Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is crucial to staying current in your field, developing your skills, and moving forward with your career. This guide will walk through whether and how to include CPD on your CV so you can showcase your commitment to career-long learning.
Understanding CPD and Its Relevance to Your Career
What is CPD?
Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is the process of regularly furthering your skills, knowledge, and professional competencies from the time you start your professional life to the time you leave it. It can be done in many ways, such as participating in workshops, courses, webinars, certifications, and self-directed learning. The overall aim of CPD is to keep professionals up-to-date, keep them on their toes, and ensure that they function at the highest level throughout their careers.
The worker is not simply picking up new qualifications but instead is keeping up with a job market that is constantly changing. For many professions, especially those with rapidly changing technologies or regulatory frameworks, CPD is an industry requirement and contributes to professional standards. Employers and professional bodies recognize this, and workers who pursue CPD without prompting show that they’re motivated and ambitious.
Why Including CPD on Your CV is Beneficial
If you put CPD on your CV, this will enhance your employability and career progression prospects. First, it shows that you are actively engaged in your development—something that is now highly valued by employers in an era where the best organizations are those that do everything they can to assure when they recruit that their employees will be with them for the long term. In competitive sectors, companies will seek applicants who are not only suited to the position at the time of recruitment but who will grow with the company and match not only its current opportunities but also its future challenges.
CPD can also set you apart from other candidates by demonstrating your proactive approach to your professional development. Candidates who have invested in their CPD show an active and dynamic approach to their professional careers, underscoring that they are engaged, motivated, and committed to being the best they can in their role. Detailing the CPD activities you’ve undertaken and the outcomes allows the employer to see that you are an actively engaged professional who is always striving to improve your skills and understanding of your industry.
Moreover, CPD can be a vital marker when applying for jobs that require specific skills or knowledge. For instance, if you are looking for a job in digital marketing, you can include details of CPD activities such as courses in search engine optimization (SEO), social media strategy, or data analytics. Moreover, your formal education was completed some years ago. In that case, you should demonstrate to any potential employer that you have kept your skills up to date.
Also, listing CPD on your CV can be beneficial if you are changing careers. Whether transitioning to a new career field or a new type of position within your current field, CPD activities can help you fill the gaps in your experience related to your new career direction. They demonstrate that you have taken steps to acquire the skills and knowledge you need to succeed on the job. This can give a hiring manager confidence that you can translate your experience into success in a new role.
How to List CPD on Your CV
Guidelines for Listing CPD Activities
Do this in a way that is clear, concise, and relevant to the role while also highlighting the professional development of your profile so that employers can see how you are continuing to develop and how your learning relates to the role.
Where to Place CPD on Your CV:
Education Section: CPD, which is a formal course or certification activity, may be listed under the education section of your CV. This is particularly useful if the CPD is a formal qualification that is recognized for the job. For example, suppose you’ve completed a certified project management course. In that case, it may be listed in the section of your CV that lists your formal degrees and diplomas.
CPD-Only Section: if you’ve engaged in a substantial amount of CPD that’s worth claiming, you can create a dedicated CPD section on your CV. Call it ‘Continuing Professional Development’ or ‘Professional Development’ and place it at the top of your CV, either right after the education section or the professional experience section. This way, you’ll be able to collect all your CPD activities in one place and show employers your dedication to continuing education at a glance.
Alternative Approach: CPD activities can also be listed under a wider professional development section. Other activities listed in this section include workshops, conferences, seminars, or other non-formal learning experiences that contribute to your professional development. This works well if you want to feature a mixture of formal and informal learning experiences.
What Information to Include:
Course Title: Write the title for the CPD activity you are completing, such as Advanced Digital Marketing or Leadership in Healthcare. The title should reflect the content of the course and make clear the relevance to your career.
Accrediting Body: Include the organization or institution that provided you with the CPD activity. This might be a university, a professional association, or an industry-recognized provider. The accrediting body gives your CPD activity an air of legitimacy because it shows that an expert organization has provided it.
Completion date: Enter the date on which you completed the activity (for example, 23/07/15); this is important if you work in a sector that changes fast.
What Skills or Knowledge Did You Learn? Include a short paragraph explaining what skills or knowledge you gained from your CPD activity, and explain why this skill is relevant to the job you’re applying for. Suppose you undertook a CPD course in data analytics. In that case, you might mention that you have mastered how to use certain tools (e.g., Google Analytics) or that you have learned how to understand and visualize complex data sets.
Example:
Continuing Professional Development
**Advanced Digital Marketing** | Chartered Institute of Marketing | Completed: June 2023
gained expertise in SEO, content marketing, and social media strategy.
Developed skills in data-driven marketing and performance analysis.
**Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification** | Project Management Institute | Completed: September 2022
Mastered project planning, execution, and risk management techniques.
Enhanced leadership and team coordination skills.
If you adhere to all these principles, your CPD activities can be listed on your CV in a way that shows how they contribute to your professional development, as well as demonstrating the value that an employer would see in your CPD.
Tailoring CPD Entries to the Job you’re Applying for
Importance of Customizing Your CV for Relevance
When applying for a job, think carefully about customizing your CV to emphasize those skills, experiences, and qualifications that are most relevant to the job you are applying for. 49. Customize your CPD entries to emphasize those aspects of your CPD that help you to demonstrate that you have the up-to-date knowledge and skills that the employer is seeking. From the job applicant’s perspective, customizing your CPD to the job description makes your CV more attractive because it allows hiring managers to see that you have the knowledge or skills for the job. These simple strategies can help you to stand out from all the other candidates in a competitive job market.
