A model for description of the shapes of the coherent population trapping (CPT) resonances at different geometries of excitation and observation is developed. The numerical calculations, based on the irreducible tensor operator formalism, take into account the experimental geometry, the velocity distribution of the atoms, the Gaussian distribution of the laser beam intensity and the high rank polarization moments (HRPM). The results for different laser beam diameters, aperture of the detection, position of the photodetector etc. are compared with the experimental data. A method for description of the experimental shapes is proposed.