Irish CV Format: How to Write an Irish CV (2026)
Navigating the Irish job market requires a document that reflects local conventions. The standard Irish CV format, known simply as the CV, tracks the UK model closely: two pages, a personal statement up top, and no photo or date of birth. Yet Dublin's tech and pharma hub gives Irish applications their own texture.
Most large employers in Dublin screen applications through ATS systems like Workday and Greenhouse. That means your CV must be parser-clean, keyword-matched, and laid out in a single column, even as personal details stay minimal under the Employment Equality Acts 1998–2015.
Whether you are a graduate from UCD or an international engineer moving to Dublin, the rules are the same: two pages on A4, no PPS number, no photo, and a clear statement of your right to work. Master these details and your application reads as professional and local.
This guide covers the Irish CV format end to end, from the personal statement to the references line, with example content for software engineers at every level.
Irish CV Format at a Glance
- Document type
- "CV" is the standard term in Ireland; "resume" is the American equivalent and rarely used by Irish employers. The Irish CV closely tracks the UK model.
- Typical length
- 2 pages is standard for experienced professionals (1 page for graduates and entry-level roles). No US-style strict one-page rule, but every line must earn its place.
- Photo
- Never include a photo. Under the Employment Equality Acts 1998–2015, Irish HR and recruiters remove photos to avoid discrimination claims; including one signals unfamiliarity with the local market.
- Date format
- Day / Month / Year (DD/MM/YYYY, e.g. 12/06/2025) or written as "June 2025"; month-year precision is enough for most roles.
- Paper size
- A4.
- Personal details
- Name, phone (with +353 from abroad), professional email, city, and LinkedIn URL. Do NOT include your PPS number, date of birth, age, marital status, or nationality. The Employment Equality Acts 1998–2015 prohibit discrimination on nine protected grounds.
- Section order
- Contact details → Personal statement (3–4 lines) → Work experience (reverse-chronological) → Education → Skills → "References available on request". Recent graduates may put Education before Work experience.
- ATS friendliness
- High; Dublin tech and pharma multinationals screen with Workday and Greenhouse. Use a clean single column, standard headings, no tables/graphics/photos, PDF export, and keywords from the job description.
Irish CV Examples
Real Irish CVs written to these conventions across three experience levels. Switch tabs to review each, then load it straight into the builder to make it your own.
Aoife Walsh
Software Engineer (Graduate)
Professional Summary
Graduate Software Engineer with a First Class Honours BSc in Computer Science from University College Dublin and a 6-month internship at Workday Ireland. Experienced in TypeScript, React and Node.js, with a focus on clean APIs and testable code. Seeking a full-time engineering role in a Dublin product team, following the standard Irish CV format.
Work Experience
Software Engineer (Graduate)
07/2025 – PresentIntercom (Dublin) · Dublin, Ireland
- Ship customer-facing features in the messaging product using TypeScript, React and Go, following team code review and CI/CD practice.
- Reduced API response time by 22% by introducing response caching in a customer search endpoint.
- Fixed 40+ production issues across two quarters, maintaining a 99.9% service uptime record.
- Pair with senior engineers on system design and observability, contributing to the team's on-call rota.
Software Engineering Intern
01/2025 – 06/2025Workday Ireland (Dublin) · Dublin, Ireland
- Built a internal reporting dashboard in React and Python that cut weekly finance report generation from 3 hours to 20 minutes.
- Wrote 60+ unit and integration tests, raising feature coverage on the payments module to 92%.
- Presented the internship project to 200+ staff at the Dublin intern showcase; offer of graduate role extended.
Education
BSc Computer Science, First Class Honours
2021 – 2025University College Dublin · Dublin, Ireland
Modules included Data Structures and Algorithms, Distributed Systems, Machine Learning, and Software Engineering. Final year project: 'Fault-tolerant consensus for edge networks' (Grade: 84%).
Skills
Certifications & Links
- AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials
- GitHub: github.com/aoifewalsh (30+ public repositories)
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/aoife-walsh
Professional Summary
Software Engineer with 7 years' experience shipping cloud-native services at Microsoft Ireland and Google Ireland. Skilled in Go, TypeScript and Kubernetes, with a track record of improving reliability and developer velocity. This CV follows the standard Irish CV format: two pages, quantified achievements, and ATS-clean single-column layout for Dublin tech employers.
Work Experience
Software Engineer
03/2021 – PresentGoogle Ireland (Dublin) · Dublin, Ireland
- Lead backend development for a payments reliability team, owning services that process €2M+ in daily transactions.
- Migrated 12 microservices to Kubernetes, reducing deployment time from 35 to 6 minutes and cutting on-call incidents by 30%.
- Designed a distributed tracing pipeline adopted by 4 teams, improving mean time to detection from 40 to 9 minutes.
