What to put in a profile when there is no CV to write

A CV is a document about you that a stranger has to read before they can compare you with anybody. It is slow to write, slower to update, and the moment it is sent it stops being current.

Covers does not use one. You fill in fields instead, once, and they are what an employer searches. Which changes what is worth putting effort into.

What is actually searched

Three things on your profile are indexed and can bring an employer to you: your role, your skills, and the job titles in your history. Nothing else is. That is worth knowing before you spend twenty minutes on a personal statement.

• Skills are the highest-value field on the whole profile, and the most often left empty. Each one is searchable on its own.
• Job titles in your history are searched too — so “Chef de Partie, larder” finds more than “Chef”.
• Qualifications are searched. Food hygiene levels, personal licence, first aid, allergen training.

What is stored but never searched

Your current employer is deliberately not searchable. Neither is your name, unless you have chosen to be fully visible. An employer cannot type the name of a restaurant and see who works there — that is the entire point of the anonymous setting, and it is enforced in the database rather than by a rule somebody might change.

Filling it in so it works

1. 1Put your real role in, not the one you want next. You can say what you are looking for separately, and the two doing different jobs is what makes matching work.
2. 2Add skills in the words your trade uses. Sections, butchery, pastry, wine service, allergens, stock, rotas. One per entry.
3. 3Rate them honestly. A 6 you can defend is worth more than a 9 you cannot, and an unrated skill reads as unrated rather than as low.
4. 4Fill in your history with dates. Years of experience are counted from the dates rather than claimed, so a filled-in history does the arguing for you.
5. 5Say what you will and will not do. Shifts, patterns, the longest journey you will make. Filters work both ways — being ruled out of a job you would have hated is a good outcome.

On references

You can add referees, and they are treated differently from everything else on your profile, because they are somebody else's details rather than yours. They are never searchable, they are never shown to a venue browsing candidates, and they are released only to an employer who has actually shortlisted you — not to everyone you apply to.

Ask the person first. There is a tick box saying you have, and it is not decoration: it is what the site checks before it will show anybody their number.

If you are signed in: fill in your profile