Last updated: 28th Oct 2025
You’re so close to the top job – you can smell it. You’ve worked your entire life to get here. Becoming CEO has been a dream. A mission. A purpose.
But the competition is stiff.
You’re up against corporate assassins who spent the past three decades leading high-performance teams to success.
As have you.
But only one of you will get the CEO job.
Did You Know?
It’s not always the most qualified person who lands the CEO job. It’s the one who sells themselves best.
Your humble resume can make the difference between landing the CEO role or suffering a fate worse than death.
Like, for example, becoming a management consultant 😉 Or – worse – an executive search consultant.
Here’s an example of a CEO resume done well. It is likely to impress boards, hiring committees and even the odd executive resume writer 🙂
CEO Resume Example (Page 1/4).
Why does this page work well? Because it includes:
- White space. Notice how the abundance of white space makes the resume feel approachable – not intimidating.
- Logical flow. Subtle design cues guide your eye from the most important elements (name, title), throughout the document, to the very bottom.
- Name, job title (CEO, right?) and contact details. (Should you include your DOB?).
- Subheading that strongly hints at your value proposition. In the example above, James is clearly a turnaround CEO in the SaaS space.
- A 4-6 paragraph profile that offers deeper insight into your value proposition. Note how the example above avoids generic cliches like “results-driven” and “stakeholder management”. Instead, it focuses on the unique skills that allow James to restore companies to profitability.
- Employment summary that spotlights the last ~10 years of your working life. It gives the reader an “at a glance” view of your career progression. (Don’t list all of your roles here – just the last 3-4).
- Key achievements section spotlighting your “greatest hits” (remember to quantify them!). All of them must support your overarching value proposition.
CEO Resume Example (Page 2/4).
The second page presents you with an opportunity to showcase your achievements.
This is where you get to demonstrate the impact you’ve had on organisations you’ve led.
Important!
Contrary to conventional wisdom, this is the most important page of your resume.
A lot of executive recruiters will skip straight to it – because they’re used to the first page being packed with self-evident, mind-numbing fluff.
Here’s what you need to nail on the second page:
- Reverse chronological format. Ideal for a senior executive, the reverse-chronological resume format places your most relevant roles front and centre.
- Mandate. Why were you hired? Offer the reader as much commercial context as possible. What challenges was the company facing? What about economic/regulatory headwinds?
- Responsibilities. In our example above, we used a hybrid mandate that also offers insight into the CEO’s responsibilities. However, it’s acceptable to break out responsibilities in bullet point form.
- Action verb-driven achievements. A bad achievement says “grew the business by 13% in 2024”. Meanwhile an excellent achievement (see examples above) offers the reader insight into the “so what” of your actions. In other words, they demonstrate your impact.
CEO Resume Example (Page 3/4).
The third page of a CEO’s resume usually follows the tone set by the second page.
It showcases mandates, responsibilities and achievements further back in a CEO’s career.
Take care to:
- Keep the formatting consistent. Make sure subtle stylistic differences don’t creep in. Double-check the spacing between lines, paragraphs and sections.
- Ensure that the start and end dates of your roles match those on the front page. You’re expected to have strong attention to detail – and these errors are easy to miss.
Important!
It’s easier to preserve your formatting by saving your resume as a PDF, but some recruiters still prefer Word/text format. Make sure you choose a template that’s simple enough to work for either scenario.
CEO Resume Example (Page 4/4).
This is where you usually wrap things up. The fourth page of a CEO’s resume usually contains spillover content from their last role, plus:
- Additional career history. Do you have roles that you finished more than 15 years ago? This is the place to put them.
- Education. No one cares about what high school you went to. Regardless of whether it’s Blacktown Boys or Sydney Grammar. But if you’ve done management, executive or industry course, list them here.
- References. Write that references are available. Nothing else.
How Long Is An Ideal CEO resume?
The typical length of an Australian executive resume is between 3 and 5 pages. The resume example above is four pages in length, which is typical for a young-ish CEO with 15-20 years of experience.
Do CEOs Need Resumes?
Yes.
Even if you’re referred to a company or approached directly by an executive recruiter in what’s often described as the ‘hidden’ job market – you’ll need a persuasive resume.
A great CEO resume isn’t just a list of your previous roles. It’s a marketing tool that tells your career story and showcases your points of difference.
Irene