- Mentor 3 junior engineers through the internal promotion process; two were promoted to mid-level in 2025.
Software Engineer
06/2018 – 02/2021Microsoft Ireland (Dublin) · Dublin, Ireland
- Developed features for the Azure monitoring platform in C# and TypeScript, serving 10,000+ enterprise customers.
- Reduced alert noise by 45% by building an anomaly-detection service, saving the on-call team an estimated 15 hours per week.
- Improved query performance 3x by rewriting the telemetry ingestion path, cutting storage costs by 18% (€120,000 annually).
Education
BAI Computer Science
2014 – 2018Trinity College Dublin · Dublin, Ireland
Integrated engineering degree with focus on computer systems and software engineering. Final year project on distributed caching (Grade: 78%).
Skills
Certifications & Memberships
- Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect
- AWS Certified Developer Associate
- Member, Engineers Ireland
Niamh O'Sullivan
Senior Software Engineer / Tech Lead
Professional Summary
Senior Software Engineer and Tech Lead with 15 years' experience across Stripe, Meta Ireland and the Dublin tech ecosystem. I have led teams of up to 12 engineers, owned architecture for payments and growth platforms, and driven €2M+ in annual efficiency gains. Seeking a staff-level role where system design and team leadership meet, presented in the standard Irish CV format.
Work Experience
Senior Software Engineer / Tech Lead
09/2020 – PresentStripe (Dublin) · Dublin, Ireland
- Lead a team of 8 engineers owning the fraud-detection platform, which protects €500M+ in monthly transaction volume.
- Designed a real-time feature store that cut fraud-model latency by 70% and reduced false positives by 35%.
- Drove the migration of 40+ services to a service mesh, improving deployment safety and cutting rollback incidents by half.
- Recruited and mentored 6 engineers; 4 promoted within two years. Run the team's architecture review process.
Senior Software Engineer
02/2015 – 08/2020Meta Ireland (Dublin) · Dublin, Ireland
- Owned the growth experimentation platform, enabling 300+ A/B tests per quarter across the family of apps.
- Re-architected the analytics pipeline to handle 2B events daily, reducing processing cost by 28% (€1.8M annually).
- Led a cross-functional team of 10 through two major releases, delivering on schedule with zero critical incidents.
- Represented the Dublin office in global architecture reviews and mentored engineers across 3 continents.
Software Engineer
07/2011 – 01/2015Google Ireland (Dublin) · Dublin, Ireland
- Built internal tooling for the ads platform used by 2,000+ Googlers, reducing campaign launch time by 60%.
- Improved index freshness by 40% through a new incremental update pipeline.
Education
MSc Computer Science
2008 – 2010University College Dublin · Dublin, Ireland
Masters with focus on distributed systems and machine learning. Thesis: 'Scalable anomaly detection in high-volume event streams'.
BAI Computer Science
2003 – 2008Trinity College Dublin · Dublin, Ireland
Integrated engineering degree; first-class honours in final year.
Skills
Certifications & Leadership
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional
- Google Cloud Professional Data Engineer
- Chartered Engineer (CEng), Engineers Ireland
- Speaker, Dublin Tech Summit 2025
How to Write an Irish CV: Step-by-Step
Open With Contact Details and a Personal Statement
Start with your name, phone (use +353 when applying from overseas), a professional email address, city, and LinkedIn URL. Never include your PPS number, date of birth, age, marital status, or nationality; under the Employment Equality Acts 1998–2015 these are not requested and inviting them is a common beginner mistake.
Follow with a 3–4 line personal statement summarising who you are, your specialism, years of experience, and the value you bring to the employer.
Example
"Software Engineer with 2 years' experience building cloud-native services in Dublin. Skilled in TypeScript, Go, and AWS, with a focus on reliability and clean APIs. Seeking a full-time engineering role in a multinational product team."
Entry Level
Keep the statement to 2–3 lines: your degree, internship projects, and core languages.
Mid Level
Lead with years of experience, your stack, and the product teams you have shipped for.
Senior Level
Summarise scope: systems owned, team size led, architecture decisions, and business impact.
List Work Experience Reverse-Chronological With Quantified Achievements
List roles most recent first with job title, company, city, and dates in DD/MM/YYYY or month-year format. Write 3–5 achievement-led bullets per role; "reduced API latency by 40% by introducing caching" beats "responsible for backend development".
Irish recruiters, especially in the Dublin tech sector, expect concrete numbers over generic duties.
Example
"Software Engineer. Google Ireland, Dublin, 06/2023 – Present. Migrated a payments service to Kubernetes, cutting deployment time from 40 to 8 minutes and improving on-call incident resolution by 30%."
Entry Level
Detail internships, capstone projects, and any open-source contributions with measurable outcomes.
Mid Level
Quantify features shipped, systems owned, uptime or latency improvements, and team collaboration.
