Key takeaways
- Lead with education and projects; experience sections come later.
- Describe projects with the same structure as a job: what, how, result.
- One page is enough, and easier to read than a padded two.
- Skip photos, marital status and long objective statements unless the market expects them.
Section order for a first CV
- Name and contact details — email, phone with country code, city, and a professional link if you have one.
- A two-line summary stating your field, level and what you are looking for.
- Education: degree, institution, graduation year, and grade if it helps you.
- Academic and personal projects, with outcomes.
- Internships, part-time work and volunteering.
- Skills, split into technical and language.
- Certifications, and interests only if they are genuinely relevant.
Once you have twelve to eighteen months of relevant employment, this order flips and experience moves above education.
Writing about projects like work
A project entry should read like a job entry: a one-line description of the objective, what you personally did, the tools or methods used, and the result. Numbers help even in academic work — dataset size, users tested, cost saved, accuracy achieved, time reduced.
| Weak | Stronger | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Final year project on machine learning | Built a churn-prediction model on 40k customer records; 82% accuracy; presented to faculty panel | Scope, scale and outcome are visible |
| Helped organise college event | Coordinated logistics for a 300-attendee event; managed a team of 6 and a budget of AED 12,000 | Responsibility is quantified |
| Internship at an accounting firm | Six-week internship: prepared 40+ monthly reconciliations and assisted with VAT return workings | Shows actual tasks performed |
What to leave out
- Photographs, unless the local market or employer specifically expects one.
- Date of birth, marital status, nationality-adjacent details beyond work eligibility where relevant.
- School-level results once you hold a degree.
- Long objective statements — replace with a factual two-line summary.
- Skill rating bars, which convey little and cannot be verified.
- References in full; "references available on request" is enough.
Making an entry-level CV readable by screening software
Many employers screen applications through software before a person reads them. Keep the file structure simple: a single-column layout, standard section headings, text rather than images, and no critical information inside headers, footers or graphics. Save as PDF unless the employer asks for another format, and name the file with your own name.
No CV format can guarantee it will be parsed correctly by every screening system, since employers configure them differently. A simple, well-structured layout reduces the risk.
Tailoring without rewriting
Keep one master CV and adjust three things per application: the two-line summary, the order of projects, and the skills you list first. Mirror the vocabulary of the job advert where it honestly describes what you have done — if the advert says "reconciliations" and you did reconciliations, use that word rather than a synonym.
Create the document
DocMak's CV Maker provides clean single-column templates suited to entry-level applications, so you can focus on content rather than layout. Read the ATS-friendly CV guide before you export, and if you have completed an internship, ask the employer for an experience letter to support your claims.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a fresher CV be?
One page. A second page of coursework and hobbies dilutes the material that actually supports your application.
Should I include my grade?
Include it when it is strong or when the employer asks for it. Otherwise state the degree and institution and use the space for projects.
Can I list a project I did as part of a team?
Yes, provided you make your own contribution explicit. Claiming an entire team output as your own is the kind of thing an interview question exposes quickly.