You can easily customize the CPD entries to suit the skill areas, competencies, and qualifications when comparing the job description to your CV. A good example would be to adjust the CPD activities to match the closest skill/competency areas and qualifications for the job you’re applying for. This will ensure that your CV presents you as a good hiring candidate who is well-qualified and trained to fill the job requirements.
Aligning CPD Entries with Job Descriptions and Required Skills
If you want to write CPD entries that actually pertain to the job you’re applying for, start by looking at the job description and noting the competencies and skills that are front and center. Suppose the role you want is in digital marketing. In that case, your CPD activities might need to show you’ve deepened your knowledge of SEO, become more expert in social media strategies, or learn a new type of content marketing. If the role requires leadership or good project management, you could include details of CPD courses or certifications in these areas.
When tailoring your CPD entries, consider the following strategies:
Select only for that job; not all CPD is relevant to every job. For example, if you have completed several CPD courses, list only those most relevant to the job’s key tasks and competencies at the top of your CV’s professional development section. This way, hiring managers will see your most relevant qualifications first.
Use the Keywords in the Job Description: Use the keywords in the job description in your CPD entries. This will help you tie your CV to the job description and also help you get past the applicant tracking systems (ATSs) that many companies use to weed out candidates. For example, if ‘project management’ appears in the job description and you have training in project management, make sure your CPD entry includes ‘project management’.
Showcase Achievements and Outcomes: Don’t just list the CPD courses you’ve attended, but pick out specific achievements or outcomes from the training that show the skill you learned was useful and has been applied in the work context. For example, if you did a leadership course, you might highlight how this helped you manage a team or a project. This way, your CPD is not just the event of attending the course but the value you derived from it as an experienced professional.
Example:
Professional Development
**SEO Mastery Certification** | Digital Marketing Institute | Completed: March 2023
gained advanced knowledge in keyword research, on-page optimization, and link-building strategies.
Applied SEO techniques to increase organic traffic by 25% for a previous employer.
**Leadership in Healthcare** | Royal College of Nursing | Completed: January 2023
Enhanced leadership skills and developed strategies for improving team communication and patient care.
Led an interdepartmental team in the installation of a new patient management system that led to a 15 percent increase in efficiency.
You could edit your CPD entries to highlight exactly how your CPD matches the job ad to give the recruiter a clear idea of why you would be a good match—and why you have the skills and knowledge that the employer needs. This targeted approach could make all the difference in making a good impression and landing an interview.
The Impact of CPD on Your Professional Image
Enhancing Your Professional Image Through CPD
Mentioning CPD on your CV can afford you a significant advantage in your career if done well. One of its positive effects is that your actively undertaking CPD enhances your standing as a professional because it reveals that you are making an effort to keep up with developments in your field. Given that the current job market is characterized by rapid changes, where many new technologies and methodologies emerge over a relatively short time, employability becomes a key issue.
Employers, especially those involved in the specialist domains of knowledge-based economies, are increasingly looking for candidates who engage in CPD to keep up to date with what is happening in their field. Thus, if you can demonstrate that you have engaged in CPD, you are depending on a significant signal that will mark you out from the crowd.
CPD represents the idea that you are proactively working on your career rather than just waiting for a formal training program or a new role to come along. It is a form of self-directed learning that is attractive to employers who want people who can take the initiative to embrace new challenges.
Employer Perceptions of CPD and Its Value
Employers will see the people who are seeking CPD and contributing to their education. They will realize that those who have managed to adapt are the ones who are capable of adapting further, the ones who understand that the workplace is evolving. Companies in technological industries, health-related industries, and financial industries are looking at people who have gone through the process of developing or maintaining their skills and showing that those who are gaining new skills are the people who are seeking CPD and contributing to their education.
Employers perceive CPD as a commitment to your professional development and believe that you take your chosen profession seriously when they see it listed as part of your CV. It can be the deciding factor in whether you’re offered a job, particularly if the nature of the work involves knowledge or a skill set that’s rapidly changing, where CPD can give you an edge over other candidates. CPD can also demonstrate your adaptability to changing circumstances in your industry and, therefore, your ability to fit in with a fast-paced organization.
For instance, in the technology sector, where change is constant, a CPD learner who has recently taken courses in new technologies, such as artificial intelligence or blockchain, might better demonstrate a readiness to deal with future issues than one who hasn’t done CPD in these areas. In the health sector, ongoing CPD in areas such as patient care, medical ethics, or new commitment to delivering the best standard of care.
Employers like to hire candidates who are well-rounded rather than simply individuals who meet the technical needs of the job. CPD can help you gain some of these so-called ‘soft skills’ that are applicable in all sectors, such as leadership, communication, or problem-solving skills. Being able to demonstrate that you have developed these skills on your CV will make you seem like more than a candidate who ticks the boxes for the technical requirements of a job; it will add value by showing that you possess strong interpersonal and leadership skills.
Example:
Continuing Professional Development
**Data Analytics for Business** | Coursera | Completed: July 2023
obtained superior data analysis skills, including experience with data visualization tools and interpretation of large datasets.
Improved decision-making processes by applying data-driven insights to business strategies.
**Effective Communication and Leadership** | Dale Carnegie Training | Completed: April 2023
Enhanced public speaking, negotiation, and team leadership skills.
I led an interdepartmental initiative to improve company wide communication, which raised cooperation and productivity.
Conclusion
Showing that you have maintained an ongoing record of CPD on your CV will help to bolster your career prospects by demonstrating your willingness to develop your professional knowledge and skills base continually. Mentioning activities within your CPD records on your CV demonstrates to prospective employers that you take the initiative to keep up with changes in your field and that you have the benefit of keeping your knowledge and skills updated. By positioning yourself as an active, adaptive professional, able to hit the ground running with new skills and existing knowledge, you add value to any organization that you choose.