"How do I get experience if every job asks for experience?" It is the most common frustration of school leavers and new graduates. The answer, for your CV, is that you almost certainly have more relevant experience than you think. It just did not come with a payslip.
What counts as experience
Employers hiring for entry-level posts are looking for evidence that you are reliable, can learn, can work with people and can be trusted with responsibility. You can show that through:
- Part-time and holiday work — retail, waitering, helping in a family business, tutoring.
- Volunteering — at a church, clinic, NGO, community project or school.
- Leadership roles — prefect, class representative, sports captain, society committee member.
- Projects — a major school or university project, a research assignment, a small business you ran, a website or app you built.
- Practical training — work-integrated learning, practicals, job shadowing.
- Responsibilities at home — for example caring for a relative or managing a household budget, where relevant.
A simple layout for a first CV
- Contact details — name, cellphone, email, town.
- Profile — two or three lines: what you have studied, your strongest skills and the kind of work you want. For example: "Recent Grade 12 graduate with strong maths results and two years' weekend experience as a cashier. Looking for an entry-level administrative or retail post."
- Education — put this near the top, because it is your strongest section. Include your qualification, institution, year and, if they are good, your results or relevant subjects.
- Experience — part-time work, volunteering and projects, written the same way as paid jobs: role, organisation, dates and what you did.
- Skills — computer skills (be specific: "Microsoft Word and Excel: formatting documents, simple formulas"), languages, a driver's licence.
- References — a teacher, lecturer, volunteer coordinator or part-time employer who knows you.
Turn activities into evidence
Describe what you did and what it shows. Instead of "Member of the debating society", write "Debated in inter-school competitions; prepared and presented arguments under time pressure." Instead of "Helped at my aunt's shop", write "Served customers, handled cash and helped with weekly stock counts at a family spaza shop."
Keep it to one page
A focused one-page CV is better than a padded two-page one. Leave out school subject lists beyond the relevant highlights, hobbies that say nothing about you, and generic phrases such as "hard-working and honest" — show those qualities through what you have done instead.
Build experience while you look
Use the time between applications to add to your CV: volunteer, complete free short courses, and apply for learnerships and internships, which are designed for people with little or no experience. Our guides to learnerships and internships and youth employment programmes show where to start.
When you are ready, our free CV builder lays out your first CV neatly and exports it as a PDF.