5 tips for writing the best CV for the Czech job market

There’s no such thing as the perfect CV — one format does not fit all and different employers will have different standards by which they judge yours.

In Prague and the Czech Republic, for example, job seekers may find that larger international companies have differing CV expectations from Czech ones when it comes to how a candidate presents their application for employment.

Moreover, it’s been said that recruiters spend an average of six seconds scanning a CV, so the most important factor in all of this? Make yours concise and clear.

If you are a jobseeker from the US or other countries where a resume is more common than a CV, you should consider putting together the latter. While short and simple is the resume’s mantra, the CV wants to know a little more about you. The main differences between the two are in length and what is included. On a very basic level, a CV should include contact information, education, skills, and work experience, all structured in a way that allows you to highlight key achievements.

The functional CV covers your career history, skills abilities, and expertise. This is a good CV if you are looking to change careers and want to highlight transferable skills. A chronological CV, the more common among the two, also details your work history (in chronological order) as well as your educational background. Use this CV if you are staying in the same field and want to show career progression. 

When discussing your current and past job positions, give short detailed summaries written in bullet points, mentioning key achievements for each position.

Additionally, some Czech companies will want to see computer skills, personal interests, and driver’s license info. In the standard Czech CV, this information comes after education which follows work experience.

This is a bit of a controversial area. While job candidates in the Czech Republic are not required to provide any of this information even if asked for it (obviously there is a danger that doing so can lead to discriminatory hiring practices) the typical Czech CV includes it. For practical purposes, including your gender can also let a potential employer know how to address you in an e-mail (“Mr.” vs. “Ms.”) as Czechs tend to be very formal and most Czech names show gender.

The typical Czech CV also includes a degree title be given with your name. While this may seem strange to non-Czech applicants, especially if you have a Bachelor’s degree, it’s common practice here. Regarding references, it’s enough to mention that they are “available upon request”.

Templates and online CV builders can prove useful, especially if you are starting from scratch and want to save time creating a professional, industry-standard CV. On the other hand, it’s important to choose them wisely as many programs embed a watermark or other unwanted info on the final export.

A professional, industry-standard CV, our template includes all the relevant information about your professional and educational history that recruiters are looking for, and will be stored in our database, where our network of 800+ recruiters and employment agencies are constantly searching for new candidates.