Format a client-ready CV in 30 seconds

The problem. A CV arrives as a Word file, a PDF, or something a candidate typed into an email. Before it goes to a client it needs your header, your fonts, the candidate’s contact details removed, and the dates in your order. Timings vary, but 8 to 15 minutes a CV is a fair range. We use 12 below.

What it costs a 15-person desk

Illustrative figures. £30 an hour is a cautious loaded cost for a UK consultant on around £35k base plus commission, NI and pension.

That figure is saved time only. It doesn’t assume a single extra placement.

What you need

• Your CV template, as a Word document.
• An AI assistant your firm already pays for.
• Twenty minutes to write the instructions once.

Step one: write the rules down

Open your template and write out what has to be true every time: which sections appear, in what order, what gets removed, how dates are written. Most firms have never written this down, which is exactly why every consultant does it differently.

Step two: test it on five real CVs

Not one. Five, chosen to be awkward: a two-page PDF, a scan, something from a job board, a contractor’s ten-page history, and one written in the third person. What breaks here is what you fix in the instructions.

Step three: put it where the work happens

If the consultant has to open another tool, they won’t use it. It belongs in the CRM, or in the folder where CVs already land. Done well, 12 minutes of rebuilding becomes about 30 seconds of checking.

What this doesn’t do

It doesn’t decide whether a candidate is any good, and it shouldn’t. A consultant still reads the CV and approves it before it goes out. The time saved is in the rebuilding, not the judgement.

When it isn’t worth doing

If your desk sends candidates’ own CVs unchanged, or submits fewer than five a week per consultant, the saving is small and we’d tell you to leave it alone. The same goes for firms about to change CRM: fix it once, after the move.