Writing your CV for Change 100

Guidance for writing your CV for our Change 100 internship programme application.

You will need to submit a Curriculum Vitae (CV), as part of your application for the Change 100 2025 programme.

Creating a CV is a crucial part of the job application process. We understand that articulating your experience on a CV can be daunting, especially when applying for new positions or when first entering the workforce after completing your studies. To assist you with this, we have compiled helpful resources, guidance, and a CV template for your use.

We are using CVs this year to match candidates with our opportunities. It is a useful thing to have for any employment or volunteering opportunity. 

Remember, your CV is your chance to showcase your skills and experience to potential employers. It helps employers evaluate whether you're a good fit for the job. Creating an effective CV can be tough, especially if you don't have much experience. By highlighting your strengths, transferable skills, and potential, you can craft an impressive CV.

Your CV can:

  • provide a clear timeline of your recent achievements,
  • demonstrate where you have gained the skills necessary for a job or other opportunity you are pursuing,
  • showcase your skills.

Skills based CVs are also an option. It is a good idea to choose this format if you have lots of skills from different sectors/education/ volunteering and can give examples of these skills.

Here is an example of a skills based CV.

What to Include in Your CV

Contact Details

Your CV for Change 100 should include your contact details, such as name, email address. You shouldn’t include your full address, date of birth, or a photograph. 

For example:
Charlie Willis 
charlie.willis@leonardcheshire.org 
London

Profile

In a sentence or two, highlight some relevant accomplishments and skills while stating your career goals. For Change 100 we want to know about your transferable skills, experience and achievements. 

You have the option to omit a personal statement if you prefer. If you are identified as a match for one of our roles, you will be asked to write a cover letter for it, expressing your interest and applying your skills to the role. However, feel free to clarify your career aspirations if you believe it will be beneficial or help you to stand out.

Experience

List your experience in reverse chronological order, ensuring that the information you provide is relevant to your skills. Include the job title (if applicable), the name of the company or institution, and how long you were working in the role, or on the project.
 
For our application process, we suggest that you use the following sentences as a guide when writing about your experience. 

Job title
Type of experience (Volunteering, Work experience, academic achievement, extra curricular activity)
Length of time
Briefly explain what your roles and responsibilities were, how you developed professionally i.e. the hard/soft skills you acquired/what you learnt and any specific projects you completed.

Skills

This is where you talk about the foreign languages you speak, and the IT packages you can competently use.  You can use a bullet pointed list if you want to.

Education

List and date all your previous education, and include any recent courses you’ve completed. Include the qualification type and grades. 

If you want to include your GCSEs or A Level qualifications present them briefly as:

10 GCSEs A – C including Maths and English
 

References

You don’t need to add references to your CV. Change 100 doesn’t collect references as part of the application process. Employers may ask for this separately, as part of their assessment process. 

How to write a good CV

There are a lot of resources available to enable you to write a good CV. Your careers service may be able to help with more specific examples. 

  • Keep your CV concise, and make sure that the most relevant information is easy to find.
  • Many matching systems, including ours, use search techniques to identify specific words within your CV to determine your suitability for the role. 
  • When describing your responsibilities in a previous role, use active verbs and provide specific examples. For example: 

“As the coordinator for this project, I ensured that work was delivered on time by using Microsoft Planner.”

  • Include hobbies and interests if you feel they will help you to stand out. They could be another opportunity to use relevant keywords.

Things to Consider

When creating your CV, make sure it is easy to read, especially if you are uploading it to an online site. Many sites use a programme that will convert the CV into its own layout and format, which may cause it to be read incorrectly. Keeping your CV simple also ensures that it is inclusive to all readers.

Using a plain word document, without any tables,  may look simple, but it’s ideal for compatibility with most systems.

Aim to keep your CV to 1-2 pages.

Please spell-check your CV and ask someone else to review it, even if you believe it's error-free.

You don't need to write "CV" or "Curriculum Vitae" anywhere – simply use your name as the title of the document.

Outside of Change 100, it’s better to tailor each CV to the role that you are applying for. This ensures that you're using the language from the job posting. However, make sure you're sending the correct CV to the right company.

Avoid using AI-generated answers or content, as many systems can detect them. You can use generative AI to get feedback or as a starting point, but it’s important to personalise the content afterwards. 

Further Resources

Common word processors all have templates available for free like Office, Google docs, Pages. 

Ask your careers team for examples if you would prefer a hard copy.

CV Builder Sites

Some websites will help you to build a CV. Here are a few to get started with;

Reed CV Builder

Barclays CV Builder
 

Help with CVs

Speak to your Careers team in the first instance. They are very experienced and will have a way of you booking a 1-2-1 appointment where they would be happy to help you.

Many University websites have lots of information of their own.