I dismantled and remade my CV under thematic headings, instead of chronologically. So for instance, one of the headings was 'research', and I picked four or five examples of research projects I have done, scattered over 20 years or more. That info might well have been present in a conventional CV, but the reader would have had to mentally abstract it from all the different examples, and put it back together in his mind. That's extra work, so why not do it for him, and lead his mind along the route you want it to go?
Restructuring my CV on those lines also made me think about my skills and experience in a more positive way. Instead of seeing my career (so-called) as a sort of aimless wandering about, as I get bored and chuck jobs in, I saw it more as a clutch of examples that I could draw on to flesh out these themes. I used voluntary work I had done as far back as when I was a student, and bit of freelance writing I had done over the years.
The themes I picked were, if I remember: problem solving, writing, research, communication and liaison, social and educational, team development. Might have left something off, but that was the sort of thing - loose but positive categories.
I recommend anyone looking for a job change should try this as a mental exercise, I think it might make you realise how much you have done. I think it would also work for quite young people, without much work experience. Flesh out your examples using experiences from outside paid work, like helping a disabled relative or whatever.
Anyway, all of this may seem quite obvious to you, but it came as a shock to me, to realise that I didn't have to follow the conventional model, and I don't know, just the general positive attitude that arose from it has been good.