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Most train operating companies recruit through an online application form rather than a CV, and some never ask for one at all. Write it anyway. Freight operators, smaller operators, agencies and some depots do ask for one to be uploaded; the form's employment history and competency answers are far easier to fill in from a finished CV than from memory at midnight on the day the window opens; and whatever you write on either is checked against your references later. The CV is the master copy. The form is copied from it.

What the recruiter is reading it for

Driving is safety-critical work done alone, to rules, on a roster that runs around the clock. Every line of your CV is being read against that job, not against the job you did.

• Accountability. Where you have been, month by month, with no unexplained gaps. This is not nosiness: safety-critical employment checks cover recent years, and a history that does not add up now will not add up then.
• Reliability. Turning up, on time, on early and late shifts, for years. Long service in an unglamorous job reads better here than a string of impressive short ones.
• Rules and procedure. Work where there was a right way to do it and you did it that way — checklists, sign-offs, compliance, handling cash, food safety, permits, anything audited.
• Working alone and staying alert. Lone working, night shifts, monitoring, long periods of routine with the occasional thing that matters.
• Calm when something goes wrong. Incidents, emergencies, complaints, breakdowns — and what you did, in order.
• Dealing with the public. Drivers make announcements, deal with passengers during disruption and sometimes deal with the worst day of someone else's life. Customer-facing work counts.

Notice what is not on the list: a love of trains, a degree, or previous railway experience. None of them hurt, but none of them are what is being scored.

The layout

Length

Two pages. One if your history is short

Order

Most recent job first

Dates

Month and year, start and end, every entry

Format

PDF or Word, plain layout, no tables or columns

File name

Firstname-Lastname-CV, not cv-final-v3

Leave off

Photo, date of birth, marital status, full address

Keep on

Town and postcode area, phone, a sensible email

Plain matters more than it sounds. Many operators run applications through a recruitment system that reads the text out of the file, and two-column designs, text boxes and headers built as images often come out scrambled or empty. A single column of text with ordinary headings survives every system and is easier for a tired person to read.

Put your town and postcode area at the top on purpose. Distance to the depot is part of the sift, and a recruiter who can see at a glance that you live twenty minutes away has one less reason to put you aside.

The sections, in order

1. Name and contact details. One line, not a banner.
2. A short profile. Three or four sentences, written for this operator: what you do now, the two or three things about your working life that match the job, and the depot you are applying to. Rewrite it for every application.
3. Employment history. The bulk of it, covered below.
4. Gaps, explained in the history itself. Not in a separate section — in date order, where the gap is.
5. Education and training. Brief. GCSEs or equivalent, and anything vocational or safety-related: first aid, IOSH, food hygiene, forklift, PCV or HGV entitlement, a PTS card, military qualifications.
6. Licences. A driving licence is not required for the job, but say whether you hold one — early turns start before public transport does, and it answers a question the recruiter is already asking.
7. References. "Available on request" is fine. Have them lined up and warned, because they will be asked.

Turning the job you have into driver evidence

This is where almost everyone goes wrong. A duties list tells the reader what the job was. It does not tell them what you did, how reliably, or whether you did it by the book. For each role, pick two to four lines that show one of the six things above, and write each as something you did, with a number where there honestly is one.

Instead of

Responsible for warehouse picking

Write

Picked to a scanned pick list on nights, with a 99.8% accuracy score on the monthly audit

Instead of

Customer service

Write

Handled refunds and complaints alone on the late shift, including calling security under the store's procedure

Instead of

Hard working team player

Write

No unplanned absence in four years; covered early and late shifts on a rotating roster

Instead of

Delivery driver

Write

Completed vehicle defect checks before every shift; reported and grounded a van with a brake fault

Use only numbers you can stand behind. Your references will be asked about the same period, and a figure that cannot be confirmed does more damage than no figure at all. If your employer kept no attendance records, "rarely absent" is honest and "100% attendance" is a claim.

