Free CV builder for learnerships and entry-level jobs

What a South African entry-level CV actually has to do

A learnership post advertised by a SETA or a large employer can draw thousands of applications for a few dozen places. Nobody reads three thousand CVs carefully. What happens instead is a sort: an administrator or a screening system checks whether each application meets the stated requirements, and whether the person can plainly be contacted. Most rejections at this stage are not judgements about the applicant at all — they are the consequence of a missing qualification date, a phone number that rings unanswered, or a document the advert asked for and did not receive.

So your CV has two jobs, in this order. First, survive the sort: state your highest qualification, the year, and a contact number that works. Second, give the person who does eventually read it a reason to move you forward. That second job is where the profile paragraph and the skills list earn their space — and where most first CVs go quiet, because they list what someone is rather than what they have done.

Nothing in that requires design skill or money. It requires the truth, laid out in an order a tired reader can follow. That is all this builder does.

Six things that make the difference

1. Name the post you are applying for. A line under your name saying “applying for the SETA-funded data capture learnership” costs you nothing and immediately puts your CV in the right pile. Change it for every application.
2. Use a phone you actually answer. Interview invitations come by phone or SMS and are rarely repeated. If the number on your CV is a phone you share or one that is often off, say in the CV which hours you can be reached — and answer unknown numbers during a job search.
3. Write duties as actions, with numbers where you have them. “Responsible for the till” says less than “handled cash and card payments at a busy till and balanced it at the end of every shift”. Numbers — customers a day, files captured, months without a missed shift — do a lot of work in very few words.
4. Count unpaid work as work. Volunteering, a family business, running a stokvel or a church register, caring for younger siblings while finishing matric: all of it demonstrates responsibility, and stating it plainly beats an empty experience section every time.
5. Ask your references first. A supervisor or teacher who is called out of the blue and cannot place your name does real damage. Ask permission, tell them which posts you are applying for, and check the number you are giving out is still theirs.
6. Send exactly what the advert asks for. If it asks for a CV, certified copies and a completed Z83, send those three things — not a twelve-page bundle, and not two of the three. Our document checklist covers what needs certifying and how recently, and the Z83 walkthrough goes through the form field by field.

What to leave off a South African CV

Some of this contradicts advice still handed out at schools and in older CV templates. The reasons matter more than the rules, so each one carries its reason.

• Your ID numberAn ID number plus your name and address is enough to open accounts in your name. Application forms and the Z83 ask for it through official channels where it belongs — a CV that gets emailed around, printed and left on desks does not. Give it when you are shortlisted and can see who is asking.
• A photographIt is not required, it invites bias before anyone has read a word, and it makes the file bigger for no benefit. Employers who genuinely need one will ask.
• Race, marital status, religion and number of childrenNone of it predicts whether you can do the job. Employment equity data is collected separately on the employer’s own form, not from your CV.
• Your full home addressSuburb or township and province is enough for an employer to judge whether you can get to work. The street address adds risk without adding information.
• Certificates and ID copies attached to the CV itselfSend them as separate attachments, and only the ones the advert asks for. A ten-page PDF that opens on a copy of your ID is the fastest way to have the whole thing closed unread.
• Salary expectations, unless the advert asksNaming a number first can price you out or sell you short before anyone has assessed you. If the advert requires it, answer it in the covering email rather than the CV.

A word about paid CV services

Every job-seeking season brings offers to write your CV for a fee, often on social media and often aimed at people who have just matriculated. Some are legitimate small businesses. But the information that makes a CV work is information only you have, and typing it into a template is not worth much money.

Be far more careful when the CV is a lead-in to something else — a “placement fee”, a registration payment, a training course you must buy before a job appears. Charging a work seeker to be placed in a job is not how legitimate recruitment operates. Our guide to spotting job scams sets out the warning signs, and how to check a training provider shows how to verify an accreditation claim for free before money changes hands.