Are you thinking about getting a part time job? Or maybe, you’re looking for work experience to get some hours under your belt in your chosen career path?

If so, you’ll need to get yourself a well written CV or ‘Curriculum Vitae’. Potential employers will form a first impression from your CV so it’s important to make yourself standout from the rest. If you’ve never written a CV, we’ve put together a few tips below to help you.

There is no set layout for your CV and there are lots of different free templates online that you can download and complete, but you do need to ensure that it looks, and reads, professional. This means, choosing a professional looking font to use throughout and ensuring that the font isn’t too small or large.

Personal Details

You should start with your personal details; this is the easy part. Include your:

• Full Name
• Email Address
• Contact Telephone Number
• Address

Make sure that your email address is appropriate for professional use. It’s important for you to create a good impression.

Personal Profile

In this section, you need to state your current situation. So, tell them who you are, what you’re doing and a little bit about where you’d like to be. You will be able to tailor this to the job you are applying for and express why having this job would help you get there.

Include and talk about:

• Are you a student?
• What you study and what year you are in
• What skills have you developed during the time of been on the course and how these skills are going to help you in a work environment?
• What skills have you learnt outside of your degree? How are these going to help you in a work environment?
• Do you currently have any other part time jobs?
• Have you ever volunteered anywhere? Do you do this on a regular basis?
• Add a little bit about why you are applying for this job and why you believe you will be good at it. You can also talk about this in a covering letter.

It can be difficult trying to think of the positives about yourself so, try asking or thinking about what your family members or friends might say about you. After all, they’ll probably know you better than you know yourself.

Previous Employment / Work Experience

When adding previous employment details, you will need to start with your most recent job and work backwards.
Always start with the company name and your job role. Underneath, you should list what your responsibilities were. It’s a good idea to talk about anything you feel you did well at or enjoyed. As well as this, you should mention how you maximised your potential and how you can adapt the skills and responsibilities to suit the role you are applying for. You could even mention any work that you are particularly proud of or received great feedback on. However, you might want to leave out anything that is not relevant to the job you are applying for.

• TIP: Rather than keep recreating your CV time and time again to suit a job role, create a full CV with every job role on so, you can just chop and change it depending on the role you’re applying for. This will save you time and ensures that there isn’t anything you forget to mention.

Education & Qualifications

Your time at school was key to your learning progress, not just your education but life skills. No one spends all those years at school and comes away with nothing to show for it. Even if you didn’t do as well as you’d hoped in exams, there are all the extracurricular activities you can mention. You should also mention any skills developed while doing any extracurricular activities.
Your employer will want to know exactly why they should choose you over other candidates. This is where you really need to sell yourself.
Start with the school you attended and then list the subjects you took, stating the grades achieved next to it.

Additional Interests & Skills

In this area, take the opportunity to talk about any other skills or interests that will be relevant to the job role, no matter how big or small. State your hobbies and any voluntary work that you may have been included in.