Recruiters often spend less than a minute on a first look at a CV. Your job is to make the important information easy to find and convincing. Here is how to build a strong CV as a student or fresh graduate.
Keep it short and clean
- One to two pages is enough for a graduate.
- Use a simple layout with clear headings, one readable font and consistent spacing.
- Save and send it as a PDF named properly, for example Amina-Bello-CV.pdf.
What to include
1. Contact details
Full name, phone number, a professional email address (firstname.lastname style, not a nickname), your city and a LinkedIn profile link if you have one. You do not need your date of birth, religion, state of origin or a photograph unless the employer asks for them.
2. Profile summary
Three or four lines about who you are, your strongest skills and the kind of role you want. Make it specific to the job. Example: "Accounting graduate (Second Class Upper) with internship experience in bookkeeping and payroll. Skilled in Excel and QuickBooks. Looking for an entry-level audit role."
3. Education
Your degree, institution, years and class of degree. Add relevant courses, your final-year project title or academic awards if they support your application.
4. Experience
Include SIWES or internships, part-time jobs, volunteering, student leadership and projects. For each one, list what you did and, where possible, the result.
5. Skills
Technical skills (Excel, a programming language, design software) and soft skills (communication, teamwork). Only list skills you can demonstrate in an interview.
6. Certifications and extras
Relevant online courses, professional exams, languages and awards. References can simply say "Available on request".
Describe achievements, not duties
Weak: "Responsible for social media."
Strong: "Managed the departmental association's Instagram page and grew followers from 300 to 1,200 in one semester."
Start each point with an action verb such as organised, built, analysed, led, trained, reduced, improved, and include numbers whenever you honestly can.
Tailor it for each application
Read the job advert and note the skills it asks for. Move your most relevant experience to the top and use the same keywords where they truthfully describe you. Many companies use software that scans CVs for keywords before a person sees them.
Common mistakes
- Spelling and grammar errors. Proofread, then ask someone else to proofread.
- Long paragraphs instead of short bullet points.
- An unprofessional email address.
- Copying a template without changing the content.
- Exaggerating or inventing experience. It is easy to discover and can end your application.
Little experience? Use what you have
Class projects, church or mosque volunteering, organising a departmental event, running a small business, tutoring juniors: all of these show responsibility and skills. Describe them with the same action-and-result style.