What makes a humanitarian CV different
Humanitarian recruiters read fast and skim for fit against a specific Terms of Reference. Your CV has to make the match obvious in the first few lines. That means leading with your sector and the donors or mechanisms you've worked under, not a vague "motivated professional" summary.
It also means treating field and security experience as a first-class qualification. Time in a hard duty station, surge deployments, or work during an active response is exactly what distinguishes candidates here — so it belongs in the body of each role, not hidden.
- Lead with sector + donor lines (BHA, ECHO, FCDO, GFFO, OFDA legacy, etc.)
- Quantify outcomes: coverage %, beneficiaries reached, budget managed
- Name the clusters or working groups you coordinated
- Make field / hard-duty-station experience explicit
- Keep it to two pages — recruiters won't read more
Structure that works for aid roles
Open with a two-to-four line professional summary that states your sector, years of experience, and your single strongest, quantified achievement. Then list experience in reverse-chronological order, each role with one line of context and two to four quantified bullet points.
Education and certifications matter in this sector — PMD Pro, Sphere, HEAT, and donor-specific compliance training all signal readiness. Languages belong near the top: working Somali, Arabic, Swahili or French can be decisive for a regional role.
Why generic CV makers fail humanitarian candidates
Design-first tools optimise for visual flourish, not the structured, scannable layout aid recruiters expect — and many produce files that mangle long NGO names or break across pages. They also have no concept of verification, which is increasingly what separates a credible claim from an unprovable one.
Sahan is the opposite: structured data first, a small set of genuinely elegant templates, and the option to add a verified badge to a specific role once an admin has confirmed it with the employer. The result looks designed, reads clearly, and carries proof where it counts.
What to include in a humanitarian CV
- Contact details + languages (with proficiency)
- A 2–4 line summary leading with sector and a quantified result
- Experience with donor lines and measurable outcomes
- Cluster / working-group coordination roles
- Field and hard-duty-station experience, stated plainly
- Sector training: PMD Pro, Sphere, HEAT, safeguarding
- Two referees attached to the roles they can speak to
Why people use Sahan for this
Sahan isn't a generic design tool. It's built for one job: making it effortless to keep a structured profile and generate a genuinely elegant CV from it — on any phone, in minutes — with optional verified badges on the claims that matter.
- Simple to build, satisfying to download
- Works fully on mobile — no app to install
- Update once, regenerate any time
- Verified badges, per claim
Frequently asked questions
- How long should a humanitarian CV be?
- Two pages is the norm. Recruiters screen against a Terms of Reference and rarely read past page two. Sahan's templates are built to keep even a long career to two clean pages.
- Is Sahan's humanitarian CV template really free?
- Yes. Building your profile and downloading your CV is free. Optional paid verification adds an admin-confirmed badge to specific claims — but the CV itself costs nothing.
- Can I make my humanitarian CV on my phone?
- Yes. Sahan runs entirely in the mobile browser — fill in your profile, preview the PDF, and download, all on a phone.