Doorman CV Examples & Writing Guide

There are three different doorman jobs and they need slightly different CVs: the front-door job in a staffed block of flats (in the UK usually called residential concierge), a hotel doorman at the front entrance, and door work at pubs, bars and clubs (often called a bouncer, officially a door supervisor, and licensed by the SIA). This sample is a residential concierge with about ten years of front-door work who also worked as a door supervisor early in his career. The name and the buildings are made up. Copy the shape, then put in your own building size, parcel counts and shift patterns.

The person hiring you is handing over the keys to a building full of people who pay a lot to feel safe. Four things decide whether you get an interview.

• Licence and background. Door supervision at pubs, bars and clubs needs an SIA Door Supervisor licence, and concierge jobs supplied by a security contractor often ask for an SIA licence too. A concierge employed directly by the building may not need one, but the managing agent will still run background checks (for example a basic DBS check) and take references. Say up front that you hold a licence, or that you passed vetting for your last employer.
• Stability. Two years at one building beats six months at four. Front doors are hard to staff and managers are tired of turnover, so show the length of each job clearly and explain a short stint in one line rather than hiding it.
• Shift honesty. Say which shifts you have worked: earlies (7am to 3pm), lates (3pm to 11pm), nights (11pm to 7am), weekends, bank holidays. Night and bank holiday cover is what buildings struggle to fill, so if you can do it, put it in the personal statement.
• Judgement under pressure. One concrete story of a fire alarm, a medical emergency, a parcel theft or an aggressive visitor tells a manager more than ten lines about being "reliable and hardworking".

“I read the top four lines and the dates. If I can see a current SIA licence, a shift you actually want, and two years somewhere, you are getting a call. What loses people is a CV that says "provided excellent customer service" for a job where the real work is knowing who belongs in the lobby at 2am.”

Use a personal statement if you have door, security, hotel or shop-floor experience. Use a career objective only if you are brand new, and even then make it about the building, not about your career goals. Three to four lines, no more.

Every weak bullet below is real. It is what most doorman CVs say. The strong version on the right names the building size, the volume, the system or the outcome.

If you do not know your exact numbers, estimate honestly and use a range. "300 to 400 parcels a week" is believable; "processed thousands of deliveries" is not.

Split your skills so a manager can see the security side and the service side. Both matter, and different buildings weight them differently.

Security and access control:

• Visitor screening and access lists
• ID and age checks (Challenge 25), spotting altered IDs
• Key control and contractor sign-in logs
• CCTV monitoring and camera review
• Intercom, video entry and fob systems
• Patrols of lobby, post room, car park and roof access
• Incident reports and written shift handovers
• Fire alarm panels, evacuation and lift procedures in a fire
• Emergency response: 999 calls, first aid, defibrillator (AED)

Resident and guest service:

• Parcel logging and resident app systems
• Announcing guests and food deliveries
• Taxi and private hire bookings, umbrella and door service
• Handling move-ins, removal firms and lift bookings
• Working with the building manager, porters and the managing agent
• Discretion about residents' routines and visitors

Personal qualities worth listing, but only with proof next to them: punctuality (say your absence record), calm under pressure (name a situation), and languages. In London and other big UK cities a second language is a real hiring advantage at the door, so list it near the top.

Buildings and security firms hire people with no door experience every week. What they will not do is hire someone who cannot show a licence path, a clean record and a reason to trust them with a shift alone.

1. 1Find out which licence the job needs. Door supervision at pubs, bars and clubs needs an SIA Door Supervisor licence, and contracted security work needs an SIA licence too: you complete the Level 2 licence-linked qualification with an accredited training provider, then apply to the SIA, which checks your identity and criminal record. Some in-house concierge jobs need no licence at all. Check the advert and write what you have done and when.
2. 2Get an Emergency First Aid at Work certificate from a recognised training provider. It is one day, it goes straight on the CV, and door supervisor training expects you to have it.
3. 3Pull anything from past jobs that looks like door work: checking ID in a shop or bar, watching self-checkouts, signing for deliveries, opening or locking up a site, holding keys, writing a report after something went wrong.
4. 4Say clearly which shifts you can take. Willingness to do nights, weekends and bank holidays is worth more than experience for a first door job.

Give these their own short section near the top if you have them, with the issuing body and the expiry date. Never write a licence you do not hold, and never round up an expiry.

• SIA licence. A Door Supervisor licence for pubs, bars, clubs and events; a Security Guard licence for contracted guarding, which covers some concierge and front-of-house roles. Licences last three years and employers can check the SIA's public register, so give the licence type and expiry date exactly.
• Emergency First Aid at Work or First Aid at Work. Widely expected at residential and venue doors, expected before door supervisor training, and valid for three years, so show the renewal year.
• Fire safety training where the building gives front-of-house staff a role in evacuation, such as a fire warden or fire marshal course. Name the course and the year.
• Licensing and ID training if you work a pub, club or hotel door: Challenge 25, spotting fake ID and proof-of-age cards, and refusing entry to people who are drunk. Door supervisor training covers much of this; list any venue training on top.
• Counter-terrorism awareness. ACT Awareness e-learning is a useful extra for venue doors and large residential developments; list it with the year you completed it.

• One page. A doorman or concierge CV almost never needs two, even with 15 years of experience. Cut jobs older than 10 years to a single line each.
• Put the SIA licence line in the header, next to your phone and email.
• Reverse-chronological order, with month and year for each job. Gaps look worse when you only give years.
• No photo, no date of birth, no marital status. That is the UK convention, whatever format you may have used elsewhere.
• If you are applying to a specific building, add one line at the top of the personal statement naming the shift you want. Managers hiring for nights will read that first.

Many concierge and door jobs go through a managing agent or a security contractor, and those firms use applicant tracking software. Write plainly, use standard headings (Personal statement, Experience, Education, Licences and training, Skills), and skip tables and columns so the parser reads your dates correctly.

Read the advert and use its exact words where they are true of you. These are the ones that show up most often in UK doorman, concierge and door supervisor adverts.

• access control, visitor screening, guest announcement
• parcel management, post room, parcel logging
• CCTV monitoring, closed-circuit television, camera review
• incident report, daily occurrence book, shift log
• key control, contractor sign-in, supplier access
• fire safety, evacuation, fire warden, life safety
• de-escalation, conflict management, crowd control
• front desk, front of house, concierge duties
• SIA licence, door supervisor, vetting, DBS check