Your first CV after matric will be short, and that is fine. Employers hiring school leavers look for reliability, a good attitude and basic skills, and your CV can show all three without any formal work experience.
What to include
- Your name, phone number, email address and town.
- A short profile: who you are, what you are looking for and when you can start.
- Your matric results: the year, your subjects and marks, especially maths, English and any subject linked to the job.
- Part-time work, holiday jobs, volunteering and school leadership roles.
- Skills: computer skills, languages and a driver’s licence if you have one.
Turn school into experience
Being a prefect, captain of a team, a member of the debating society or a regular volunteer shows responsibility. Write it like a job: what you did and what happened as a result, for example “Organised a book drive that collected 600 books for a primary school”.
Builder tip: Choose a simple one-page template. The builder’s free templates export a clean PDF that looks professional on a phone screen.
References
Use a teacher, a coach, a church or youth leader, or someone you have done holiday work for. Ask them first.
Avoid: using a playful email address, listing every subject without marks, and leaving off part-time work because it seems too small.