Sort of, my daughter is 16 in June (I know! and me looking so young) and would like to get herself some part time job to support her needs (bands, leggings and itunes vouchers in no particular order)

So my task is to help her with a cv, now she doesnt complete her GCSE’s till June so I only have projected grades to work on, but what other things should I add to a CV, I havent done one for myself for quite a number of years (12+) so not sure what employers are looking for from a go getting teenager!

Your help or experience is appreciated.

Given that there won’t be the usual list of crap jobs dressed up to sound better than they really were, I’d pad it out with any and all extra-curricular activities to show a well rounded individual: sports, out of school clubs etc.

“Reading and Socialising” don’t normally elicit positive responses.

Sell her personal skills and aptitudes and use examples from school/extra curricular activities to back it up. A CV is just a sales brochure for your skills.

cheers, thankfully shes pretty active in after school stuff and has done some duke of ednburgh so that can all go in.

duke of edinburgh – this covers loads e.g. team work, planning communication skills etc not ust what they did but what skills and competencies they demonstrated and learned.

Make it skills-based, rather than work experience or qualifications.

read up on the “Elevator Pitch” – there will be hundreds of CVs all the same, at that age all they can do is list GCSEs and some out of school activities so follow the elevator pitch structure and structure it completely differently to the rest, describe her skills in a different context rather than her expected results as a list. Hpoefully she has done enough to justify the different approach.

As an example, these are the headings on my CV in order as they appear

PROFILE
A single paragraph on my awesomeness, key achievements etc

SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE (short paragraph under each)
-Prince2, APM and similar formal qualifications
-Strong background in development and/or delivery of Simulation and Synthetic Training related projects gained within the Defence domain
-Project planning/scheduling
-Well versed in contract and commercial issues including compliance, quality, pricing and procurement
-Proactive approach
-Diplomatic with excellent interpersonal skills and Conflect Management Experience
-Results orientated
-Ability to prioritise own workload

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
Date/Post/Employer

EDUCATION
Date/Qualification/Issuer

INTERESTS
Beer and Mint Aeros

I’d get her to go in person to any places with CV in hand and ask to speak to the manger etc

Being polite, well dressed, smiley etc will have more impact than a CV that looks like most other 16yr olds.

Being polite, well dressed, smiley etc will have more impact than a CV that looks like most other 16yr olds.

This, when I was 16 the economy wasn’t mid way through the u-bend, but I got my first ‘propper’ (i.e. not washing pots or working checkouts) by phoning round local engineering businesses at 17 and selling myself as someone who could help them through a backlog of lab/QC work while everyone else was on holliday.

Ended up actualy earning a propper wage (well, a smidge over minimum, but 5 full days made that £200/week) 5 days a week whilst my peer group spent sundays on the checkout in sainsburys for £20. Kept going back to it for uni hollidays and it meant I left uni with savings (plus £18k of debt).

Make it skills-based, rather than work experience or qualifications.

this basically based on what she has done out of schools and what she os good at
team work – examples
helping folk etc
Predicted grades if they are expecting good grades

IMHO handing out your CV is pointles I surveyed some shops[ mc donalds had 650 applications on file!!] on this [when times were good] and the rule for them was be polite then bin them – may have more success in person in a small shop and get lucky or asking friends.
TBH as a CV is your work history and qualifications you cannot really do a good one with no qualifications or work history.
You will get examples googling school leaver CV but as i say they are pretty blank for the above reasons