A dietitian CV gets read by people who check one thing before anything else: whether you can legally use the title in the job advert. Once that box is ticked, they want to know which settings you have worked in and what changed because you were there. This guide covers both, and it also shows nutritionists outside a statutory register how to present their work without overstating it.
Dietitian or nutritionist: get the title right first
In many countries the two words are not interchangeable, and a hiring manager in healthcare will notice if you blur them. The rules differ by country, so treat what follows as orientation and check the regulator where you plan to work.
- UK: "dietitian" is a protected title, and you need to be registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) to use it. "Nutritionist" is not protected by law, although voluntary registers exist and many employers ask for one.
- France: dieteticien is a regulated health profession that requires a recognised qualification and a listing in the national health professional directory (RPPS, formerly ADELI). "Nutritionniste" is usually used by doctors with a nutrition specialism, so check before you use it.
- Spain: dietista-nutricionista is a regulated health profession that normally requires a university degree, and many regions require membership of the professional college.
- Elsewhere: look up the national regulator or professional body. Some countries protect both titles, some protect neither.
The practical rule for your CV: use the title you are entitled to, exactly as the register spells it. If you hold a nutrition degree but are not on a dietetics register, call yourself a nutritionist and say which voluntary register you belong to, if any. A nutritionist resume that quietly borrows the word "dietitian" can end an application at the screening stage.
Put the registration line where it cannot be missed
For a regulated role, your registration sits under your name or in the first lines of the profile, not at the bottom of page two. Give the register, your registration number and your status. We have a separate guide on showing professional registration on a CV, so I will not repeat the formatting here.
Two cases worth flagging. If you are newly qualified and your application is still being processed, say so plainly ("HCPC registration applied for, expected March 2027") rather than leaving the line out. If you work across borders, list each registration separately and do not imply that one covers another.
Treat each setting as its own unit of experience
Dietetics is unusual because the same title covers very different jobs. A hiring manager in a hospital trust and a product developer at a food manufacturer are reading for different things. Group your experience by setting, then by role, so the reader finds their kind of work quickly.
Clinical
Wards, outpatient clinics, specialist services. Name the specialties (renal, oncology, paediatrics, diabetes, enteral feeding) and the type of caseload, inpatient or outpatient, adult or paediatric. Mention multidisciplinary work concretely: ward rounds you attended, the teams you reported into, the referral pathways you ran.
Community and public health
Health promotion programmes, primary care, schools, local authority projects. Here the unit of value is reach and delivery: how many sessions, which population, which partners. Group sessions and training other professionals belong here too.
Food industry
Product reformulation, labelling compliance, nutrition claims review, menu work for caterers. Recruiters in this sector care about regulatory knowledge and how you work with product and quality teams, so lead with that rather than clinical language.
Sport and private practice
Clubs, academies, your own clinic. If you run a private practice, treat it as a role: your client mix, referral sources, the services you offer, any partnerships. Sport nutrition work overlaps with coaching, and if you also hold fitness qualifications, our personal trainer CV guide covers that side; keep the dietetic work at the front here.
Outcomes without patient data
This is the part most dietitian CVs get wrong, in one of two directions. Either the entries are pure duty lists ("assessed patients, provided advice"), or they drift into case stories that a colleague could recognise. Neither helps.
What works is describing the shape of your work and the improvements you drove at service level:
- Caseload type and volume: "Outpatient caseload of around 25 adults a week, mainly type 2 diabetes and weight management."
- Programme reach: "Delivered a 6-week healthy eating course to 14 community groups."
- Audits and service changes: "Led an audit of nutrition screening completion on two surgical wards and rewrote the referral form with the nursing team."
- Guideline and menu work: "Reviewed the texture-modified menu against national guidance with the catering manager."
Keep any figure you use honest and approximate where you do not have the exact number. Never include initials, ages tied to conditions, dates of admission or anything else that could identify a person, even in a portfolio you attach.
Here is a short worked entry, with invented details:
Specialist Dietitian, Renal Service - Northfield General Hospital, 2023 to present
- Manage an outpatient haemodialysis caseload of about 60 adults across two satellite units
- Co-wrote the unit's phosphate education leaflet with the pharmacy team, now used at both sites
- Run a monthly teaching session on renal nutrition for newly qualified nurses
- Completed an audit of potassium review intervals and presented the findings at the regional renal network
Notice what it does not say: nothing about any one patient, and no claims about clinical results the dietitian cannot attribute to their own work.
Newly qualified versus experienced
If you have just qualified, your placements are your experience. List each one as a short entry with the setting, the specialty and one or two things you did yourself, such as running a clinic under supervision or completing an audit. Put your degree and dissertation topic near the top, and keep the profile to three lines that state your registration status and the settings you want.
If you have five or more years, compress the early roles to one line each and give the space to your current scope: supervision of students or junior staff, service development, any lead role. Band or grade changes are worth stating where they are commonly understood, as they are in many public health systems.
Healthcare CVs share a lot of structure, so if you want a comparison point, the nurse CV guide shows the same principle of registration first, settings second.
CPD that reads as more than a list
Most regulators expect continuing professional development, and employers look for it. A list of fifteen webinars says little. Pick the three or four pieces of learning that connect to the job you want, and add a half sentence on how you used each one: "Completed a dysphagia diet standards course; now train ward staff on texture levels." Put the full log in your portfolio, not on the CV.
Before you send it
Read the CV once as the hiring manager would. Can they confirm your title and registration in the first ten seconds? Can they see which settings you know? Does every bullet describe your contribution without pointing at a person? If your LinkedIn profile already holds most of this, Postulit can turn it into a first CV draft that you then tighten for the specific setting. Then match the specialties in your top section to the wording of the advert, and send it.