When you apply for jobs, employers will often ask for a CV. A CV is just a couple of pages which summarises who you are and what you’ve achieved.
It’s good practice to make sure that you’ve got one ready and up to date in case you need one and it’s never too early to start writing your first CV – you never know when you might need it! It also means that you can update it whenever something happens like an achievement in one of your hobbies or you gain a qualification from school.
Why not write one today? An example of a CV can be found here and there is a CV template which you can fill in for yourself which you can download at the top of this page.
When you’re completing your CV, you might find that there are some gaps. This can often be in the “Interests and achievements” section, if you don’t feel that you’ve done much outside of school. You could ask someone to help you to complete this section, as there are likely to be things you simply hadn’t thought of.
You could also make a plan for what you can do to make this look better. What could you get involved in now? It doesn’t matter if somethings are blank for now – if you’ve never had a job, this bit won’t have anything in and that’s fine.
Referees are people who the employer can contact to check that you’re a suitable person to employ. Usually, at least one of these would be someone from school if you’re in full time education (or about to leave it). The second one could be someone who can give you a “character reference”. This could be someone else in school if you can’t think of anyone else. You can always ask for help with writing a CV and it’s important to get someone to check over your CV but please remember to remove any personal details like a personal email address or mobile number before sending it to anyone in school!