CV & Cover Letters

Lead with what the role needs

A hiring panel reads your CV against the advert, not in the abstract. Pull the required cadre, registration, years of experience and any special skills straight out of the listing and make sure each one is visible within the first half page.

• Match the job title wording where it is honest to do so.
• Put registration and licence status near the top — it is the first thing clinical employers check.
• Name your current or most recent facility and your role there.

Keep it skimmable

Two to three pages is plenty for most clinical roles. Use short bullet points, plain headings and consistent dates (month and year). Recruiters screening dozens of applications will not read paragraphs.

• Bullets, not paragraphs, for duties and achievements.
• Quantify where you can: patient load, team size, theatre lists, outreach numbers.
• Reverse chronological order, no unexplained gaps left ambiguous.

Cover letters that earn the interview

Three short paragraphs: why this organization, why you specifically, and what you would do in the first few months. Address it to a person if the advert names one. If the listing asks you to apply through a form or email with a subject line, follow that instruction exactly.

• Never send the same letter to two employers — the name always shows.
• If you are changing cadre or returning to practice, explain the transition in one sentence and move on.
• Close with your availability and how to reach you.

Format and file hygiene

Send PDF unless the advert asks for Word. Name files clearly — Firstname-Lastname-CV.pdf beats cv-final-2.pdf. If a document is requested in a particular format or naming convention, that is a test of whether you read instructions.