Executive assistant CV guides · by Lily Shippen, EA recruiter

How to write an executive assistant CV: my method, section by section

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 shortlisted executive assistants for thirteen years, and I'd like to tell you what actually happens when your CV lands in front of me, because I'm not looking for the best design or the longest list of duties but trying to picture you as a specific person in a specific office, trusted with specific things. If I can see you by the end of page one you're on the list, and if all I can see is a job description I move on, however good you might be, so everything below is in service of that picture.

The order that works, and why

1. Name, title line and contact details, with LinkedIn
2. Profile
3. Key achievements
4. Experience, most recent role first and largest
5. Awards, if you have two or more; otherwise they sit after experience
6. Professional development
7. Skills, with context, and the systems you use
8. Education
9. Interests, with evidence

Achievements come before experience because I read the top third of page one and decide whether to keep reading, which isn't laziness so much as two hundred CVs and a client waiting, so put your evidence where I'll see it. The template page shows this structure laid out with the spacing and headings that keep it readable by the software employers use to store CVs.

1. The header

Your name, a title line that says what you are and for whom, such as "Executive Assistant to CEO · Financial Services", and then one line of contact details with location, phone, email and LinkedIn, but no home address, no photo and no date of birth. I look for your LinkedIn within minutes of liking a CV, so make sure the two say the same things.

2. The profile

This is the short paragraph at the top, and it's the one most people fill with adjectives, so I'd ask you to write three or four sentences in the first person instead, covering who you support and at what scale, what you're trusted to decide and the one thing that's been true of every role you've held. Then cover your name and read it back, and if it could belong to anyone else, keep going, because I've written five worked examples in the profile guide, each with a note on why it works.

3. Key achievements

This is a short list of four to six lines straight after the profile, where each one is a single sentence of 18 to 32 words that begins with what you did, whether Rebuilt, Renegotiated, Ran or Held, and carries at least one figure such as a budget, a headcount, a percentage, a timescale or a volume, chosen for the role you want next rather than the job you had first.

A key achievements section earns its place only if the lines are achievements, because if they're duties dressed up the section works against you by promising evidence and delivering adjectives, and if an achievement also appears as a bullet under a role, cut it from the role rather than from here. If you're stuck for lines, the achievements guide has twenty examples and the questions that dig yours out.

4. Experience

Your current role gets the most space, because it's the job you're being hired on and it's read first and hardest, and under it I'd want three things.

• A one-line company description if the firm isn't a household name, saying what it does, how big it is and where, because I place you faster when I can picture the environment and I can't always tell a 40-person boutique from a 4,000-person group by the name.
• A two-sentence summary of the remit, meaning who you support, across what, and what you're the first point of contact for.
• Six to eight bullets of what you actually do, each with scale, in the present tense for the current role and the past tense for earlier ones and never mixed within a role, such as "Manage a diary of 30 to 40 meetings a week across three time zones, with authority to decline and reprioritise without sign-off", grouped under two or three headings if there are more than six so that a reader looking for board work finds it in a second.

Earlier roles get a short paragraph each that also says why you moved, stated positively, followed by two or three bullets, with dates carrying month and year for anything in the last eight years and years alone being fine before that. If there's a gap of a year or more, one plain clause explaining it is better than a silence the interviewer will ask about anyway.

5. Awards

Two or more awards, nominations or shortlistings earn a section above your experience, because very few CVs can do that and it stops me, whereas one award sits after experience, and each line carries the year and the awarding body.

6. Professional development

Courses, memberships, networks, mentoring and training you've given as well as received all belong here, and the useful version of each line says what it changed, as in "Minute-taking course, 2023, after which I moved the firm to action-led minutes distributed within 24 hours", because a course on its own is a line whereas a course that changed how the office runs is evidence.

7. Skills, with context, and systems

I'd keep a skills section, and I'll read it as long as it tells me the level you work at, because "Diary management, travel, minute taking" is a shopping list that every CV has and it tells me nothing, whereas "Diary management: about 45 meetings a week across three offices, rebuilt weekly" tells me exactly where you are. Write five to eight lines like that, each a skill, a colon and the scale, and then one line of systems named exactly, such as Diligent Boards, Concur, Navan, Salesforce, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, with languages and their level, because the systems line is the one part of the CV written for the software as much as the person and it's where a client's "must have Concur" gets matched. The skills guide covers the eight skills I look for and how to write each one.

8. Education

This becomes optional past a certain point in your career and never belongs at the top, so give the place, the qualification and the dates, and if you left school at 18 and have twelve years of EA experience then two lines is plenty, because nobody is going to ask about your A levels.

9. Interests, with evidence

"Travel, yoga, reading" tells me nothing, whereas "Completed the Yorkshire Three Peaks in 2024, and school governor at a Manchester primary since 2022" brings a person to life in one line and I'll probably ask you about it, so give me two real things with the detail that makes them yours, or leave the section off entirely.

Formatting rules that keep it readable by people and software

• Keep it to a single column, because tables, text boxes and two-column layouts break the software that stores your CV and they break the reader too.
• Use standard headings such as Profile, Key Achievements, Experience, Skills, Systems and Education, because clever headings are unsearchable.
• Use real text throughout, with no headings as images and no icons for phone and email.
• Let the length follow the content, because I've never once shortlisted or rejected a CV on its page count, and what actually costs you is repetition and filler rather than a third page that earns its place.
• Use one typeface in two weights with generous spacing, because it should be readable in eight seconds by a tired hiring manager at the end of a long day, since that's who reads it.
• Send a PDF unless asked for Word, and keep a Word version that says exactly the same thing.

The checklist before you send it

1. Cover your name and ask whether the profile could belong to anyone else.
2. Count the bullets with a figure in them against the bullets without, because the first group should win.
3. Check that what you decide on your own is stated somewhere, whether a spend limit, a category you decline or a meeting you sit in for your executive.
4. Check that the current role takes more space than any other.
5. Check that every skills line carries its scale.
6. Check that the tenses are consistent within each role.
7. Check that the systems are named, exactly.
8. Look for a table, a text box or an icon anywhere, and remove it.
9. Check that your LinkedIn profile says the same things.

Or let the interview do it

Everything above is what I ask for across the desk in a screening call, and it's what Margot asks for on this site, because she's my interview written down, so you answer in your own words and she writes each line to this standard and typesets it in four templates. Before that, the free scorer marks your current CV on the same five things I shortlist on and shows you the three changes that would move it most, and if you'd like to see the finished standard first, here is a complete example and here is who sets it. Whichever route you take, go and find your figures first, because they're already in the job.

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