How to write your first CV: 5 Key tips

How do you write a CV for your first job? Do you even need a CV if you haven’t worked before? What can a 16 year old put on a CV that will get them a job? These are questions that everyone asks themselves when they take their first steps into employment, and when you feel like you don’t have anything to write it can feel like an insurmountable task. To help with this I thought I’d write a quick guide to anyone struggling with CV writer’s block!

Understanding why you need a CV in the first place

Why do you even need a CV when you haven’t worked before? This is a question that is being asked more and more in the current climate. Surely by now we’d have some digital method of introducing yourself to an employer? Unfortunately we’re not at that point yet! It is true that for some jobs a CV is largely unnecessary, perhaps if it’s a small company in your local area, but if you are expected to compete with multiple other candidates you really need something to get your foot in the door.

When employers open up a position for applications you need to anticipate that you’re going to be one of many people applying for the role. Put yourself in the hiring manager’s shoes, they have a vacancy that needs to be filled, but they don’t have time to meet with anyone and everyone. Time is valuable in a lot of businesses and they don’t want to risk spending too much time interviewing people they are never going to hire. So they need a method of determining who they want to interview, this is where the CV comes into it. 

If you are young, with little experience, the chances are that you are going for roles at the entry level, and therefore it stands to reason that your competitors are going to be in the same boat as you. Therefore, you don’t need to panic too much! It’s highly unlikely other candidates are going to have much more experience than you, so really you’re on a level playing field.

Now you just need your CV to stand out from the crowd. A CV is intended to show an employer an idea of who you are, what are your interests, what are your achievements, how are you different from the next candidate? The below points are the best building blocks to start to stand out.

Where to start writing your CV?

You’ve sat down in front of your blank word document; you’ve put your name, email address, phone number, LinkedIn account, star sign, height, and anything else you can think of to pad out the document you have no idea how to write. Then you stare at the page thinking...what next?

The easiest way to begin is something simple and factual, something that everyone can recognise and understand. Education. 

Starting with something factual and provable is a really strong start, it’s sometimes too easy to add ‘fluff’ to a CV to make things sound fancier than they are, but employers see through this straight away. Keep things as factual as possible. Detail your school(s), subjects, and grades. If your grades aren’t great or something you want to shout about you can get creative with this, eg ‘9 GCSEs between A-C’. 

If you do have a particular subject you’ve excelled in, or would be relevant to your desired job it’s a good idea to really dig into this. What did you study? Are you particularly proud or interested in your work in an area? This information can really give employers an insight into you and give you a chance to brag about something real and tangible. 

After you’ve finished this section you should be feeling better about your CV as it now has something on it! Now it’s easy to think when you’ve not worked before that this is everything you have to say, but hopefully you’ve got much more to write, you just don’t realise it yet.

Hobbies and achievements

A CV is not only about education and work experience, which is good news for anyone without work experience! The main aim of a CV is to get across your own personality and to set yourself apart from the crowd, therefore your hobbies and interests are a major part of your first CV.

A common mistake is to bypass this section by only using one word entries, eg. ‘Football, Hiking, Dance’. Whilst this literally does the job in terms of listing your interests, it really is a missed opportunity to add some breadth and depth to your personality profile. Instead of saying you play football, why not add your position, your team, have you ever won Player of the Match, or a trophy?

Many young people in the UK have achieved things in their life that they leave out of their CV which would actually really add value; 330,000 British youth participated in the Duke of Edinburgh award, and around a million have been in the Scouts and Guides. These associations not only provide great skills, but also show the right kind of character that you want to show off to a potential employer.

If you are finding it hard to think of hobbies or interests to add to this section don’t worry, it’s not too late to get involved with something. Extracurricular activities are really important to your first CV, because everyone has some varying form of education, but extracurricular activities are often unique and varied from person to person, so this is your chance to shine!

Personal Statement

Personal statements can be a controversial topic in the world of CVs; some think that they are totally unnecessary, whilst those writing a first CV see it as their best chance to sell themselves if they can’t rely on education or hobbies. I would suggest that for a first CV a good personal statement is going to be hugely valuable. As your work experience grows, it should start to speak for itself, meaning personal statements become less important, but if you’re reading this you’re probably not at that stage yet!

The key thing to remember about personal statements is to avoid ‘fluff’. This means avoiding words or terms that are relatively meaningless or too obvious. It can be very tempting to try and exaggerate that ‘you’re a hard worker’ or that you ‘work well in a team’, but these terms are pretty meaningless as everyone will say such a thing, and if you don’t have any evidence for this then your potential employer will just be taking your word for it.

Instead you should try to showcase your skills and abilities using evidence to back it up, if you say you’re a ‘hard worker’ you should really include information to back this up; eg. ‘I am a hard worker as evidenced by my high grades in my History studies..’. It’s important not to ramble about things that sound good, but ultimately reads like a generic statement. Remember this will often be the first thing hiring managers read on your CV, so if you’ve made the mistake of making it boring or generic they will often not be interested in the rest of what you have to say! If in doubt, the shorter the better. 

It is also important to tailor your CV to the job you are applying to, and if this is your first CV your personal statement will likely be the only thing you can actually customise. Do not under any circumstances forget to check your CV before you send it, if you have tailored your personal statement for a role in retail, and then use the same CV for a role in hospitality without editing it you’re going to look like someone who hasn’t taken their application seriously. 

Do some research into the position and spend some time reflecting on what skills and experience they will find attractive, then you can re-write your statement accordingly!

Proofread

Nothing is worse in a CV than to be riddled in spelling and grammatical errors. Often the hardest thing to get right if it isn’t a skill of yours, spell checker on Microsoft Word and Google Docs can only get you so far. If writing isn't your strong suit, don’t panic, ask a friend, a teacher, or someone who is quite literate to check your work for you. 

You never want someone to literally write your CV for you as you really need to let your own personality shine through, but you can ask for tips on wording, phrasing, and punctuation. Further to this, you want to keep your CV professional, try not to use idioms or colloquial language such as ‘I was good at this job because, like, it was interesting and stuff’, this is an immediate red flag for employers!

It is also important at this stage to make sure the formatting is correct and appropriate. Keep to a professional font and size, I personally use Arial 11 but there are various other options for whatever suits you best. Just remember to keep things professional and clean, not too busy! 

Writing your first CV is not as difficult as it may look. Whilst you are likely to be lacking in work experience you are likely to have much more life experience than you think! Remember to really dig down into your education and hobbies, make a note before you start of an achievement you're proud of in your life. There really isn’t anything that wouldn’t be useful at this stage as your main goal is to sound unique and stand out from the crowd!