A carpenter CV is not read the way an office CV is read. Nobody is scanning it for leadership synergy. The person holding it is usually a site manager, a contracts manager, or a small firm's owner who is short a pair of hands on Monday and wants to know three things before he finishes his tea: what you can actually build, whether you have the tickets to walk through the gate, and whether you will still be there in week six.
That is the whole brief. Everything on the page either answers one of those three questions or takes up space a project line could have used.
Why the standard CV template fails trades
Most free CV templates were built for graduates. Personal statement full of words like "passionate" and "detail-oriented", big education block, thin experience section, hobbies. Run a carpenter CV through that structure and the reader has to hunt for the CSCS card and the machine experience.
Flip it. On a carpenter resume the evidence goes first: skills, cards and certifications, then project types with real detail. The personal statement, if you keep one at all, is three lines and it is specific.
There is a second problem. Trades hiring is fast and informal. Your CV gets photographed and sent on WhatsApp, opened on a phone in a site cabin, or printed on a grubby office printer. Design for that: one column, no sidebars, no skill bars, no icons, black on white, 11pt, PDF. A two-column template with a dark sidebar loses half its content in draft printing, and the half it loses is usually the one holding your certifications.
Get your job title right before anything else
Carpentry is not one job. A firm hiring a formwork carpenter for a groundworks package and a firm hiring a bench joiner for a shopfitting workshop want almost no overlapping skills. If your CV just says "Carpenter" at the top, you are asking the reader to figure out which one you are. Name it precisely under your name:
- Site carpenter (first and second fix) - domestic and light commercial
- Formwork and shuttering carpenter - RC frame
- Bench joiner - staircases, doors, purpose-made joinery
- Cabinetmaker - fitted furniture and veneered casework
- Shopfitter - retail rollouts and fit-out
- Carpenter and roofer - cut roofs and trussed roofs
If you genuinely do two of these, put both, but put the one you want to be hired for first. A CV that claims everything reads as a CV that has mastered nothing.
The header: make yourself easy to phone
Name. Trade title. Mobile number. Email. Town and how far you travel. That is it.
The travel radius matters more than people think. "Leeds, will travel 40 miles, own transport and tools" answers a question the reader was about to ask, and quietly tells him you have a van. If you will work away, say so, because away work pays better and the firms that need it are always short: "Available for away work, Mon-Fri, lodge or digs".
Do not put your full postal address, your date of birth, or a photo. Do put your right-to-work status if it is not obvious, and your UTR number if you work self-employed through CIS. It saves a phone call.
Cards, tickets and certifications go near the top
This is the block that decides whether you get through the gate, so it belongs on page one, high up, in a list the reader can scan in four seconds. Every item gets an expiry date where it has one. A card that expired eight months ago is worse than no card, because it makes the reader wonder what else on the page is out of date.
Things that belong here, depending on where you work and what you do:
- CSCS card - state the actual card. Blue Skilled Worker, Gold Advanced Craft, Gold Supervisor. "CSCS" on its own tells the reader nothing.
- NVQ Level 2 or Level 3 in Site Carpentry or Bench Joinery, with the year
- SSSTS or SMSTS if you have supervised
- IPAF 3a and 3b for scissor and boom lifts, with expiry
- PASMA for mobile towers, and abrasive wheels
- Asbestos awareness, and non-licensed work training if you have it
- First aid at work, manual handling, working at height and harness use
- Fire door installation certification, which is now worth real money on the day rate
- Manufacturer training: kitchen ranges, ironmongery systems, specific CNC machine or software training
Newly qualified readers, this is your leverage. You may only have your apprenticeship and a few months on site, but if you turn up with a valid CSCS card, an IPAF ticket and asbestos awareness already done, you cost the firm less than a lad they must book on three courses. Say it plainly and put the certifications above your short work history.
The skills block: be concrete or leave it out
The worst section on most carpenter CVs is a skills list that says "hardworking, reliable, good team player, attention to detail". Every CV says that. It is unfalsifiable and it costs you a third of your page. Replace it with what you can actually do, in the language of the trade, grouped so a reader can find the bit he cares about.
First fix: floor joists and engineered joist systems, stud partitions including metal stud, roof carcassing, cut and trussed roofs, dormers, door linings, firring and noggins, timber frame erection, structural sheathing.
Second fix: hanging doors including fire doors to FD30 and FD60, architrave and skirting with scribed internal corners, staircase fitting and balustrade, ironmongery, kitchen and bedroom fitting, worktop jointing in solid surface and laminate, boxing, loft hatches, cladding.
Workshop: setting out from drawings and rods, hand-cut mortice and tenon, dovetails, staircase setting out including winders, spindle moulder, thicknesser and planer, panel saw, edgebander, spray finishing, CNC nesting and basic CAD/CAM, veneering and lipping.
Site skills: reading architectural and joinery drawings, working from setting-out points and datum lines, RAMS, snagging and handover, ordering and take-offs, supervising apprentices and labourers.
That block does two things. It gets you past keyword filters at the bigger contractors and agencies, and it tells a human reader immediately whether you are a site carpenter or a bench man.
