See how to write your first CV for your first job with this step by step guide for students. You don’t lots of need work experience or qualifications to write a great CV that demonstrates your skills and strengths.
In this guide:
- What is a CV?
- What to put in your CV
- Your personal statement
- Your work experience
- Your skills and strengths
- Your interests
- Your references
- Do’s and Don’ts
- CV formats
- Why you need a CV
- Expert tips
- Watch the video!
What is a CV?
A CV (also known as Curriculum Vitae) is a document that helps you show employers your skills, strengths, qualifications and experience when you apply for a job. Employers often ask for a CV and expect it to look and feel professional.
A CV is a big first step to getting a job. It doesn’t just show employers what you’ve done – it shows them what you can do. Think of it as an introduction to one of the most amazing and employable people in the world. You.
What to put in your first CV: A step by step guide
- Full name
- Contact details
– phone number and email address. - Personal statement:
– A personal statement is a sentence or paragraph that summarises your strengths, career goals, and what you can offer employers. - Key skills:
– Skills like teamwork, communication and problem solving are useful to put on your CV when you are still building experience - Education:
Putting your education in your CV means adding you’ve studied, for how long, and what grades you got. You can put predicted grades if waiting for results. - Work experience:
Work experience can include part-time jobs, work placements, work shadowing, internships, and paid training like apprenticeships. - Hobbies and interests:
This section is your chance to show your general life experience and skills. Volunteering, personal projects and learning out of choice (e.g. sports or music) can show employers your skills, motivation and suitability for a role.
You can explore each of these elements in more depth below.
What to put in your personal statement on your first CV
What is a CV personal statement?
A CV personal statement is a bite-sized sentence or two summing up who you are as a professional, and what you want to offer employers in terms of your ambition and experience.
Example personal statement
“Sixth form student at Stonebridge College. Practical work experience with retail weekend work (including cash handling) and summer catering work in restaurants. Looking to start a business career with work that develops my business skills and includes customer service.”
If you haven’t done much work experience, you won’t have much to say here. You can still talk about your skills, though. You’ll learn more about talking about skills in your first CV below.
What counts as work experience on your first CV?
You may have never had a job before, but you probably have more experience than you think. Examples of work experience include:
- work shadowing
- work experience and placements
- volunteering
- charity work
- Saturday jobs
- summer jobs.
Work experience can take all kinds of forms. For each bit of work experience, include the name of the place you worked, how long you worked there and what your main tasks were. Try to write about the work you did in a way that shows future employers what you’d be good at. For example…
How to talk about skills and strengths in your first CV
If you’ve got little or no work experience, you can still use a CV to talk about your skills and strengths. These are known as ‘soft skills’ or ‘life skills’. They are personal qualities that have helped you develop as a person, but can also help you fit into the workplace and develop as a professional, too.
Many youth friendly employers are changing their recruitment approach in terms of job descriptions and job requirements to focus on skills and strengths instead of qualifications and experience. This can help you demonstrate your suitability for a job in your CV when you are a student or school leaver and still building your qualifications and experience.
These are the top life and work skills to talk about in your CV:
Try out our free online Young Professional training to build these five top life and work skills, wherever you are in the UK.
You are building these important work skills all the time, even when you are still at school. You just need to learn how to develop them and show employers you’ve got them. You can talk about these work skills in your CV.
If you are applying for a job that mentions nice-to-have skills, use your CV to demonstrate how any work experience you’ve done has helped you build up those skills.
EXAMPLE: talking about your Saturday job in your CV
Role: Weekend customer assistant work, MacDougal’s Fast Food, Aug 2016-Dec 2017
- Developed strong customer service skills in serving customers quickly and politely
- Used problem solving to help customers with a range of queries like requesting vegan choices or items not on the menu
- Worked as a team to make sure food was cooked, served and delivered quickly, and the service area was kept clean
- Used self-management and organisation skills to carry out tasks on my own without constant supervision by the team leader
- Developed time-keeping skills in always being punctual for work
- I was given extra responsibilities by the team leader and trained in cash handling and working the till.
