Receptionist CV Examples & Writing Guide

This sample is for a receptionist with six years on a front desk, first in a corporate office and now at a busy GP surgery. The name, employers and numbers are invented but sized to a real desk. If you work a hotel, dental, salon or law-firm reception, keep the layout and swap in your own systems; there are personal statements for each below.

Receptionist vacancies attract a lot of applicants, so the first read is quick. The office manager or practice manager doing the hiring is looking for four things.

• Volume. How many calls, visitors or patients a day? A desk that handles 30 calls is a different job from one that handles 200. Say the number.
• Systems. The phone system, the booking tool, Microsoft Office or Google Workspace, and for GP surgeries and dental practices the clinical or practice software (EMIS Web, SystmOne, Vision, Accurx for patient messaging, Dentally, Software of Excellence). Hotels want the property system (Opera, Guestline, Cloudbeds); gyms and salons want Mindbody, Fresha or Gladstone.
• Money and accuracy. Card and cash takings, invoices, post and courier logs. Any line that shows you handled money without discrepancies.
• Reliability and tone. Attendance, covering early or late shifts, how you handled an angry caller or a full waiting room. Managers know a receptionist sets the mood of the whole office.

“The front desk is the first voice every patient hears. On a CV I look for the daily call and booking-in numbers and the software, because that tells me how fast they will be up to speed. Then I call the referees and ask one question: did she turn up.”

Three lines under your name: years and setting, daily volume, systems, one thing you are known for. Use a personal statement rather than a career objective, even with no experience; the entry-level example shows how.

Most receptionist CVs list the job description: answer phones, greet visitors, book appointments. The manager already knows that. Add the number, the system and the result. Eight common receptionist duties, rewritten.

Keep the list to 10 to 14 skills and match the words in the job advert. A practice manager searching for "EMIS" or "multi-line phone" needs to find those exact words on your CV.

Front desk and administrative skills:

• Multi-line phone systems (name it: Cisco, Avaya, RingCentral, 8x8, Mitel)
• Visitor sign-in and pass systems (Envoy, Proxyclick, signing-in books)
• Appointment booking and diary management (Outlook, Google Calendar, Calendly, Acuity)
• Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Outlook) or Google Workspace, with a real typing speed (test it and state it, 55+ wpm is good)
• Post, courier and parcel handling; ordering supplies
• Cash, card and invoice handling; petty cash
• Data entry and filing, paper and digital
• Basic bookkeeping or Xero/QuickBooks if your desk does invoicing

Skills by setting (list the ones that fit the job you want):

• GP surgery or clinic: clinical systems (EMIS Web, SystmOne, Vision), patient registration, repeat prescription requests, referrals admin, online consultation and messaging tools (such as Accurx), UK GDPR and patient confidentiality, medical terminology
• Dental: Dentally, Software of Excellence (R4/Exact); NHS charge bands and private fees; dental plan sign-ups; treatment plan explanations; recall booking
• Veterinary: RoboVet, Merlin, ezyVet; appointment triage; pet and client records
• Hotel: property management systems (Opera, Guestline, Cloudbeds), folio and cash handling, upselling rooms, night audit
• Gym, spa or salon: Mindbody, Fresha, Gladstone; membership sales and retention; point of sale
• Legal and corporate: conflict checks, court and filing deadlines, meeting room booking, executive diary support, NDAs and confidentiality

Soft skills matter at the front desk, but list them only when you can show them. "Calm under pressure" is a claim; "kept a 30-patient waiting room informed and calm during a 90-minute clinic delay" is proof.

Receptionist is one of the most common first office jobs, and managers expect to train. What they will not train is turning up on time, speaking clearly and staying pleasant on the hundredth call. Your CV needs to prove those three things from whatever you have done so far.

1. 1Write a personal statement that names the setting you want (front desk, GP surgery, dental, hotel) and the two or three things you already have: customer-facing hours, typing speed, software, a second language.
2. 2Turn retail, hospitality, call centre or volunteer work into front desk terms: customers served per shift, phone calls handled, cash counted, complaints resolved, rotas kept.
3. 3Add a Skills section with concrete items: typing speed from an online test, Microsoft Word and Excel, Google Calendar, any booking or till system.
4. 4For a GP surgery or dental desk with no experience, add a short course or certificate: a medical terminology course, information governance or GDPR training, or a Level 2 or 3 medical reception or administration qualification. Say clearly what you have completed.
5. 5Include school office help, club secretary roles, community or charity reception volunteering, and babysitting or caring rotas you managed.
6. 6Keep it to one page, proofread twice (the receptionist writes the office's emails) and use a clean template.

• One page if you can, two at most. Receptionist CVs are read by office managers with a pile of applications; a long CV will not be read.
• Order: header, personal statement, skills (short, keyword-rich, near the top), experience, education, certifications. Managers scan skills first for the phone and software names.
• Reverse chronological, with months and years. Front desk jobs often have short tenures; do not hide dates, but do show any promotion or added responsibility.
• Clean single-column layout such as the cvplex receptionist template. No photo, date of birth or marital status (not expected on a UK CV), no skill bars, no coloured text blocks that an applicant tracking system (ATS) cannot read.
• Keywords to mirror from the advert when they are true for you: reception, front of house, multi-line phone, appointment booking, booking in, visitor management, customer service, data entry, Microsoft Office, GDPR, patient registration, and the software named in the advert.
• Save as a PDF named Firstname-Lastname-Receptionist-CV.pdf unless the advert asks for a Word file, and add a short cover letter unless the advert says not to.
• Availability: if you can cover early openings, evenings or Saturdays, say so in the personal statement. Many desks hire around a gap in the rota.
• Job titles vary: UK adverts may say receptionist, front of house, patient services or, in GP surgeries, care navigator. Use the employer's term in your personal statement when it fits your experience.