Some backgrounds map straight across and are worth making obvious:

• Bus, coach, HGV and delivery drivers — shift work, lone working, vehicle checks, road safety, the public. Lead with the checks and the incidents, not the miles.
• Armed forces — procedure, discipline, working under pressure. Translate the jargon: a recruiter at a train company will not know what your trade code means.
• Warehouse, factory and logistics — shifts, machinery, safe systems of work, audit scores.
• Retail and hospitality — cash handling, opening and closing alone, the public, food safety, conflict.
• Security, care, NHS and emergency services — nights, vigilance, following a procedure exactly in an emergency.
• Already on the railway — station staff, conductors, track workers. Say which rules and competencies you already hold, and your PTS if you have one, but do not assume the reader knows what your grade does.

Gaps, short jobs and things you are worried about

Gaps do not disqualify you. Unexplained ones cause trouble. Put a line in the history, in date order, saying what you were doing: caring for a relative, travelling, studying, recovering from illness, redundancy and job-hunting, raising children. One line, no apology, no detail you would not want to discuss.

Several short jobs in a row read as unreliable unless there is a reason. Agency work, seasonal work and fixed-term contracts are reasons — say so, and group agency placements under the agency rather than listing twelve employers. Self-employment counts; give the business, the dates and what you did.

If you were dismissed, or left under a cloud, do not lie about it on the CV or the form. The safety-critical checks exist to find exactly this, and a discrepancy found later is treated far more seriously than the original event. Leave the reason off the CV, have a short and honest account ready for the form and the interview, and say what changed afterwards.

The profile, and the reason you want this job

The profile is the part most likely to be read, and the part most likely to be generic. Two rules.

• Make it about the job, not the trains. "Passionate about the railway since childhood" is on half the applications they receive and tells them nothing. Shift work you have already done, a roster you have already lived with, a safety record you can point to — that is a reason.
• Name the operator and the depot. It proves the CV was written for them, it shows you know where you would be working, and it is a one-line change per application.

A profile that does the job, as an example of the shape rather than words to copy: "Warehouse team leader with six years on a rotating early, late and night roster, responsible for safe systems of work and the monthly safety audit on my shift. Rarely absent, used to working alone for long stretches, and trained in first aid. Applying for the trainee driver role at the Anytown depot, twenty minutes from home."

Keep it consistent with everything else

Your CV, the application form, the pre-interview form for the MMI, your answers at the DMI and your references are five accounts of the same working life, read by different people at different times. They must agree on dates, job titles and reasons for leaving.

The best examples on your CV are also your interview material. The pre-interview form asks for written examples of things like safety, following procedure and handling pressure, and every one of them will be probed two or three levels deep. Choose CV lines you can talk about for five minutes without running out. The interview guide goes through how those examples are scored.

Mistakes that cost people the sift

• A gap with no line in it. Six unexplained months invites the worst assumption and a question you will be answering at every stage.
• One CV sent everywhere. The profile names no operator, or the wrong one. It happens more than you would think, and it is read.
• Duties instead of evidence. A list of what the job involved, with nothing about how well or how safely you did it.
• Numbers your references will not confirm. An exaggeration that surfaces in pre-employment checks can end an offer that was otherwise made.
• A fancy template. Two columns, icons and a skills bar chart that the recruitment system turns into nonsense.
• The trainspotting paragraph. Interest in the railway is fine in a line. A paragraph about it takes the space your evidence should have had.
• Spelling and typos. You are applying for a job that is about reading instructions exactly and getting the detail right. The reader will make that connection even if you do not.

A checklist before you send it

• Every month of the last several years accounted for, gaps included.
• Dates, titles and reasons for leaving match what you will put on the form.
• Profile rewritten for this operator and this depot.
• Two to four evidence lines per recent job, each one about safety, reliability, procedure, working alone, pressure or the public.
• Every number is one a referee would confirm.
• Two pages or fewer, one column, saved as a PDF with your name in the file name.
• Read aloud once, slowly, by you — then by someone else.

Then read Applying: windows, forms and the attempts you get before you press submit, because the rules about how many goes you get start counting from the tests the form leads to. If you would rather have someone go through your CV and the whole process with you, that is what a one-to-one session is for.