Administrative Assistant (AA) “Your CV” – Employment History / Previous Skills and Experience EXAMPLES

How to use Employment History and Previous Skills and Experience in an AA application

Many Civil Service applications ask for CV information in two separate boxes:

Employment History

Previous Skills and Experience

These boxes have different jobs.

Employment History is your work timeline. It should show where you worked, what your job title was, and when you worked there.

Previous Skills and Experience is the stronger evidence section. It should show how your background matches the AA job advert.

For AA roles, useful evidence can come from paid work, education, volunteering, caring duties, retail, hospitality, admin, customer service, warehouse work, call centre work, or any other setting where you used relevant skills.

The aim is simple. Make your background easy for the sifter to match against the role.

Important note about scoring and format

In many departments, the Civil Service CV section has little or no clear scoring guidance for sifting. Where guidance is provided, it can vary between departments, vacancy holders, and recruitment campaigns.

You should always read the job advert carefully before writing this section. This includes the main advert, the person specification, the essential criteria, the desirable criteria, and any attached documents. Some vacancies give a requested format, word limit, or instruction on what the CV should contain. Where the advert gives a clear instruction, follow that instruction first.

The approach explained on this page is based on what has worked for me and for candidates I have coached. It cannot guarantee a sift pass. It gives you a practical way to make the CV section clear, relevant, and easy for a sifter to understand.

For most AA applications, the safest approach is to keep Employment History as a plain factual timeline. Use it to show employer names, job titles, and dates. Save the detail for Previous Skills and Experience, where you can match your background directly to the job advert.

This helps avoid wasting space in the Employment History box. It also means your strongest evidence appears in the section where the sifter is more likely to look for a match against the essential criteria.

What is the Employment History box for?

The Employment History box is usually the basic work record.

It should normally show:

employer name

job title

dates worked

That may be enough.

Some application forms may allow a short description under each role. Some adverts may ask for duties, responsibilities, or achievements. Follow the advert where it gives a format.

For a standard AA application, avoid turning Employment History into a full evidence section. The useful detail should usually go into Previous Skills and Experience, the personal statement, or any behaviour statements.

A simple Employment History section could look like this:

~ Customer Assistant, Greenway Supermarket, March 2023 to present

~ Waiter, Riverside Café, June 2021 to February 2023

That is clear enough to show the timeline. The evidence comes later.

Why Employment History should stay simple

A lot of applicants try to put all their evidence into the Employment History box.

That can cause problems.

The sifter may have to search through job descriptions to find the evidence. Strong points may be hidden under older roles. The same evidence may then be repeated in the personal statement or behaviour statement.

A cleaner approach is to keep Employment History factual and use Previous Skills and Experience to match the advert.

Think of Employment History as the index of your background.

Think of Previous Skills and Experience as the section that proves the match.

What is the Previous Skills and Experience box for?

Previous Skills and Experience is where you should show that you meet the role requirements.

This section should be built from the job advert.

It should cover:

~ essential criteria

~ desirable criteria

~ role responsibilities

~ person specification points

~ required skills

~ useful experience mentioned in the advert

A useful heading is:

Relevant Skills and Experience

Under that heading, each point should give evidence against one part of the role.

For AA roles, this might include customer service, communication, admin support, accuracy, IT use, following procedures, handling information, working with others, and managing tasks.

How to use ordinary experience in an AA application

AA applications can use ordinary experience well when the evidence is clear.

Retail can show customer service, till work, stock checks, complaints, and accuracy.

Hospitality can show pace, service standards, hygiene routines, payments, and calm communication.

Admin can show records, inboxes, documents, forms, systems, and data checking.

Customer service can show communication, problem solving, patience, and escalation.

Education can show IT use, deadlines, written work, research, and group tasks.

Volunteering can show reliability, service, teamwork, and responsibility.

Caring duties can show organisation, communication, appointment planning, forms, and routines.

The key is to turn the background into evidence. The sifter needs to see what you did and how it links to the AA role.

A simple example

A weak Previous Skills and Experience section might say:

~ I have good customer service skills.

~ I am organised.

~ I can work in a team.

~ I have good attention to detail.

A stronger version would say:

~ Communicated clearly with retail customers by listening to product, refund, and complaint queries, explaining store procedures in simple language, checking they understood the next step, and escalating issues to a supervisor when approval was needed.

~ Managed routine shift tasks by prioritising till work, customer queries, stock checks, and end-of-shift duties, staying focused until tasks were complete and maintaining service during busy periods.

~ Worked with colleagues during peak trading periods by sharing queue, stock, and customer updates, helping where demand was highest, and completing agreed shift tasks to support team delivery.

~ Maintained accuracy by checking prices, payment amounts, refund details, stock information, and customer requests before taking action, taking responsibility for reducing avoidable errors and keeping work to the required standard.

The stronger version gives the sifter evidence. It links each skill to a real task.

Common mistakes in the Civil Service CV section

Many AA applicants weaken their CV section by using the two boxes badly.

Common mistakes include:

~ using Employment History as a long job description section

~ repeating the same information in both boxes

~ writing broad claims without evidence

~ ignoring the essential criteria

~ leaving out useful non-work experience

~ failing to mention real tasks, systems, or processes

~ putting the strongest evidence too low down

~ missing desirable criteria that could have been covered

~ using the same generic CV for every role

Your CV section should be shaped around the advert. The sifter should be able to see the match quickly.

Subscribe to unlock the full AA CV method, including how to turn the job advert into a Relevant Skills and Experience section, how to create one evidence slot for every essential and desirable criterion, and how to use retail, hospitality, admin, customer service, education, volunteering, and caring duties as AA application evidence.

The full AA “Your CV” page method (how to score the most points possible)