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WORKING IN ITALY

EXPLAINED: How to write the perfect CV for a job in Italy

If you’re job-hunting in Italy, following Italian CV etiquette will increase your chances of impressing recruiters and give you a head start over other applicants.

Published: 16 July 2024 15:21 CEST
Updated: 10 September 2024 10:05 CEST
Knowing Italy's CV etiquette is key to crafting an effective resume
Knowing the ins and outs of Italian CV etiquette is key to crafting an effective resume. Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

Whether it’s your first time looking for work in Italy or are simply planning on polishing up your old CV to test the job market, there are a few specific quirks and features you should know about before writing your Italian curriculum.

From personal details and photos to references and privacy clauses, knowing the ins and outs of Italian CV etiquette will give you better chances of standing out from the crowd and impressing recruiters.

Italian CV basics

Your Italian CV shouldn’t be longer than two pages and should be clear and simple to read, making all of your relevant professional experience and qualifications readily available.

Creative resumes may look amazing, but recruiters in Italy tend to prefer a standard chronological CV using fonts such as Arial, Helvetica, or Times New Roman to facilitate quick reading and scanning.

English or Italian? 

If you’re applying for an English-speaking position, either option will work in most cases.

But if you’re not very confident in your Italian skills, or don’t know any native speaker who may be able to proofread the text for you, it may be best to stick to English: well-written English will always give a better impression than mistake- or typo-filled Italian.

READ ALSO: How many foreigners are overqualified for their jobs in Italy?

If, however, the job advert is in Italian, and/or there’s an explicit request for applications to be sent in Italian, then you should definitely go for a CV in Italian. 

In this case, it’s strongly advisable to get the help of a native speaker or even a professional translator to make sure your CV is faultless.

Personal details

Applicants are advised to include their personal information and contact details at the very top, ideally organising them into a header.

Besides the usual details (full name, email address, telephone number including country code), Italian employers will expect you to include a little more personal information than you may be used to.

Personal details should include your date of birth, nationality, and address (city and street name are usually sufficient).

Foreign nationals are often advised to seek the help of a native speaker or professional translator when crafting their Italian CV

Foreign nationals are often advised to seek the help of a native speaker or professional translator when crafting their Italian CV. Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash

If relevant, you can also include links to your social media accounts or personal professional websites in this section.

Photo or no photo?

Unlike in countries like the US and UK, many recruiters in Italy will expect you to attach a picture to your CV.

The photo should be a passport-sized headshot with a neutral background, and should look professional (meaning no blurry or grainy pictures taken at social events for instance).

‘Personal profile’

Some applicants like to start out their CV with a summary (usually under the headline of profilo professionale, or ‘professional profile’) giving a clear description of who they are, what they’re looking for, and their key skills.

READ ALSO: Why English teachers say working at Italy’s language schools is an ‘uphill battle’

This is optional, but if you do go for it, keep it to a maximum of two to three lines and make sure to grab the reader’s attention quickly.

Work experience and education

As with CVs in other countries, you’re expected to present your experience in reverse chronological order, working back from your most recent job to your earliest relevant position.

You don’t need to include every single job you’ve ever had, but only the positions that are relevant to the job.

For each position, list your job title, company, and location (city and country), as well as the relevant dates. Bullet points outlining key tasks, responsibilities and skills are not an essential step in Italian CVs, but are a popular choice among applicants.

As for the education section, you should include all the relevant qualifications in reverse chronological order. 

For foreign qualifications, it’s advisable to indicate their equivalent in the Italian system if possible. While you may be asked to produce official translations at a later application stage, this is usually not necessary at this time.

If you are listing any degree, it’s a good idea to indicate the exact grade you achieved. This is common practice in Italy as it’s often assumed that candidates not stating their exact grade didn’t perform well.

Additional skills and languages

Italian CVs generally feature a separate section for other relevant professional skills, including any IT systems or software you may be able to use, as well as any known languages.

When it comes to describing your ability in each language, you can use madrelingua to describe your native language. For additional languages, you can either use the European Language Framework or stick to general descriptors such as basic (elementare), good (buono), intermediate (intermedio), advanced (avanzato), fluent (fluente). 

If you have certificates testifying to your language skills, make sure to list them. 

Most Italian employers will not expect you to list interests and/or hobbies, which is why it’s generally advisable to keep this section extremely brief or forgo it altogether.

References

Employers in Italy are not as demanding as recruiters in other countries when it comes to references, but including a couple of referenze (ideally, past employers) and their contact details can work to your advantage.

Italian CVs often feature a clause allowing recruiters to process their personal data

Italian CVs often feature a clause allowing recruiters to process candidates’ personal data. Photo by Unseen Studio on Unsplash

Privacy clause

Though it is not a legal requirement, job applicants in Italy are advised to include the following clause at the bottom of their CVs:

Autorizzo il trattamento dei miei dati personali ai sensi del D.L. 196/2003 e dell’art. 13 del GDPR (“I agree to the processing of my personal details according to law 196/2003 and article 13 of the General Data Protection Regulation”)

READ ALSO: Nine of the best websites to search for jobs in Italy

This allows hiring managers to lawfully use your personal data under Italian and European privacy regulation in order to move your application forward or save your profile for future vacancies.

Not including the clause may delay your application, according to Italian work advisors.

Online submission

Pdf is considered the best format for electronic CV submissions. 

As a rule of thumb, it’s a good idea to ensure that the size of your file doesn’t exceed five megabytes to avoid upload or download issues.

