How to Write an Impactful CV
A course for senior professionals who know their career story but have never had to write it down.
Most CV advice on the internet was not written with you in mind.
It assumes you are earlier in your career, applying to roles that come with a standard format, and that your biggest challenge is filling two pages. It tells you to use action verbs, quantify your achievements, and keep things concise. None of that is wrong, exactly. It is just not the problem you actually have.
Your problem is different. You have done a lot. Possibly several careers’ worth. The challenge is not finding enough to say, it is choosing what matters, structuring twenty years of complexity into three pages, and writing about your own impact in a way that does not feel like boasting or guessing.
I built this course to close that gap.
What makes a senior CV different
At director level and above, the person reading your CV is not checking boxes. They are forming a view. Within the first page, they decide whether to keep reading, and that decision rests on whether they can see, quickly and clearly, that you operate at the right level, in the right arena, with the right scale of experience behind you.
After thirty years in executive search, including time spent sitting beside hiring managers as they worked through shortlists, I know what that first page needs to contain, and what causes strong candidates to be passed over. It is rarely because their experience is wrong. It is because their CV never tells the reader what changed as a result of their being there.
Everything in this course comes from that vantage point. Not a generic guide to CV writing, but what I have actually watched happen in the rooms where decisions about senior appointments get made.
The system behind the course
I cannot sit beside every person who takes this course and ask the questions I would ask in a coaching session. So I built the next best thing: a set of four AI prompts that walk you through the same process I use with my one-to-one clients, in the same order.
Personal Profile helps you write the opening summary that decides whether anyone reads on.
The Experience Impact Model (EIM) is the framework at the centre of the course. It takes each role you have held and helps you draw out the Experience, the Impact, and the Meaning, so what you write describes what changed because you were there, not just what you were responsible for.
Skills in Action takes the outcomes you have just written and weaves the hard and soft skills behind them back into the sentence, so your CV demonstrates capability instead of listing traits.
ELEVATE is the model I use, line by line, in my one-to-one ELEVATE Review sessions. In the course, you get the same structure: a way to score your CV against a specific job description, locate the gaps, and strengthen the language, so you are not rebuilding the document from scratch every time you apply.
Each prompt is built to have an actual conversation with you, the way I would, rather than simply generating a paragraph. They ask follow-up questions. They push back when something sounds underpowered. And at every stage, the instruction is the same: read it back and ask whether it still sounds like you.
What the course covers
The course moves through eight modules, each building on the last, with the experience section at the centre of it.
Welcome. The Purpose of a CV. The Structure of a CV. From there you will write a career summary that introduces you with authority, using the same Personal Profile prompt I use in coaching, and then move into the heart of the course: Showcasing Your Experience, where the Experience Impact Model and the Skills in Action prompt do the real work of turning your history into evidence.
This is where most people spend the most time, and rightly so. It is also where the bonus material earns its place. Because a senior career rarely runs in a straight line, this module includes dedicated lessons on building a CV around multiple interim or contract roles, incorporating NED, trustee, or voluntary experience at the level it deserves, addressing career gaps without apology, and adapting your CV for a sector move. These are not afterthoughts. They reflect the actual shape of senior careers, and I have built specific guidance for each one because generic advice has never been much use to anyone navigating them.
Showcasing Your Education and Training comes next, followed by Tailoring Your CV for a Specific Role, where you will apply the ELEVATE model to a real opportunity. The course concludes with Final Review and Next Steps.
What you will have when you finish
By the end of the course, you will have a base CV that reflects your experience accurately and positions you for the level you are moving into. You will understand why it is structured the way it is, how to describe your contribution in terms that resonate with the people reading it, and how to tailor it for a specific role in a focused half hour rather than a dispiriting rewrite.
More than that, you will understand the method well enough to keep using it. You will not be guessing next time. You will know what belongs where, why, and how to adjust it as your career moves on.
You could pick this up on a Friday evening and, with the templates and prompts, have a significantly stronger CV by the weekend. The thinking is done. The tools do the heavy lifting
What is included
Eight modules of video teaching, each focused on a specific part of the CV
Downloadable templates for executive, NED, and contractor CVs
The Experience Impact Model, taught in full, with guided exercises
Four AI self-reflection prompts: Personal Profile, EIM, Skills in Action, and ELEVATE, built from the same questions I ask in coaching
Bonus modules for career transitions, interim and contract careers, governance roles, and career gaps
Lifetime access, including all future updates
Who this is for
This course was built for senior leaders writing a CV seriously, possibly for the first time in years, who want to do it properly.
It is particularly useful if you are stepping out of a long-term role, moving into a new sector, preparing for board or executive appointments, or simply aware that the CV you have does not do justice to the career you have built.
It also works well for anyone supporting a senior professional through a search: a mentor, a partner, or a parent helping a graduating child understand what a well-constructed CV looks like. The principles hold at every level, even if the examples in this course are pitched at yours.