectives.
"Experienced", "organised", "proactive"...
I'm not going to explain what they mean, just ones that I think you might not know.
"Proactive", this means that you don't wait for somebody to tell you what to do.
You just... you know what to do, and you just go ahead and do it, so you're a proactive
A "conscientious" person... it's quite hard to say, isn't it?
Well, first of all, it's a "k" sound.
"Con-che-che-, conscientious".
That's a person who cares a lot about how... how... how they do their work.
So, you try to do everything right because you actually care.
You're a conscientious person.
An "ambitious" person is someone who wants to get up there, wants to do really well.
An "adaptable" person is someone who can be in this situation, that's fine, no problem.
Another day I can be working with this different bunch of people, that's no problem for me.
You can be doing different things and it's not going to stress you out, you're not going
to be in a bad mood because you're an adaptable person.
We also use some of these compound adjective in the world of CV language because they sound
You might be a "results-orientated" person.
That's another way of saying that you're quite a driven person.
You care about being successful.
Perhaps you're in a sales job and you've got targets, you always want to reach your targets,
so therefore you're a results-orientated person.
What if you are a "self-motivated" person?
That means you don't need your boss saying: "Hey, great job!"
You can get on with a job yourself and you know what to do in your job.
Some jobs are going to want someone who's "polite" if you're facing... facing customers
it's often a strength to be polite.
So, do any of these fit you and the kind of job you want to apply for?
If they do, take this as a building block for your personal summary.
Then you can either put the job that you have done or the job that you do now.
TEFL teacher or maybe you're a programmer, or maybe you're a waitress, maybe you're an
"Administrator" is a more formal word than saying "office worker".
We don't really... we don't really say that on CVs.
If you don't want to use the job title, here are some other alternatives.
You can be a leader looking for a management role.
You could be a problem-solver.
If you're in a fix in your company, you're the one who's got all the ideas and the solutions
That's necessary and highly desirable... desired in many jobs.
Perhaps you're a great team player, you're really good working with other people.
Or maybe you're a self-starter.
This one I always think sounds quite clever.
It means you don't need your manager always giving you work.
You just do what needs to be done.
You don't need to be checked on all the time.
I would say, though, if you've already used a compound adjective here, don't use a compound
noun, because it's like a little bit too many hyphens going on, it's a little bit extra.
So, we've now got the first building block, we've got the second building block, now we
You could use any of these verbs.
"Seeks", we're talking about you in the... in the third person, here, so this is why
"Seeks" is a more formal way of saying "looking for".
"Desires" is a different way of saying "wants".
And we... or we could say: "In search of", "looking for", another way but slightly more
So here are the different kinds of job you might be looking for, so show that... choose
something here that reflects the kind of job you're applying for.
Perhaps it's really important to you that you're looking for a full-time role, that
means that you work 40 hours a week if you're in the UK.
Maybe you're looking for a permanent job, so that's one that's not on a short contract.
Perhaps you're looking for a corporate job, you want to work for a very big brand and
you want to wear an offi-... wear an office to work?
Or maybe you want a challenging job, that's better than saying... what's the thing people
I'll have to come back to you on that one because I've forgot it at the moment.
And then you follow it with a noun.
"Role" is another word for "job", "position" is another word for "job", or "job".
So then you put it all together and that's part one of your personal summary.
Just as an example: "Organised programmer desires permanent position."
And in a minute I am going to remember what I was talking about there, but I'll tell you
So I said to you "challenging" is a good word to use on your CV.
A similar word is "demanding".
You wouldn't be looking for a demanding job, because demanding is... you know, it's too
It leaves you, like, stressed and worried.
But a challenging job is good in the world of jobs and CVs.
It's one that leaves you still feeling like you... you've... you've still got something
to learn, you've still got more to give in your job.
So that's what I was trying to remember.
Let's have a look now at the second part of the experience summary.
So we already have a template sentence, so what do we do now?
Now we summarise your experience.
So, just in a sentence say what kind of job you've been doing and now what kind of job
So we can use a participle here, it gives it a continuous sense it's still happening.
"Having worked as a waitress for the last two years," or whatever job you did, "I now
wish to develop my skills in a silver service/hotel/or front of house role".
This example is specific to someone who's looking for a job being a waitress.
And you would... the idea is that you would tailor this sentence to the job you're applying
for.
If you're applying for a job in a hotel and you want to be a waitress in a hotel, you
But if you want to do one of these other kinds of waitressing, front of house is similar
to waitressing, but you greet the guests when they come in, you would put that there.
And "silver service" is a word for sort of fine dining establishments where the rules
of serving people are a little bit different.
So you adapt... you adapt the summary for the job you're going to.
And the whole point is so that the person looking at your CV sees: "Oh, okay, you're
This can go at the beginning of your CV.
