Why Work Experience Is the Heart of Your CV

The work experience section answers the one question every recruiter asks: what have you actually done, and at what scale? Even the strongest skills list loses to a credible, quantified work history. Most recruiters spend 60% of their review time on this section, so a weak work-experience block cannot be rescued by a strong summary. Treat it as the one part of the CV that has to be close to perfect.

Reverse-Chronological Is the Default

List your most recent role first and work backwards. This is what every ATS expects and what every recruiter is trained to skim. Functional CVs (grouped by skill instead of date) are a red flag in 2025 — recruiters assume you're hiding gaps or weak tenures. If you truly need to emphasise transferable skills, use a hybrid format: keep reverse-chronological dates but add a short skills-themed header above the experience section.

Header Formatting: Title, Company, Dates, Location

Each role gets a consistent header: job title (bold), company name, location, and dates (MM/YYYY – MM/YYYY). Optionally add a one-line company descriptor if the company is not globally known ("Klimio — Berlin-based climate-tech SaaS, Series B, 80 employees"). This context helps recruiters understand the scope of your role without googling. Keep the format identical across every entry.

The STAR Formula for Every Bullet

Use Situation / Task / Action / Result to structure bullets, but compress them into one line. Example: "Scaled the checkout API from 300 to 4,000 requests/second by introducing Redis caching, unblocking the Black Friday launch and recovering €1.2M in projected revenue." Situation (scaling challenge), Action (Redis caching), Result (revenue recovered). Five well-written STAR bullets outperform fifteen vague ones.

Start Every Bullet With a Strong Verb

Open bullets with action verbs: "Launched", "Built", "Led", "Reduced", "Scaled", "Automated", "Negotiated". Avoid weak openers: "Responsible for", "Helped with", "Worked on". The verb you choose signals ownership — "Drove" claims more credit than "Supported". Match the verb to your actual role so interviewers cannot puncture the claim: if you were a contributor, "contributed to" or "shipped" is stronger than over-claiming with "led".

Quantify Everything You Can

Numbers transform a bullet from forgettable to interview-worthy. Use: percentages ("reduced churn by 18%"), absolute figures ("handled €2M/year in ad spend"), scale ("across 14 markets"), throughput ("processed 1.2M events/day"), and team size ("mentored 6 engineers"). If you genuinely do not know a number, bracket an estimate and be ready to defend it. The absence of numbers makes a candidate blend in — specificity makes them remembered.

How Many Bullets per Role?

Scale bullets to role relevance and recency. Most recent role: 5–7 bullets. Roles from 3–7 years ago: 3–5 bullets. Older roles: 1–3 bullets. A 15-year-old unrelated role can collapse to a single line or move into an "Earlier career" summary. Bullet count should taper, not stay flat — this shape signals career progression visually, before the reader even parses the content.

Handling Promotions Within the Same Company

Group promotions under one company header, then sub-list each role with its own dates and bullets. Example: "Klimio, Berlin — 2020–present. Senior Product Manager (2023–present): [bullets]. Product Manager (2020–2023): [bullets]." This layout makes progression obvious and avoids repeating the company block. Recruiters read it as tenure + growth, two of the strongest hiring signals.

Explaining Short Stints and Gaps

A 7-month role is not disqualifying, but it draws attention. Add a brief parenthetical when the story is favourable: "(Role ended after company restructuring)" or "(Contract role, three-month scope)". For gaps, use explicit one-liners: "2022–2023: parental leave" or "2021: sabbatical — C1 German course, Goethe-Institut". Context neutralises the concern. Silence tends to amplify it.

Using Tech Stack and Tool References Sparingly

Tech recruiters skim for stack keywords. Instead of dropping them at the end of every bullet, add one line at the top of each role: "Stack: TypeScript, Next.js, PostgreSQL, AWS (Lambda, RDS), Terraform." Then keep bullets focused on outcome, not tools. This balances ATS keyword density with readable business-impact prose — the combination that scores well with both algorithms and humans.

Tailoring Experience to the Target Role

Re-read the job description before every application. Promote bullets that directly match — move them higher within each role, add a number if missing, and mirror the exact phrasing the posting uses. Demote or drop bullets that are irrelevant to the target. The same underlying role can be presented as "platform engineering" for one posting and "DevOps" for another without any dishonesty — you are simply picking which of your real achievements to surface.