Business Support Officer CV and Previous Skills Examples

Employment History and Relevant Skills and Experience examples for AO and EO Business Support Officer applications

Civil Service application forms often separate Employment History from Previous Skills and Experience. Employment History is normally a factual timeline. Previous Skills and Experience is where you map concise evidence against the vacancy requirements.

Return to the Civil Service Business Support Officer Applications hub for personal statement, behaviour and interview guidance.

Read the vacancy instructions first

Business Support Officer campaigns use CV boxes differently. Some ask for job titles and dates only. Others request duties, achievements, specific systems or evidence against named criteria. Follow the vacancy instructions before using the examples on this page.

Where the form provides a separate Previous Skills and Experience box, keep Employment History factual unless the advert asks for more detail.

Employment History

A simple format is usually enough:

~ Department for Public Services | Business Support Assistant | April 2024 to present

~ Northborough NHS Trust | Administrative Assistant | January 2022 to March 2024

~ City Retail Group | Customer Service Adviser | August 2019 to December 2021

Relevant Skills and Experience

Use one concise evidence slot for every important advert point. This can include essential criteria, relevant desirable criteria, role responsibilities, systems and specific experience requested in the person specification.

Use the advert wording as the label where useful. Follow it with a short evidence summary showing the real setting and your personal contribution.

Keep full STAR detail for the personal statement and behaviour sections. Previous Skills and Experience should function as a clear evidence map.

Short EO example

~ Organisation and prioritisation: Managed two senior diaries and a shared request inbox, checked deadlines and decision needs, negotiated clashes and protected preparation time for fixed governance and external commitments.

This gives the sifter specific evidence without turning the CV section into a full diary-management story.

Common mistakes

• Writing a general profile instead of matching the advert point by point.
• Turning every criterion into a full STAR answer.
• Repeating the personal statement almost word for word.
• Listing Microsoft applications without showing how they were used in real work.
• Using vague labels such as administration or stakeholder management with no useful evidence.
• Leaving a required diary, inbox, finance or reporting criterion unsupported because the applicant assumes it is obvious from the job title.