Covering letter is much longer, as much as a page or maybe even longer for some jobs.
Next, let's talk about your key skills and qualities.
You can use this in your... in your CV.
Some people like to bullet point a couple of kill-... key skills or qualities.
You can also use this kind of structure in your covering letter, but I would change it
in the covering letter and I would use...
We'll get there and I'll tell you.
So the... the structure of these sentences is adjective and then the job title.
If you're using... if you're writing in the CV, you don't need to write: "I am a results-orientated
We are writing in the imperative for... we're not... we're not using the verb.
Results-orientated salesperson.
Efficient and thorough administrator.
If you're thorough, that means that you do everything that's required, you're systematic,
Reliable and ambitious manager.
Don't...
I've got to put my full stops there.
Yeah, in the CV that's okay, but in the covering letter you can't write in imperative form
so you'd have to say: "I am...
I am a results-orientated salesperson."
Or... or more indirect: "I consider myself to be..."
Because you're supposed to write in full sentences in your covering letter.
Yeah.
What we're doing here is adjective, and then job title... job title.
ba, ba, ba, noun or compound noun.
It's the general style of CVs to be very verbose, have lots of words in them.
So you might say about yourself: You're a skilled programmer with excellent communication
So that means if you have excellent communication skills you can speak to a lot of diff-...
a lot of different people and you can always get your message across.
Perhaps you're an adaptable English teacher with a personal teaching style.
Oh, pen falling on the floor.
You don't need to say: "a" in the CV because this is an imperative form.
Adaptable English teacher with personal teaching style.
That means that you get along with people, that you're a friendly person basically and
I wasn't talking about myself right there.
Or maybe you're a proactive administrator with advanced database skills.
So the idea of these sentences is that you take them and you can just put them into your
Perhaps you've got some bullet pointed key skills there, or you can use these kind of
sentences in your covering letter where you need to say a little bit more about yourself
When we come back we're going to learn some more useful vocabulary that you can use on
your... on your CV, your English CV.
Let's take a final look at some verbs that you can use to make some sentences for your
CV or your English covering letter.
So it really depends if we're talking about a CV or a covering... covering letter.
First of all let's talk about what you can put on the CV.
So here are some different verbs.
You can use these for your CV.
So maybe in your job you "administer" something, that's a job to do with, you know, putting
data into spreadsheets and things like that.
Maybe you "help", maybe you work at a charity and you help people.
Perhaps you "manage", your role is to be in charge of other people.
You tell other people what to do and you check that they're doing their work.
You watch what other people do.
This is a phrasal verb for "do" basically, doing different tasks.
Maybe you run something, that means that you're the boss, you're in charge of it.
I'll write that in, you're the boss.
You could... you could have a particular task or duty in your job which you're in charge
of.
In that case you run this program or something.
Maybe you "coordinate".
That's another way for saying sort of like organise and make something happen, you coordinate.
In your job maybe you provide a service.
These ones use a slight different form.
In your job maybe you "liaise" with... this means like formally... formal way to speak
to people from different organisations or outside your job itself.
So maybe you liaise with politicians or business leaders, something like that.
Maybe in your job you're in charge of something.
This means that you have a responsibility to do something.
Or maybe in your job you're "responsible" for something.
Maybe the... maybe the finances, maybe key-holding responsibilities.
What we can do with these verbs on a CV is we can use them to build a section for key
So if we're talking about your job and you're still doing it now, we can use the "ing" form.
So, for example: "Managing... managing a sales team of 20."
Again, I'm not writing: "I manage a team of 20", because we don't need to do that in a
CV.
I'm using the "ing" form because you're doing that job now.
What else might you do if you're a manager?
"Carrying out all banking duties."
"Providing training... providing training for staff."
So you can just list some of the things you do in the key achievements part.
If you're talking about a past job, what you do is you just change that to the past tense:
"Managed a sales team of 20", etc.
Here I've got some examples of how you can use these verbs in the covering letter form,
because in the covering letter form it's a different kind of grammar because you actually
need to write in full proper English sentences.
So you could say: "As assistant manager (at the name of your company) I am in charge of
That's the present job that you're still doing now.
Or here's another option you can say: "As project manager at (name of company) I supervised
So using... using these verbs and... using these verbs can really help you sound more
So you're using all the right keywords, saying all the right things, that's going to make
you seem like a really attractive person that they want to interview to get to know a little
So what I'd like you to do now is go to the engVid website so you can do the quiz on this
And before you go and do that, I'd like you to subscribe.
Subscribe to my engVid channel, also to my personal channel.
And I do wish you luck in your search for a job.
It's not easy out there looking for a job, but I'm sure if you put some effort into making
your British English... well, your English CV the best it can be, that's giving you a
So, yeah, I'm going to go now.
"Training".