Contrary to what you may have heard, these should not be descriptions of duties and responsibilities but rather your achievements. An achievement in this context is a description of actions you took at work and the benefits your employer got as a result.
Your actions will generally have been in response to a problem or challenge and the benefits will be related to increasing profits by increasing revenue, reducing costs, saving time, etc. Quantify i. You can use something like the Problem-Action-Result formula to help structure your bullet points. The tendency, as a result, is to want to inflate your school-leaver CV education section as much as possible.
The trick is to do the exact opposite: keep it brief and on-point, bloat- and padding-free. Do follow the following guidelines. Stick with a reverse-chronological order for your education section. Employers often need to see that you have passes in Maths and English as a bare minimum. Do list all your A-levels, though. One more thing, if you have very little work experience , you might want to move your education section above the work history section to give it more prominence. You should be able to prepare a list of skills for your school leaver CV that covers everything mentioned in the job advert and then some.
This is just how job hunting goes. Open a new document and list as many of your skills as you can. Ideally this would mean at work, but it could also be at school or as part of your extracurricular activities or hobbies. Save the file. Like now, for instance. Copy 5—10 skills from your master list into your school-leaver CV. Your school leaver CV is bound to end up being pretty similar to other good school leaver CVs out there.
Foreign languages are really almost always relevant, given their associated benefits. When it comes to activities and interests, look for skills that translate well into the workplace. Otherwise, your job application is always going to be made up of two main parts: your school leaver CV and a cover letter that you wrote especially for the given application. A good school leaver cover letter will be between half an A4 page and one A4 page long, about — words in total.
Its overall structure will be set by the standard UK business letter format. All such letters have a certain kind of header, salutation and sign-off. It needs to be clearly structured and formatted — and the content should explain to readers why you are a good candidate for the job being advertised. We all have to start somewhere and plenty of students are able to find jobs straight from school at 16 years old , without experience or contacts.
Using a blend of structure , formatting , language and content, anyone can write an attractive CV. When you are new to the world of work, it can be difficult to know what information you should include in your CV. You can use a site like CV Library it will open in a separate window. Then look through 10 or more job adverts and make a list of the most important candidate requirements that keep appearing.
Now that you have an extensive list of the things that your target employers are looking for, you know exactly what you should be highlighting in your CV. If you have no work experience; check out my video guide to writing a CV when you have no experience. Your CV profile or personal statement is your opening pitch to recruiters and employers. It will be the first thing they read upon opening your CV, so you need to give them some good reasons to be interested in you.
Ideally, you want to summarise the skills you have to offer an employer, in a way which reflects the qualities that they are looking for in a candidate — so again you should be referring to the list you made earlier.
Take a look at the example CV profile below. This person is a school leaver with A-levels who is applying for office based sales roles.
However, they do have some part time supermarket cashier experience which involves some of the same skills and experience. So they have really taken advantage of that. The trick is to write for the job you want , not the job you have. Really sell yourself to the reader. Since I have acted as Assistant Referee to the local junior football team each Saturday. I also coach the junior team for half an hour before each match.
This opportunity has helped me to develop a very wide range of skills including effective mentoring, clear communication, dispute resolution and attention to detail.
This included raising funds at local events, designing and distributing posters and leaflets to local businesses, and organising regular groups of local people to keep our village green clean.
In driving this project forward, I have further developed my communication and leadership skills. This involved making items such as Fimo jewellery to sell and running a stall every break time. Working with 9 other students, the project developed my problem-solving, communication and teamwork skills, and required a strong work ethic as tasks had to be completed outside of school time. Tasks included typing, filing and taking post to the post office. Given the nature of the business, this placement required good organisation skills and attention to detail.
This helped me develop confidence in dealing with the public, working in a team, active listening and quick decision making where incidents occurred. In addition to my various projects, I am also a brown belt in Aikido and attend classes on Monday evenings. This school leaver CV template has a simple layout and includes lots of examples to help you put together your first CV.
It is a two-page design that is flexible and easy-to-edit, should you only require one section or should you need to add in more headings.
The employer needs to know your name! Start your CV off by providing your first and last name, and contact details address, email and telephone number. Your name should typically be in a larger font and sit above your contact information. Only provide a contact number that you can either answer instantly, or that will allow the employer to leave you an answer message that you can reply back to quickly.
The answer message should be clear and concise, whilst remaining professional. Use a professional email address — ideally your name. You need to take your application seriously, which means funny emails are definitely a bad idea. This is because the CV is usually skills-focused in the absence of a great deal of work experience. Unlike a hard skill which is very specific computer programming, Microsoft Office, fork lift truck driver , a soft skill refers to daily interactions and communication skills.
A soft skill could also be described as a personal trait or attribute. Interacting with others on a project, meeting deadlines, punctuality, team working skills, a strong work ethic — all of these are types of soft skills that an employer expects a school leaver to have to a good standard, in order to function effectively in a working environment.
Avoid merely stating on your CV that you have these skills without backing them up. However, you are likely to have at least some non-traditional experience which can demonstrate skills that are transferable to the world of work. If you have little to include, consider volunteering at a local charity shop or country park. Not only will you learn and develop lots of soft skills, you will also have some experience to add to your CV.
An employer will always look favourably on a CV that has voluntary work. Trying to explain a gap between your education and seeking employment could be tricky, and the longer it takes to find employment the longer the gap gets! Andrew Fennell for the Guardian explains, where possible you should:. One approach to the education section is to simply list all of your subjects and grades.
This is fine if you have a fair bit to include in the skills and experience section. If your experience and skills section is rather thin, a good approach is to expand on your achievements whilst in education. Highlight parts of your education and grades which are mandatory to apply for the role, or may be of interest to the employer.
Try to make everything as relevant as possible to the job you are applying for, so the employer can quickly see that you can apply skills that are transferable to their company.
Study the job advert to gain a further insight into what the employer is looking for. What types of soft skills would the employer need you to have? Focus upon these skills within your CV and how you achieved them during your education. Although this section is not mandatory you could still use it to add value and credibility to your CV.
However, be careful not to bore the employer with the standard hobbies such as going to the cinema, reading a book, and socialising on weekends with friends the latter simply suggests a Monday morning hangover! The types of hobbies which would add value to your CV and potentially further demonstrate your soft skills are:. Remember, as a recent school leaver you may be struggling to complete a two page CV. Every section should be looked at as another way to add more value to your application.
There are lots of soft skills to be showcased within your hobbies — communication, writing skills, team work, leadership, and so on. Grab a pen and paper and jot down your hobby or hobbies.
What soft skills would you need in order to partake? Do you have to communicate with people in order to achieve success — like scoring a goal in football or a try in rugby?
Why did you get chosen as the captain of your sports team? Another fantastic way of allowing the employer to see more of your personality is to provide links to achievements.
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