Entrepreneur CV examples to help you build yours

Entrepreneurs define their own career destiny. How do you create a CV that shows this?

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Table of Contents

  1. What to highlight in an entrepreneur CV
  2. The structure of an entrepreneur CV
  3. Do’s and don’ts for an Entrepreneur CV
  4. FAQ: Entrepreneur CVs

What to highlight in an entrepreneur CV

Whether you’re running a small business, startup, or making business plans to run an empire, you’ll need a CV that highlights your best entrepreneur features. As a business owner, you’ll need to show in your CV that you can handle all elements of business, from managing team members to budgeting and strategic planning.

The structure of an entrepreneur CV

The structure of your entrepreneur CV will depend on how much experience you have, your skills, and previous job titles, such as whether you have experience in roles like operations management, business management, and other development roles.

In this case, you can use a chronological CV. If you don’t have much experience but lots of skills, then you can use a functional format. If you have both, then a combination CV is for you!

Regardless of the CV format you choose, the perfect CV will have sections dedicated to work history, skills and education.

Header

The header section is the first part of a CV, and contains contact information such as your name, address, phone number, and email address. You need to include this information so the hiring manager or recruiter can contact you with updates about your progress.

As an entrepreneur, networking is very important. To show off your networking experience, you can include a link to any professional portfolio pages you have, such as your LinkedIn profile. This is a great way of giving the hiring manager or recruiter more information.

Professional Summary or career objective

Including a professional summary or a career objective with your CV is an opportunity to summarize and spotlight your valuable qualities. But which one – a professional summary or a career objective – is right for you?

Both should be structured as a two- to three-sentence summary, from 30-60 words, located at the top of your CV. Use it to craft a brief overview of your skills and work experience, plus a personal introduction that is relevant to both the role and the company to which you are applying. Entrepreneurs specifically should highlight achievements, small business ventures, certificates and the like.

A professional summary is best if you:

  • Have a good amount of professional experience apropos to the job description
  • Are not pursuing a career change with this specific job application
  • Have career highlights and skills specific to the job description.

Do not use this section to outline your goals or to communicate what you want to accomplish with your CV. If you feel as though you should include goals and objectives, consider writing a career objective instead.

A career objective is best if you:

  • Have no experience, or less than two years experience in the role for which you are applying.
  • If you have recently received your GCSE certifications, completed university, and are looking for your first job or internship.
  • Are pursuing a career change.

A career objective should read like a professional summary, but also include your goals and what you’re wanting to accomplish with your CV.

Skills

Great entrepreneur CVs will show off the necessary entrepreneur skills to handle different aspects of business development. You should include a mixture of hard skills and soft skills for the perfect business owner CV. Hard skills are role-specific and soft skills are intangible abilities that are transferable across many industries. Consider using these bullet points to help you create this section:

  • Leadership skills
  • Project management
  • Customer satisfaction
  • Business planning
  • Budgeting
  • Creativity
  • Multitasking
  • Strategic planning
  • Using initiative
  • Interpersonal skills
  • Microsoft Office
  • Problem-solving

For inspiration, study the job posting and associated job description. This can help you pick out the best entrepreneurship skills to include in your skills section.

Work history

As an entrepreneur, your work experience section is an important measurement of your success as a business owner. Employers might be interested in how successful you’ve been in previous entrepreneur positions, so including this information is important.

Feature work experience from the last 10 to 15 years that’s relevant to the role. You should also include your employer’s details or your company details such as company name, location, and your dates of employment.

Consider listing this information in reverse chronological order, starting from the most recent example. This provides the hiring manager or recruiter with the most up-to-date information.

You can also include measurable information like business statistics as a result of your work. This might impress a hiring manager and allow them to assess your value as a candidate.

Education

The education section might be an important part of a CV depending on the industry or market an entrepreneur is targeting. In this section, you should include information like degree title, school name, and any notable coursework or academic honours. For example, some entrepreneurs may have bachelor’s degrees in business management or a related field like business administration. Including this information might show you have the correct industry knowledge to carry out entrepreneurial tasks.

Do’s and don’ts for an Entrepreneur CV

Do:

  • Use a CV template. This can help give your CV a structure, professional fonts and a professional look.
  • Study the job posting. This can help you pick out the best skills to include in your CV.
  • Use our CV builder. You can create a clear professional CV with total ease!

Don’t:

  • Include unnecessary information such as unrelated employment experience. This can clutter your CV and lose a recruiter’s interest.
  • Forget to proofread your final CV. Bad spelling or grammar errors are a bad look.
  • Include your GCSE certificates. This is unnecessary information.

FAQ: Entrepreneur CVs

Q: Do I need to include a cover letter?

Yes! Cover letters are a great way to market yourself and give the hiring manager or recruiter more in-depth information about your skills. You can further explain why you’re an ideal candidate and talk about your business management experience in greater detail.

Q: What is the difference between an entrepreneur and an employee?

Employees are people who work for a salary or compensation of some sort. Entrepreneurs are people who own businesses and take on financial risk in return for a profit.

Q: How do I change my CV to apply to different jobs?

If you’re applying for different jobs, then you should change your CV for each application. To do this, include role-specific keywords based on what you see in the job description to help you pass applicant tracking systems (ATS) that scan CVs, and feature work experience and skills information that are specific to the job.

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