How should a UK MSc student with a corporate background and a registered startup structure their CV for UN and international development applications?

For UN and international development applications, the CV should open with a professional summary, a brief paragraph, not a list, describing who you are as a candidate: the intersection of your corporate background, your sustainability work, and the specific direction you are moving in. The second section is professional experience, leading with your most substantive roles. A registered climate startup should be described with a title that sounds serious and purposeful, climate entrepreneur, founder, or similar, and the LLP registration and any external listing should be hyperlinked directly.

• Describe it as you would a business, not as a side project. The third section is education, including your MSc and dissertation topic once complete.
• The fourth section is key skills and tools: technical tools, software, design platforms, data tools, and communication skills such as public speaking gained through Model UN participation. The fifth section is voluntary work or values-aligned experience.
• For UN and NGO employers, this section carries unusual weight, they want to see that a candidate's values are genuinely compatible with their mission. Oxfam volunteering and startup sustainability work both belong here.
• The final section is publications, with links to any published assignments, reports, or policy briefs. A portfolio PDF hosted on a shareable link and included in the CV footer gives recruiters access to a comprehensive body of work beyond what a standard CV can contain.