Executive assistant CV guides · by Lily Shippen, EA recruiter

How to write an executive PA CV that brings your job to life

Written by Lily Shippen, founder of the Lily Shippen EA, PA and chief of staff recruitment agency. Thirteen years of shortlisting, tens of thousands of CVs read, and every rule on this page is one I use at my own desk. Who I am

I've been placing executive PAs for thirteen years, and I'd say it's the least consistent job title in the whole market, because in one firm it means the PA to the chief executive with a private element and real authority, in another it's a team PA with a grander name, and in a third it's an EA in everything but the title. None of those is wrong, and I've long since stopped reading much into the title at all, because what I read is the description of the job underneath it. When I've got two hundred CVs in the inbox for one role, I'm reading the first half of page one and asking myself a single question, which is whether I can see this person's world.

So that's what this guide is about, not what to call yourself but how to describe what you do so that someone who has never sat at your desk can picture it. There's a full example at the end, and if you're short on time I'd start there and come back to the rest.

What I'm trying to see in the first twenty seconds

When I open an executive PA CV for a client, I'm trying to build a picture of your working life, and three questions do most of the work. If your CV answers them I can see you, and if it doesn't I'm guessing, which matters because when I'm guessing on behalf of a client I guess cautiously.

1. Who, and how senior? I want one principal and I want to know how big the thing they run is, so a line like "Executive PA to the Chief Executive of a 600-person housing association" answers it immediately, whereas "Executive PA" on its own tells me nothing and leaves me assuming the smaller job.
2. How much is in your hands? What you decide, approve, decline or send without checking with anyone is what tells me how capable you are and how much of the principal's world you're trusted with, far more than the title ever could, and it's also the question most executive PA CVs leave completely unanswered, usually because nobody ever told the writer it mattered.
3. What's the private element? A lot of executive PA roles carry the principal's private life as well as the business, from the family's travel to the house, the accountant and the school run, and if you do that work it belongs on your CV. You'd be amazed how many people leave it off out of discretion, which I understand completely, but written properly it's the strongest evidence of trust you've got, and I'll come back to how to write it safely.

Answer all three in the first half of page one, with a figure or a real example on each, and I can see your world, whereas if you answer none of them all I can see is a diary. I've watched excellent executive PAs miss shortlists for exactly this reason, and of everything in this guide it's the most fixable.

The profile: three sentences, in your own voice

The profile is the short paragraph at the top of your CV, and most people fill it with adjectives because that's what every template suggests, so I'd ask you to do something different and write three plain sentences in the first person, covering who you support and at what scale, what you're trusted with, and what you want next. Write it the way you'd tell me across a desk rather than the way a job advert would put it, because the difference is the whole point.

Here's why the second one works, and it comes down to the fact that only one person could have written it. I can see the chief executive, the housing association, the board and the family diary, and I can see the £3,000 signing limit, which tells me more about trust than the word "discreet" ever could. The first version could be pasted onto any CV in the pile, and honestly it usually has been, because adjectives don't tell me anything when I can't check them, whereas figures and real detail let me picture you, and picturing you is what gets you the call.

Key achievements before experience

A key achievements section is a short list that sits straight after your profile and before your first job, with four to six lines that each carry a figure and each describe something that changed because of you. If you've never had one, this is the section that will bring your CV to life fastest, because it puts what you've done in front of what you do, and most templates don't include it, which is exactly why it stands out when yours does.

• Moved the board pack from the night before to five working days ahead, six meetings a year, with no late paper in three years.
• Rebuilt the chief executive's travel to a single agency on negotiated rates, saving about £8,000 a year across roughly 50 trips.
• Ran the 2024 annual conference for 300 staff on a £45,000 budget, delivered £2,000 under.
• Took the chief executive's private diary, two houses and the family's travel in-house from an outside concierge, saving the fee and cutting the mistakes to none.
• Covered the executive office through a four-month vacancy in the chief of staff role, holding the executive team's weekly agenda and actions.

If you're reading those and thinking you don't have five of your own, I'd gently say that you almost certainly do, because nobody has ever asked you for them and the job doesn't leave much time for noticing your own work. Think about what hasn't gone wrong since you arrived, what costs less, what happens faster, what you covered and what you built, and you'll find the figures are already in the job. The achievements guide has twenty more examples and the questions that dig yours out.

Your current role: the executive's office, in your words

Your current role should take the most space on the CV, because it's the job you're being hired on and everything else is history, so open it with one line that sets the scene and tells me what kind of principal this is, and then group the bullets under a few headings. Grouping matters more than people think, because a hiring manager looking for board experience or budget holding will find it in a second instead of reading every line, and they're always grateful for that.

Every line there carries a figure or a decision, and not one of them says "responsible for", which is the single most common opener on the CVs I read and tells me only that the writer was handed a job description rather than that they did anything with it.

Private support: how to write it without breaching anyone's privacy

This is the part people worry about most, so let me be clear about the rule, which is that you never name the family, the houses, the schools or the advisers, and instead you describe the work by its shape and its scale. Lines like "the family's travel, about 12 trips a year", "two properties and their contractors" or "the children's school diary and activities" are enough for me to see that you've done the job and that you know how to keep it private, and that discretion is precisely the quality the next principal is paying for. Leaving it off altogether is the kindest-hearted mistake I see on these CVs, and it hides your best evidence.

The mistakes that cost executive PAs the shortlist

• No principal, no world. When a CV says "Executive PA" with no mention of who you support, what the business does or how big it is, I can't picture the job, so I can't picture you in it either.
• No decisions. When every line starts "Managing", "Coordinating" or "Assisting" and not one says what you decided on your own, I'm left without the thing my clients are actually hiring for, which is trust, so show me where it's been given.
• Private work left off. It's usually left off out of discretion, which I respect, but written by shape and scale it's the strongest evidence of trust on the page.
• The last two years squeezed into one line. I see this when someone has been in a role a long time and feels there's nothing new to say, and there always is, because the job you're doing now is the one you're being hired on.
• A skills list with no context. "Diary management, travel, minute taking, Microsoft Office" is a list of nouns that every CV has, so it tells me nothing about your level, whereas a line like "Diary management: about 40 meetings a week across two offices" tells me exactly where you are. Keep the section and give each skill its scale, and the skills guide shows how.

A full executive PA CV example

Margaret Okafor isn't a real person but a composite of executive PAs I've placed, and every figure on the page is the kind of figure a real CV should carry. I'd read it once the way a recruiter would, quickly, and notice how much you know about her by the end of the first ten lines.

If you'd like the same structure to fill in, the free Word template has it with a note in every section on what belongs there, and if you'd like to know where yours stands first, the free checker marks it out of 100 against this standard in about ten seconds and tells you the three things to fix before anything else. Put yours beside Margaret's, be honest with yourself about the gaps, and then go and find your figures, because they're already in the job and you're more than capable of writing them down.

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