How to talk about hobbies in your CV
Talking about hobbies and interests in your CV gives you the opportunity to demonstrate your ambition, motivation, positive attitude and life skills. It’s important to talk about your interests in your first CV because it shows employers you are keen to learn and try new things. You are motivated to do more than the bare minimum in order to develop yourself.
Example hobbies and interests to include in your first CV:
- Volunteering (this includes volunteering online)
- Social action
- Learning a new skill, also known as lifelong learning (e.g. sports discipline, instrument, crafting, coding)
- Clubs and societies (e.g. scouts, guides, after-school clubs, youth clubs)
- Achievements (e.g. awards you have won, charity events you have participated in, courses you have completed)
Employers are likely to ask you about your hobbies and interests in a job interview. Talking about these can make you feel more at ease with the social side of the interview process. You can also talk about the skills you use in your hobbies to show you are a well-rounded person who is suitable for the job.
Who can give you a reference for your first CV?
Someone who gives you a reference is someone who can vouch for you when you are applying for a job. You don’t have to put references on your CV. You can just say “References available on request” on the bottom. But this does give you time to think about who could be a good reference for any work experience you’ve done.
If you’re still in school, you could ask a teacher to be a reference. If you’ve done any saturday work, volunteering or charity work you could ask the team leader or the person who supervised you to be your reference. If you’ve done school work experience, you could ask your supervisor to provide you with a reference.
Whoever you ask for a reference, be polite and explain why you want the job – or ask if they will be willing to provide a reference if you apply for jobs in the future.
What not to put on your CV:
- Age
- Date of birth
- Gender (your business, no-one else’s)
- Religion (your business, no-one else’s)
- Relationship status (single, married or “it’s complicated”? Never put it on your CV!)
- Nationality (all these things are way too personal and employers will only ask if they absolutely need to know)
- Weird colours, designs and fonts (keep it simple!)
- A non-professional email address (Weird or joke emails like ihatedonuts@gmail.com give employers the wrong impression. It’s quick and free to get a new professional email address like FirstnameLastname@gmail.com if you need one.)
- Lies (never lie on your CV. You can emphasise your good points, but never lie – you will just get caught out.)
- References (if employers want references from people, they’ll ask you. Save that CV space for your skills, experience and achievements)
- It is recommended that you do not provide your address for personal security reasons, but it you can decide whether you think it is necessary to include it.
What should your first CV look like?
The most important thing is to keep it simple! Your CV should not be more than two pages long, and it should look really basic with simple formatting. Avoid fancy fonts, CV templates or colours.
Search online for ‘CV templates’ and you’ll find loads of examples to try.
Why do you need a CV?
A CV tells employers what you’re good at, what you are interested in and what you’ve achieved in life so far. You hand it out when you are looking for jobs. They are great to take to careers fairs, and you can often upload your CV if you are applying for a job online. If an employer likes your CV they might ask you to come to a job interview.
Your CV is your chance to show employers you’re a good match for the job and can back up any claims you make. If you say in your cover letter that your cooking could put the Great British Bake-Off to shame, your CV can back you up by showing how you raised hundreds of pounds in a school charity bake sale.
CV tips from youth-friendly employers
BT Early Careers: (Because not all employers these days need CVs, especially with online applications): “Fill in our online application form. We’ll be looking for evidence that you’re suitable for life at BT. Don’t worry if you don’t have a CV, you don’t need to upload one if you don’t want to.”
Capita: “Put your mobile phone number on your CV. We need to quickly find it and call you to give you the good news that you are through!”
Ixion: “Do you want to apply for a traineeship with us? As part of your traineeship, we will support you in putting together your CV as we want to see you progress successfully from your traineeship either into an apprenticeship or employment.”
Kelly Services: “In online recruitment, many companies use ATS, or Applicant Tracking Software, to sort out ‘good’ CVs from the ones that they think are less suited to the job. Use keywords in what you write on your online application that are relevant to the job posting that you’re applying for and that are mentioned in the job posting.”
McDonald’s: “Remember what your CV is for. It’s not just to show employers what you’ve done. It’s to show employers who you are and what you CAN do.”
CV Tips: Watch Video
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