What should a one-page coffee CV actually include?
I have been sending a generic hospitality CV and getting nothing back from specialty shops. What do café owners and head baristas actually look for on the page?
Owners skim CVs in ten seconds looking for three things: can you work a bar at volume, do you care about coffee beyond the job, and will you still be here in six months. Put those three things on the first half of the page.
A layout that works:
| Section | What to put | What to leave out |
|---|---|---|
| Header | Name, city, phone, a link to your Career.Coffee profile or Instagram with photos of your work | Full address, date of birth, a headshot |
| One line | "Barista, 3 years, high-volume specialty. Comfortable on La Marzocco/Mythos, milk to competition standard, opening and closing." | "Passionate about coffee" |
| Experience | Shop, city, dates, volume (cups a day, group heads, team size), what you owned (dial-in, training, ordering, opening) | Every duty you ever had |
| Coffee specifics | Machines and grinders you have used, brew methods, any competitions, throwdowns, certifications | Generic "customer service skills" |
| Availability | Days, earliest start, how long you plan to stay | Nothing here means "I don't know" |
| References | One head barista or owner who will pick up the phone | "Available on request" |
Three things that get you a reply:
- Numbers. "400 cups a day on two groups" tells an owner more than a paragraph.
- Photos of your craft. A link to a profile with a few pour or bar photos gets opened. Owners hire what they can see.
- The right length. One page. If you have ten years, still one page; the second page is your Career.Coffee profile.
And one thing that gets you ignored: a CV that could be for any job. Read the listing, then mirror its language back. If it says "filter-focused" and you have never mentioned a V60, the shop will assume you have never made one.
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