Senior Level
Highlight architecture decisions, team leadership, hiring and mentoring, and business impact in revenue or efficiency.
Place Education With Irish Qualifications Prominently
Irish employers recognise the local university system: Trinity College Dublin (TCD), University College Dublin (UCD), Dublin City University (DCU), and TU Dublin. List your degree, institution, dates, and grade (First Class Honours, 2.1) where strong.
Recent graduates place education before work experience; experienced engineers keep it after. Mention any relevant certifications (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) in a separate line.
Example
"BSc Computer Science, First Class Honours. University College Dublin, 2019–2023. Dissertation: 'Fault-tolerant distributed consensus in edge networks' (Grade: 82%)."
Entry Level
Lead with your degree, grades, and dissertation or capstone project; include modules relevant to the role.
Mid Level
Add professional certifications and any continued education alongside the degree.
Senior Level
Keep education brief; lead with certifications and any leadership or architecture training.
Show Key Skills and Dublin Tech Ecosystem Terminology
Use a short skills section with 6–10 competencies mirroring the job description: languages (TypeScript, Go, Python, Java), frameworks (React, Node.js), and platforms (AWS, GCP, Kubernetes).
Dublin multinationals screen with Workday and Greenhouse, so keyword match and clean parsing decide the first cut; mirror the exact wording used in the job ad.
Example
"TypeScript · Go · Python · React · Node.js · AWS (S3, Lambda, ECS) · Kubernetes · Terraform · CI/CD (GitHub Actions) · SQL (PostgreSQL)."
Entry Level
List languages and frameworks from coursework and internships honestly; include your strongest first.
Mid Level
Add depth: cloud certifications, distributed systems, observability, and testing practice.
Senior Level
Focus on architecture, scaling, security, and leadership skills (system design, incident command, mentoring).
Close With References and a Clear Right-To-Work Line
Irish convention is to write "References available on request"; never list referee contact details on the CV itself. If you are not an EEA citizen, state your permission to work clearly: "Stamp 4 permission to work" or "Critical Skills Employment Permit holder".
Non-EEA candidates who leave this out are often screened out early, because Irish employers must verify work permission before hiring.
Example
"References available on request. Right to work: Stamp 4 permission to work in Ireland."
Entry Level
Use your university placement office and a lecturer or internship mentor as referees.
Mid Level
Prefer two professional referees: a current engineering manager and a senior colleague.
Senior Level
List a director of engineering and a peer tech lead who can verify leadership outcomes.
Use Irish English, A4, and an ATS-Clean Single Column
Write in Irish (British) English: organise, colour, centre, programme, licence (noun) vs license (verb), behaviour. Use A4 with a clear 10–11pt font (Arial, Calibri, Helvetica), 2.54cm margins, and standard headings.
Use a single column; Dublin multinationals run Workday and Greenhouse and multi-column layouts parse badly. Save as PDF unless the advert asks for Word, and proofread carefully.
Example
"Organised the team's CI pipeline and programme roadmap": never "organized", "color", or "center".
Entry Level
Have your university careers service review the CV before applying.
Mid Level
Check every date and certification is exact; gaps read as hiding something.
Senior Level
Verify all certifications and permissions have current dates; keep it to two pages.
What Makes the Irish CV Different
To stand out in the Irish market, start with the personal statement. Irish recruiters expect a 3–4 line summary up top that tells them who you are and what you deliver, not a list of job titles.
Second, lead with numbers. Dublin tech employers, from Intercom to Stripe, are used to quantified impact: latency reduced by 40%, costs cut by 18%, incidents down by half. Write every bullet in that language.
Third, respect the personal-details rules. No photo, no PPS number, no date of birth. Under the Employment Equality Acts 1998–2015, Irish HR removes these anyway, and including them reads as unfamiliarity with local norms.
Finally, tailor for the ATS layer. Workday and Greenhouse screen most Dublin applications, so a clean single column with standard headings and job-ad keywords gives you the first-cut advantage.
Ireland's software engineer median total compensation is around €105,000, among the highest in Europe (Next Level Jobs EU, 2026); Dublin hosts the EMEA headquarters of much of US tech and pharma, so most Irish tech applications are screened by Workday or Greenhouse ATS systems.
Key Skills Valued in Ireland
Technical Skills
Soft Skills
Keywords and Terminology for Irish CVs
Using the right keywords is the only way to pass a Dublin ATS screen and reach a human recruiter. Extract them from the job description and mirror the exact wording: job title, required languages, frameworks, and platforms.
For tech roles, include both the product terms (payments, fraud, growth) and the platform terms (AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform) the team actually uses.
How Experience Is Presented in an Irish CV
Experience is the core of the Irish CV, written reverse-chronologically with the most recent role first. Each role shows the job title, company, city, and dates, followed by 3–5 achievement-led bullets with numbers.
