Executive assistant CV guides · by Lily Shippen, EA recruiter

How an executive assistant CV is marked: my method, written down

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 asked many times what I'm actually looking for when I read an executive assistant CV, usually by someone who's just been turned down and can't see why, and this page is the full answer. It's the method I use when I shortlist, written down as a scoring rubric so it can be applied the same way to every CV, whether by the free checker, by Margot when she marks a finished CV, or by you with a pen, and nothing here is a secret, because the whole point is that you can see the standard before you're measured against it, which is more than most recruiters will ever give you.

Why five dimensions and not one score

A single mark tells you a CV is weak without telling you why, and the why is different for almost every CV I read, because some are beautifully formatted and completely anonymous, some are full of personality and carry no evidence, and some show real authority in the third paragraph of page two where nobody will ever find it. Five dimensions marked separately tell you which of those problems you've got, and each one has a different fix.

The dimensions are marked out of 20 each, and the checker is deliberately tough because I am, so a score above 15 on any one of them has to be earned and the notes say what would move it.

Personality: could this belong to anyone?

The question is whether I could tell you apart from the next applicant, and a profile that would still be true with someone else's name on it scores under six however polished it is, because third-person profiles, lists of adjectives and phrases that appear on thousands of CVs (highly organised, proactive, excellent communication skills, fast-paced) all pull this down, since they carry no information about you.

What earns points is a first-person profile that says who you support, at what scale and what you're trusted with, a thread that runs through your career, interests that say something ("ran my first ultramarathon in 2025" rather than "running"), and specific trust earned that could only be yours.

Proof: what's the evidence?

The checker counts the bullets that carry a figure or a stated result against the ones that don't, where a figure is a budget, a headcount, a percentage, a volume or a timescale and a result is what changed because of you, so a CV where most bullets are figure-free scores under eight here, and "responsible for" and "duties included" pull it down further because they describe a job rather than what you did in it.

What earns points is figures on most lines, and rough figures beat no figures, because "Ran 14 events a year to £120,000 budgets" is proof whereas "Responsible for events" is a duty, and the achievements guide has twenty examples and the questions that find yours.

Content: the right things in the right order

This means what you've done before what you do, the most recent role given the most space because it's read first and hardest, authority made explicit through spend limits, what reaches your executive and what doesn't and the decisions you take without asking, the reason you moved between roles stated positively, a key achievements section that carries real outcomes rather than responsibilities dressed up, and a skills section where each line carries its scale rather than a shopping list.

What loses points is a role from ten years ago given as much space as the current one, a key achievements section that duplicates the role bullets, a functional CV that hides the job titles, and the strongest line on the page buried on page two, and the section by section guide is the order that scores.

Trust: how much were you given?

This is the dimension most EAs underscore themselves on, because they don't write down the things they were trusted with, either because it feels like boasting or because it feels so normal that it isn't worth mentioning. The checker looks for decisions made without asking, meetings sat in on the executive's behalf, access to confidential matters, things built or fixed that outlasted you, and people who relied on you first, and it measures trust earned rather than job title, so a team assistant who approves supplier invoices on her own authority can score higher here than an EA to a chief executive whose CV never says what she decides.

What earns points is lines like "approve spend to £5,000 on my own authority", "decline meetings in the CEO's name", "held the Series B and C data rooms" and "built the onboarding programme now used for every director", and the CEO's assistant guide is largely about this dimension.

Format: can it be read in eight seconds?

By a person and by software, which means a single column, standard headings, no tables, text boxes or graphics, contact details with LinkedIn at the top, and a length that follows the content rather than a page count, and the checker also marks grammar and tense, looking for the present tense in the current role, the past tense in earlier ones, no mixing within a role and no spelling slips. It judges only what can be inferred from the text, so it can't see your typeface, but it can see a CV that opens with a skills table.

What loses points is two columns, a headshot, skills bars and a tense that changes halfway through a role, and the template guide has the rules that keep a CV readable by the software employers use to store applications.

Why a first draft lands between 30 and 45

Almost every CV I receive from a capable EA lands in this range, and I want to be clear that it isn't because the EA is weak but because the CV was written as a record of duties rather than as a description of the person. The profile could belong to anyone, which gives personality four or five, the bullets describe tasks without figures, which gives proof five to eight, the order is chronological rather than persuasive, which gives content eight to ten, the authority is real but never stated, which gives trust six to nine, and the format is usually fine, which gives twelve to fifteen, and when you add those up you get the thirties and forties, which is a page problem rather than a career problem.

The move to 75 and above isn't a rewrite of the person but figures on the lines, authority stated, achievements pulled to the top and a profile that could only be theirs, which is what the interview does one question at a time, and what I'd do if I sat beside you for an afternoon.

What Margot does with the score

When Margot finishes a CV she marks it with this same rubric, and before that she does two things I'd do before sending a CV to a client, which are checking every figure with you, because every number on the page will be tested at interview and I put my name to nothing you wouldn't say out loud, and then doing a desk check for the phrases and tells that read as machine-written or as filler and correcting them. If the CV marks under 80 she names the weakest dimension, asks the questions that would lift it, tightens lines herself and marks it again, and she keeps going for up to three more rounds until it reaches 80 at no further cost, which the service page explains in full.

The special cases

• Career changers with no EA title are read generously, because that's how I read them, so coordination, managing access to senior people, budgets and senior stakeholder support in any role all count, and the checker never marks anyone down for lacking the title.
• Chiefs of staff and very senior assistants are marked against the standard of the role they hold, in the language of that role.
• Long CVs are never penalised for their length, only for lines that don't earn their place, because I don't believe it's about page count and the scorer is built the same way.
• Gaps are never penalised, and an unexplained long gap earns nothing more than a note suggesting a plain sentence of explanation.
• Scores above 90 are told the truth, which is that the job now is keeping the CV that good as the career happens rather than buying a rewrite.

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