Camp Leaders Guides: How to Write a Great Student CV

Someone having more experience does not mean they’d be more suited to a job. Being the right type of person, having a great attitude, and having the ability to learn are worth infinitely more than the wrong type of person with the correct technical skills. When recruiting for summer camps, we put the most emphasis on finding the right person.

So to write a great student CV, you want to focus on what you have instead of what you don’t, and the key is to give you (and your skills) the best opportunity to shine.

Here’s our guide on how to do just that.

There’s a reason why certain things work, so templates are a great roadmap on which way to go.

However, it’s not the be-all and end-all. You don’t have to follow templates blindly. If you did, your student CV would look like every other student’s. Check things like layout, format, inclusions, and other key areas, but then don’t be scared to put your own spin on it. Whether that’s a dash of colour, clever formatting, or even a small addition that others haven’t thought of, putting your spin on something that works is an excellent way to stand out.

If you’re looking for good examples of student CV templates, then check the following out:

• Indeed - How to Write a Student CV
• Student Job - CV Example
• Standout CV - Student CV Template

The classic ‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail’.

You can research templates to get a rough outline of how you may lay out your student CV. But it’s essential to plan out where things will go, how you will present them, and what will go in. A few ideas you should implement are:

• Reverse chronological order. Put your most recent first. Employers are less bothered about your first job and more interested in what you did last year.

• Keep it less than two pages. Two pages are the standard accepted length, even for CEO’s. If they can get their history over two, so can you.

• Tailor for the job. If you’re going for multiple positions, have multiple CVs. A customer service role will look for a different skill set than a marketing one.

• If you have less experience, focus on skills. Yes, you may have less experience, but you may have transferrable skills that the role needs. Focus on these and give examples of how you have them.

• Don’t include a photo. If it’s an application that asks for one, fine. But for a CV, It puts the employer in a sticky situation regarding discrimination laws. Also, some CV reading software doesn’t always pick up image files correctly, which can throw your CV out of format. Play it safe and leave it out.

• Don’t include Date Of Birth. Again, stray away from giving any discrimination headaches for employers. Plus, age makes no difference if you’re good enough.

The use of ‘white space’ makes text easier to read, and your CV is no different.

Now, don’t go over the top and start leaving two line breaks between already double-spaced sentences. Just don’t cram everything together. Have a respectable gap between lines, and keep paragraphs in easy-to-digest chunks. Absolutely no one likes to read reams of long text, and it will make your student CV less memorable.

However, again, don't be afraid to try new things. Some keep it block linear. Others like utilising columns or possibly accent colours to add some variety.

It’s always good to run it by people for readability and skim check. If they can’t read it easily or get the key info they need quickly, it’s back to the drawing board.

If you’re bringing fresh ideas to the table, ensure you’re displaying how you’re a modern professional.

If you’re not on LinkedIn, you should be, and that link should be on your student CV. You can then get recommendations from colleagues, employers, and teachers to display your work. The days of ‘references available on request’ are long gone; employers want these immediately, and LinkedIn allows them to.

But you can also get creative. Do you have a website? Get your URL on there. Have a portfolio? How about a QR code linking to it? These days, there’s lots of applications that encourage this type of creativity, and even in the Camp Leaders application process, there’s an option to upload a ‘Showcase’.

There are loads of different ways to show you’re a modern professional, and this is something that can help you stand out from the crowd.

Within the confines of being professional, it’s important to show some personality.

A completely bland, carbon copy CV is not memorable, and it becomes just a number in a long line of student CV’s. So don’t be scared to back yourself with your vocabulary. If you’ve got a passion for something, show it. If you’re one of the best at using particular software, state it. If you’re confident at a specific task, give examples.

Don’t go overboard and tell them what you love doing on your days off if it’s not relevant, but put some personality into your work. That’s why they’d hire you.

There’s a good chance that your personal profile/statement is the only thing an employer will read, so this is your shop window.

You’ve got a limited paragraph or so to wow your potential employer, so make the most of it. This is your opportunity to get all the best bits rounded into one concise area, so don’t be shy. If you’ve got records, achievements, results or whatever else, now is the time to state it. Sum up who you are, what you’ve done, and where you’re going.

This is meant to be your powerful hook to make them read on, so if this is dry, it won’t entice them further.

Two key areas for your work experience; relevant and succinct.

If you worked a day here or there as a trial within an industry that is entirely irrelevant, we’d suggest it’s not worth using up the valuable space you’ve got (two pages, remember). If these roles aren’t too relevant to what you’re doing, they may pose more questions than what they answer. Try and show positions that you’ve been in a decent amount of time, and then when describing these, again, keep it relevant. If you’re going for a customer service role, describe tasks that relate to customer service, and do that for each type of industry you’re going for.

Secondly, be succinct. That two-page rule isn’t changing, so don’t write war and peace about a role you were in 2 weeks. You have to deliver information succinctly, clearly, and efficiently, so a small paragraph or a few bullet points on each is enough.

Keep it relevant, and keep it succinct.

This one may not always be possible, but try to speak about results instead of just describing them.

If you worked in a call centre, then, by all means, give a short description of what you had to do. But if you regularly completed over 200 calls, had the best conversion rate in your team, or gained an employee of the year award, get it jotted down.

Achievements are a much stronger story about you than just completing the role.

Your student CV is the area to shout about yourself, so don’t be afraid to hype your strengths.

If you have something you consider a considerable strength, then the likes of your personal profile/statement is the perfect place to get your voice across. Make it front and centre about who you are. If this is a strength, you’ve likely worked on it in an educational, professional, or even personal capacity, so be sure to reference it in your work experience.

Finally, go one further and ensure that it’s an easily found trait on your LinkedIn. If this is something you’re proud of and confident in, then anyone looking at any profile of you should be able to highlight it, too.

Do not allow all your hard work to unravel by a few unfortunate typos.

Read it through and through, and then run it through a checker such as Grammarly. Now, Grammarly’s suggestions are from AI learnings, so don’t take it to always be correct. Use your own judgement on its suggestions, but it’s also a way to pick up silly mistakes and lesser-known grammar rules.

Once you’ve done this, it’s time to get other sets of eyes on it. Ask friends and family for their feedback and see if they notice anything. Remember that everyone has an opinion, so don’t keep chopping and changing it on each person’s whims. Just get them to sense check your student CV and see if you’ve missed anything glaringly obvious.

Writing a great student CV doesn’t need to be as scary as you think.

Acknowledge your thoughts about it, and then use them to your advantage. Highlight your strength and be professional, but at the end of the day, be authentically you. That’s the main thing that’ll stand you out from the crowd.