Do I need a cover letter?

While employers in many English-speaking countries may not even consider a candidate unless they attach a cover letter, in Italy this is often optional.

Italian recruitment experts advise applicants to attach a cover letter only “if you want to underline a specific point – such as why you want to apply to a particular firm”.

If you do decide to attach a cover letter to your CV, it’s advisable to keep it concise and sharply focused, highlighting why you’re the right fit for the position at hand expanding on experiences and skills already outlined in your CV.

Share your own advice, experience or questions on the subject of writing an Italian CV in the comments section below.

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WORKING IN ITALY

​’Talk with everybody’: Five key tips for building up freelance clients in Italy

Freelancing is an attractive option for those seeking the freedom and flexibility of working for themselves. We asked three freelancers in Italy for their best tips on finding new clients.

Published: 16 September 2024 16:40 CEST
​'Talk with everybody': Five key tips for building up freelance clients in Italy

With full-time salaries in Italy falling below the EU average, many foreigners turn to freelancing as a way to earn more money while maximising flexibility. But freelancing is never easy – especially in a country where business opportunities are so often tied to personal networks.

The Local spoke to three freelancers in different fields about how they find – and keep – freelance clients in Italy. Here are their tips and tricks.

Find an anchor client

To strike the right balance between stability and flexibility, many freelancers look for opportunities to establish an “anchor client” that grounds them to the market and provides some regular, reliable work.

Liz Shemaria, a Milan-based journalist and content consultant from California, has an anchor client that occupies half of her billable hours each month and pays enough to cover her basic expenses.

“Since I have my anchor client, I have more flexibility to work on more passion projects,” she said. “That’s the ideal freelance situation.”  

Shemaria started out doing smaller assignments for her anchor client. Once she knew the organisation well and could identify its needs, she pitched herself for a bigger freelance role.

READ ALSO: Is Italy’s flat tax rate for freelancers right for you?

Other freelancers have found their anchor clients by starting out in-house and then going freelance, or collaborating with an agency until they built up their networks.  

Agencies typically pay lower rates than a freelancer would earn working directly with a client, but they can offer legitimacy and stability for freelancers who are still growing their networks.

And since they hire a lot of freelancers, agencies have to expand their talent pool beyond personal connections.

Leverage social media but avoid freelancer platforms

Shemaria has found multiple clients through a Facebook group for professional writers.

Rafaela Reis, a stylist and image consultant from Brazil who has lived in Milan for the past five years, uses Instagram to share her work with her 17,000-plus followers.

Other freelancers swear by LinkedIn. The professional networking site isn’t the trendiest social media platform, but employers in Italy use it to advertise both full-time and freelance positions.

That makes it useful both for identifying potential clients and establishing credibility as a freelancer – especially if the freelancer has connections in common with the prospective client.

The one platform the freelancers we spoke to won’t use is a website such as Upwork or Fiver that connects users with professional service providers.  

These sites tend to create a race to the bottom, forcing freelancers to do more work for lower rates as they try to compete with the platform’s thousands of other users.

Make friends both in your field and related fields

Alessio Perrone, an Italian journalist who freelances for international publications, recommends people who are new to freelancing be friendly and try to meet people in their field.

“Hanging out with people in the same industry will give you a good understanding of where opportunities are and what pay you should be asking for,” he said. “In the beginning, it was really useful to go to events, meet people, get beers with people.”

When he gets requests for jobs that he doesn’t have time for, Perrone refers them to friends – and vice versa.

Reis, who has lived in Milan for the past five years, said she has other friends who are stylists, but professionally it’s been most useful to have friends in related fields.

“I’m friends with photographers, designers. They need me and I need them,” she said.  

She’s been proactive about joining clubs and networking groups to make a wide variety of friends.  

Don’t limit yourself to the Italian market

Despite being based in Italy, the freelancers we spoke to have worked for clients in many different markets, including the US, UK, Germany and even the UAE.  

After earning a Master’s degree in journalism in London, Perrone continued writing for British and then American publications even after he moved back to Italy in early 2020.

He also ghostwrites for an agency based in New York.

“The pandemic helped us out a lot,” he said. “A lot of companies are now used to having their own staff spread across the world. Having a freelancer in a different time zone doesn’t scare anyone.”

READ ALSO: Reader question: Can I have a freelance side gig as an employee in Italy?

Some freelancers, like Reis, are more limited by physical proximity, but Reis works for both Italian and international clients in Milan.  

And she has a large Instagram following in Brazil, which has helped make her work more visible even now that she’s in Milan.

Do referral-worthy work

Eventually, if freelancers do good work, their networks will grow and people will begin referring them to friends and colleagues – or even approaching directly them with jobs, the freelancers we spoke to agreed.

As Perrone has become more established, his strategy for finding clients hasn’t changed. But he’s had to do less outreach as some editors and publications now contact him – instead of vice versa.

Shemaria was also recently contacted to serve as co-author on a book, and Reis agreed that even though finding clients is difficult, persistence is key.

“You need to talk with everybody because you never know who is the person next to you,” she said. “Don’t be afraid or shy, just keep talking. The right connection will arrive sooner or later.”

As for whether she has any desire to find a full-time, in-house position, Reis is unequivocal.  

“I love being freelance,” she said. “I love Milan – even if it’s very hard.” 

Readers can share their own advice and experience on freelancing in Italy in the comments section below.

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