How to write a data analyst CV: skills, projects and examples

A data analyst CV can be full of tool names and still say very little. A list of software tells a recruiter what you have heard of. It does not show whether you can spot a bad dataset, explain a result to someone who is not technical, or finish a piece of work people use. Those are the things the reader is trying to find out.

The structure that works is simple: a short profile, the technical skills you can demonstrate, a clear employment history, and two or three projects that show your part in the work. The Technical template in the CV maker uses that order with the main content in one column. The examples follow Alex Morgan, a fictional analyst. Use them as prompts for your own evidence, not as text to copy.

What a data analyst CV should show first

Your name, contact details and target role, followed by a profile that says what kind of analysis you do. Data Analyst is a good title when it describes your work or the job you are after. A row of ambitious labels makes the opening less clear, not more.

Next comes skills, but not as a catalogue. Choose the methods you could explain or show on request, then make sure the experience and projects below show where you used them. If you are moving into analysis from operations, you may already have evidence about checking data, building reports and explaining findings. Describe that honestly rather than pretending your old job had a different title.

Use the same form you already know

In the CV template gallery, choose Technical and then Use Technical. Add your contact details, profile, experience, education and skills as usual. The template changes the presentation and the default section order. There is no separate account or questionnaire, and switching templates keeps everything you have typed.

Projects, Training & Courses, Certifications & Licences and Languages are under the extra sections. Empty sections stay out of the download, and you can move sections up or down in the editor. The general guide to writing a CV covers the rest of the workflow: drafts, references and checking the file.

Write a profile with a clear focus

A good profile says what you work with and why it matters. Alex might write: Data analyst who turns service and sales data into practical reporting. Experienced in checking data quality, building repeatable reports and explaining findings to operations teams. That gives the rest of the CV a clear job.

If your experience comes from study, say so. A recent graduate might mention projects using public datasets and an interest in service analysis. Someone with years of reporting experience can describe the decisions their reports support. Skip claims like expert in all areas of analytics. Pick a focus that fits the vacancy and that your examples can back up.

Make skills readable without rating bars

Group related skills in plain words. Querying, data validation and spreadsheet modelling might sit on one line; reporting, dashboard design and presenting findings on another. Use the vacancy's terms where they accurately describe what you do. Do not add a method you have only read about.

Rating bars and stars make the reader guess what a level means. Four filled circles tells them nothing they can check. If your knowledge of something is introductory, name the course or project where you used it. A short list of skills you can demonstrate is more convincing than a long one with nothing behind it.

Start each project with the question

A project entry should open with the problem. Service performance dashboard is a topic, not a project. Say who needed the information, what they were trying to find out and what you did. Then describe the data, the checks and what you produced.

Alex might describe combining three reporting sources so team leads could see overdue work in one place. The interesting part is not that a dashboard exists. It is how differences between the sources were resolved, what was checked and how the result helped the people using it. If a project was personal or part of a course, label it that way. Do not suggest an employer used a demonstration unless they did.

Show how you checked the data

Data quality work often vanishes from a first draft even when it took most of the time. Describe the checks that changed how far the result could be trusted: duplicate records found, a missing value clarified, totals reconciled, a date format agreed before files were combined.

Write it so someone outside your old team can follow. Cleaned the data says nothing. Say what was wrong and what you did about it. If a limitation remained, mention it where it affected the conclusion. Good analysis does not pretend every dataset was complete, and a clear account of your checks shows judgement as well as technical skill.

Give your work history its own clear section

Enter the real job title, employer, location and dates. Use the details box for a few relevant contributions, one per line. For an analyst job, those might be a reporting process you ran, a recurring investigation, or how you helped a team understand a result.

Keep achievements with the role where they happened. If Alex cut manual checking time by a third, the CV should say what changed and how that was measured. If a number is uncertain, describe the change in words instead. With shared work, name your part without claiming the whole team's result. If your next analyst role includes leading people, the executive CV guide has more examples of turning responsibilities into evidence.

What a finished project entry looks like

Here is how Alex's reporting project might read as a CV entry, with the title, organisation and dates in their own fields and these lines in the details box:

Combined three service reports into one weekly view of overdue work for six team leads.

Found and removed duplicate job records caused by two systems logging the same visit, and agreed one date format with the data owners.

Wrote a one page note explaining what the view could and could not show, which the team leads used at their Monday review.

Each line says what was done and why it mattered, and nothing in it needs the reader to know the old workplace. There is no percentage because none was measured. If one had been, it would go in the line it belongs to, with enough context to explain it.

Choose projects that add something new

Two well explained projects say more than six with nearly identical titles. Pick examples that show different parts of the job: checking source data, investigating a question, explaining a result to people who are not analysts. Give each one enough room to show your decisions.

For a group project, say which part was yours and how it fitted into the whole. Add a portfolio link only if it opens correctly and you have permission to share what is there. Remove private records, credentials and client details from anything public. The written entry should make sense without the link; the link is extra evidence, not a substitute for a clear description.

Study, courses and certifications

Education can explain where your skills come from. Enter the qualification and institution exactly, with dates. Add a dissertation, module or major assignment when it supports the application. An experienced analyst can keep this short; someone applying for a first role may want more detail and a higher position on the page.

Courses go under Training & Courses and credentials under Certifications & Licences. Call a course a course; a completion certificate is not a professional licence. Check the issuing body and whether a credential is still current before describing it that way. If you are still studying, say so. Do not claim a local equivalent for an overseas qualification without solid grounds. The builder records what you enter; it does not assess equivalence for an employer.

Adjust the emphasis for the industry, not the facts

Industry context helps a reader see why a project matters. For a retail analyst role, bring forward work on demand, stock or sales. For property services, maintenance response times and repeat issues may matter more. For a professional services team, focus on workflow, capacity or client reporting where you have real experience.

You do not need a separate invented project for every industry. Shift the emphasis of a real example when the work supports it, and keep the dates, methods and results the same. If you have never worked in an industry, describe transferable skills without presenting a practice dataset as commercial experience.

CV or resume, and local expectations

The same document may be called a CV or a resume depending on the vacancy. The name alone does not settle the length, page size or file type. Read the employer's upload instructions, especially if the application form also asks you to type in your experience.

In Canada, leaving the photo out is the usual starting point. For the UK, the United States, Australia, Ireland and elsewhere, follow the actual instructions rather than a general rule. Give a phone number the employer can call and make your current city clear. Answer questions about qualifications or right to work accurately, and do not add private details just because another example did.

Check the reading order and the real file

In Review and download, open Preview the reading order. Your name, contact details and sections should come out in a sensible sequence. Check that a skill has not landed where a job title should be and that dates sit with the right entry. If content runs onto another page, look at the break instead of squeezing everything onto one.

Download the format the employer asks for. The PDF keeps the previewed layout and has selectable text. The Word file has editable paragraphs and may reflow in other software, so open both if you plan to use both. An online checker can point out some formatting risks, but it cannot speak for every recruitment system. Check the fields an application site fills in from your file and fix them there.

Final checks before you send it

Remove any example details, unused headings and claims you could not talk through in an interview. Read the contact details slowly and test any portfolio links. A friend who is not an analyst can still spot an unclear sentence. Ask them whether your contribution to each project is obvious.

Saving a job specific copy on your device is optional and the draft includes personal details, so take care on a shared computer. To check exactly what changed between two exported versions, open them in Compare PDF. When the evidence, the order and the file type are right, download the final version from the Technical CV builder.