How to Write a CV for Your First Job

What to put at the top

Use your name, reliable contact details, location or work-location preference where useful, and a short summary aligned with the role. The summary should state what you are preparing for and the strongest relevant evidence.

How to write experience when you have none

Use responsibilities that demonstrate work-like behavior: school or community projects, volunteering, family responsibilities where appropriate, freelance tasks, practical learning, internships, or other credible examples. Describe the action, context, and result honestly.

Transferable skills

Choose skills that matter for the target role and connect each to evidence. Communication, reliability, problem-solving, organization, patience, observation, customer handling, or persuasion become stronger when the CV shows where you used them.

Learning and certificates

List relevant recent learning and certificates, including the issuing organization and date where useful. Do not imply that course completion proves a practical competency that was never assessed.

Common first-CV mistakes

Avoid invented experience, generic objectives, unrelated skill lists, unexplained acronyms, inconsistent dates, and overly decorative layouts that make important evidence harder to find. Tailor the CV to the role instead of sending the same document everywhere.

Connect CV claims to your candidate profile

Where possible, keep your CV and Konnected profile consistent. Add relevant skills, learning, verification, availability, and evidence to the profile so an employer can see more than a claim on a page.

The Konnected Evidence Ladder

Konnected treats readiness as a stack of increasingly useful evidence. The purpose is not to collect badges. It is to make a role-relevant claim easier for an employer to understand and verify.

• Claim — the skill or capability you say you have.
• Example — a specific situation showing the behavior in context.
• Learning — relevant training that builds the underlying knowledge or technique.
• Assessment — evidence that defined knowledge or judgment was actually tested.
• Verification — confirmation of a document, history item, identity or other reviewed evidence.
• Practical competency — hands-on performance assessed where the role genuinely requires it.

What job-ready evidence should look like

The strongest profile uses the right evidence for the right claim. A course completion can show that learning was completed, but it does not automatically prove a practical skill that was never assessed. A verified document can confirm the document or history item, but it does not guarantee job performance.

Employers make better decisions when relevant evidence is easy to interpret. Candidates should prioritize a small number of strong, role-specific signals rather than burying the profile under unrelated certificates or unsupported self-ratings.

Common questions