Executive assistant CV template · By Lily Shippen, EA recruiter
The executive assistant CV template a recruiter actually wants
Most CV templates are designed by graphic designers to look busy on Etsy. This one is the structure I have wanted in front of me for thirteen years of shortlisting executive assistants. It is deliberately conservative, because your CV is a document, not a brand.
Use it as a free checklist for your own CV. If you would rather answer questions and have it written for you, that is what Margot does.
Download the template in Word · Free · No email
Two of the four designs as blank Word documents, two pages, single column, with guidance in every section telling you what belongs there. Readable by the software employers use to filter CVs.
The structure, in order
Name, title, contact
Name, a title line that states your level ("Executive Assistant to CEO"), location, phone, email and your LinkedIn URL. No photo, no date of birth, no full address. Recruiters check LinkedIn within minutes, so link it yourself.
Profile: three sentences, first person
Who you are with real scope, what you are trusted with, and the thread that makes your experience distinctive. Write "I am", not "a highly motivated professional". No buzzwords: if the sentence could describe anyone, cut it.
Key achievements: five to six bullets, every one with a metric
The formula: ownership verb, what you did, the number that proves it. Built, ran, cut, renegotiated, protected. Never "responsible for", never "duties included". This section is why you get the call, so it goes before your role history, not buried inside it.
Experience: most recent first, most recent longest
Each role: title, company, dates, one line of context (who you supported, company size), then bullets. Your current role gets five or six bullets; a role from ten years ago gets one line. Explain why you moved when it helps your story.
Awards and professional development
Awards with the year and awarding body. Courses, memberships, PA networks, mentoring. Most EAs forget this section entirely, and it is often where the seniority signal lives.
Systems and education, one line each
The tools you actually run (Concur, Notion, Board Intelligence, Google Workspace) and your education with dates. Education is optional at senior level: leave it off if it does not help you.
Formatting rules that keep it ATS safe
Single column. Real text, standard section headings, no tables, no text boxes, no graphics, no logos, no headshot. Two pages maximum. One professional typeface. Save as PDF unless the application asks for Word.
A CV that a scanner cannot parse never reaches a human. Every decorative element is a risk that buys you nothing, which is why our four templates are deliberately conservative: professionally typeset, zero decoration.
Download the template in Word
Two of the four templates as blank Word documents, with guidance in every section telling you what belongs there and what a recruiter reads for. The Brief is the modern one, with the section labels in the margin. The Standard is the conservative one, set in Georgia. Both are two pages, single column and readable by the software employers use to filter CVs. Free, no email.
The pictures show the templates filled in with a worked example. The downloads are blank, with the guidance where the content goes. The finished example itself is on the examples page as a PDF in all four templates.
A template can't interview you.
The structure is free, and it is the easy half. The hard half is the content: the metrics, the authority, the lines you would never think to write about yourself. That is what Margot draws out of you.
Score my CV for free
Lily Shippen
FOUNDER, LILY SHIPPEN, EA, PA AND CHIEF OF STAFF RECRUITMENT · THIRTEEN YEARS PLACING EAS
Lily has read tens of thousands of EA CVs and shortlisted the ones that worked. Margot is her screening interview, written down. About Lily and this site