Dublin employers compare candidates on measurable outcomes, so quantify impact in every bullet: latency, uptime, cost, team size, revenue protected. Start each bullet with a strong action verb.
Entry Level
Focus on internships, capstone projects, and open-source work; show reliability and a fast learning curve.
Mid Level
Show ownership: features shipped, systems run, and improvements measured in numbers.
Senior Level
Show scale: teams led, architectures owned, budgets or revenue impact, and mentoring outcomes.
Tailoring Your CV to Irish Employers
Tailoring means adjusting the lens, not rewriting your history. Identify the top three priorities in the job ad and make sure they appear in your personal statement and your first skills.
If the ad emphasises reliability, lead with your uptime and incident records. If it emphasises speed of delivery, lead with your deployment and feature-shipping numbers. Dublin recruiters notice when a CV is generic.
Common Irish CV Mistakes to Avoid
Avoid these errors that regularly get Irish applications rejected:
1. Including a photo, date of birth, or PPS number. The Employment Equality Acts 1998–2015 make Irish HR remove these, and including them signals unfamiliarity.
2. Using US resume habits: one cramped page, no personal statement, US English spellings like "organized" or "color".
3. Ignoring the multinational ATS layer. Dublin tech and pharma run Workday and Greenhouse; multi-column layouts and graphics parse badly.
4. Leaving your right-to-work status vague. Non-EEA candidates should state "Stamp 4 permission to work" or "Critical Skills Employment Permit holder".
5. Listing duties instead of achievements. "Responsible for backend" loses to "reduced API latency by 40%".
Irish Job Market and Salary Outlook
The Irish tech market in 2026 remains strong, with Dublin hosting the EMEA headquarters of much of US tech and pharma. Software engineering demand is high across payments, fintech, and AI, and competition for senior talent keeps salaries among the highest in Europe.
Salaries below are approximate 2026 ranges for Dublin, based on Next Level Jobs EU and WhatIsTheSalary data. They help you calibrate your examples and negotiate with confidence.
| Level | Typical annual salary (EUR) | Typical CV length |
|---|---|---|
| Entry Level | €45,000–€65,000 | 1 page |
| Mid Level | €65,000–€90,000 | 2 pages |
| Senior Level | €90,000–€140,000+ | 2 pages |
Source: Next Level Jobs EU + WhatIsTheSalary Dublin software engineer salary data, 2026 (approximate ranges, see sources)
Key Tips for Writing an Irish CV
- Tip 1: Always save as a single-column A4 PDF named FirstName_LastName_Role_CV.pdf; Dublin recruiters and ATS systems both prefer it.
- Tip 2: Use a .ie email or a professional Gmail address; never a personal-sounding or old university handle.
- Tip 3: Include the +353 country code on your phone number if you are applying from abroad.
- Tip 4: Keep the CV to exactly two pages for experienced roles; one page for graduates, never three.
- Tip 5: Match the job ad's keywords verbatim, especially for Workday and Greenhouse ATS screens.
- Tip 6: Have a careers service or a trusted colleague proofread for Irish spellings (organise, programme, colour).
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I include a photo on my Irish CV?
No. Under the Employment Equality Acts 1998–2015, Irish HR teams remove photos from CVs to avoid discrimination claims on nine protected grounds (including age and gender). Including a photo signals unfamiliarity with the local market. Skip it unless a specific creative or acting role asks for one.
How long should an Irish CV be?
Two pages is the standard for experienced professionals; one page is fine for graduates and entry-level roles. Unlike the US one-page rule, Irish recruiters value a personal statement and enough detail to judge achievements, but every line must earn its place.
Do I need to include my PPS number on my CV?
No. Your PPS (Personal Public Service) number is used for tax and social welfare, not for job applications. Never include it on a CV; it is personal data employers do not need until after you are hired. The same applies to your date of birth, marital status, and nationality.
Can international applicants work in Ireland and how do I show it on my CV?
Yes. EEA citizens have the right to work freely. Non-EEA candidates usually need an employment permit (the Critical Skills Employment Permit is the main route for tech roles) and must register for Stamp 4 after two years.
Show your status clearly on the CV, for example "Stamp 4 permission to work" or "Critical Skills Employment Permit holder", so employers can screen eligibility early.
What does a software engineer CV look like in Ireland?
A two-page, ATS-clean single column: contact details + a 3–4 line personal statement, work experience reverse-chronological with quantified achievements, education (UCD, TCD, DCU, TU Dublin), a keyword-matched skills section, and "References available on request".
Dublin tech salaries run roughly €45k–€65k at entry, €65k–€90k mid, and €90k+ for senior roles, so tailor your examples and language to the level you are applying for.
Conventions verified for 2026 and based on well-established Irish recruitment practice.
Sources
Facts on this page are checked against the following authoritative sources.
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