Experience: write projects, not job descriptions
Here is the single biggest upgrade you can make to a carpenter CV. Stop writing what the job involved. Start writing what you built, where, how big, and to what standard.
Weak: "Responsible for carrying out carpentry duties on site as required, working as part of a team and following health and safety procedures."
Strong: "Second fix carpenter on a 48-unit apartment scheme in Salford - hung 190 fire doors to FD30 with intumescent strips and cold smoke seals, fitted skirting, architrave and ironmongery throughout, all doors passed third-party inspection with 4 snags across the block."
The second one is not longer by much. It is just made of facts.
Structure each role like this: firm name, your title, dates by month and year, one line on what the firm does and the typical size of project, then three to six bullets of actual work with numbers in them. Example lines you can adapt:
- Hung and adjusted 240 internal doors and 60 fire doors across a three-block student scheme, keeping to a 22-door-per-week programme
- Set out and cut a traditional roof over a two-storey rear extension - 45 degree pitch, hips and valleys cut on site, no truss work
- Fitted 34 kitchens to developer spec including worktop jointing, appliance housings and cornice, zero call-backs over the handover period
- Erected wall and soffit formwork for two lift cores to 14 metres, working to a 5-day-per-floor cycle
- Made and installed a curved reception desk in American oak veneer, 6.2 metres on plan, templated on site
- Supervised two apprentices and a labourer on second fix, ran the door and ironmongery schedule, signed off snagging with the site manager
Numbers do the persuading. Units, doors, metres, storeys, weeks, call-backs, snags. If you do not have exact figures, honest approximations work - "around 30 kitchens" is fine and nobody will audit it. What is not fine is having no scale at all.
Handling gaps, agency work and self-employment
Trades CVs are lumpy. Everyone knows this. A year of agency work across nine sites, a stretch on the tools for a mate's firm, six months out with a shoulder injury. Do not hide it with vague year-only dates - experienced readers spot that instantly and assume the worst.
For agency work, group it. One heading: "Freelance / agency carpenter, various contractors, March 2021 to August 2023", then bullets by project rather than by employer. It reads better and it hides nothing.
For self-employment, describe the work by type and value: "Self-employed carpenter and joiner, 2019 to present - domestic extensions, loft conversions and fitted furniture, typical project value 4k to 30k, working direct for homeowners and as a subcontractor for two local builders."
For gaps, one plain line. "Out of work following shoulder surgery, June to November 2022, returned to full duties." Complete, honest, and it ends the question.
Tools, transport and the practical stuff
Put a short block at the end. It matters more than a hobbies section ever will.
- Own transport: van, clean licence, or note the points honestly if asked
- Full set of hand and power tools - track saw, planer thicknesser, mitre saw and stand, nail guns and compressor, router and jigs, laser level, SDS
- Can supply own PPE
- CIS registered and UTR available, or PAYE preference
- References available - and if you can, name two with job titles
If you have a workshop, van racking, or a trailer, say so. Small firms notice.
Newly qualified and apprentice CVs
If you finished your apprenticeship six months ago you cannot write about 240 doors. You do not need to. Write about the work you did do, in detail, and about what you can be trusted with unsupervised.
- Lead with the qualification and the cards: NVQ Level 2 Site Carpentry, City and Guilds, plus CSCS Blue Skilled Worker card
- Then a real projects section, even from your apprenticeship. Name the sites, name the work: "Worked alongside two carpenters on a nine-plot housing site - first fix joists and studwork, then second fix skirting, architrave and doors across six plots"
- Add a college or workshop section if it shows skill: hand-cut joints, a staircase project, a roofing exercise
- Say what you can do alone. "Confident hanging doors, fitting skirting and architrave and setting out studwork without supervision. Still building speed on staircases and cut roofs." That honesty reads as trustworthy, not weak
- Mention relevant non-carpentry work. A summer labouring means you know how a site runs
Nobody expects a new carpenter to be quick. They expect him to turn up, ask before he cuts, and not waste materials. Write a CV that suggests all three.
Layout, length and file format
Two pages. One if you are early in your career. Three only if you are a supervisor with a long project list, and even then, trim it.
Save as PDF and name the file properly. "James Doyle - Site Carpenter CV.pdf", not "cv final final2.pdf". The reader may have thirty of these in a folder.
Match the trade title on your CV to the words in the advert. If the advert says "shuttering carpenter" and you call yourself a formwork carpenter, use the advert's word for that application. Ten seconds of work, and it doubles the chance a recruiter's search finds you.
Proofread the trade terms. "Architrave", "mortice", "intumescent", "soffit". Getting those wrong on a joiner's CV is like a chef misspelling julienne - the reader notices and quietly downgrades you.
A quick check before you send it
Read your CV as though you are the site manager. Can you tell in ten seconds what this person builds? Are the cards valid and dated? Is there at least one number in every job? Would you know which gang to put him in on Monday morning?
If the answer to all four is yes, send it. If the answer to any is no, the fix is almost always the same: take out an adjective, put in a project.