A good graduate CV builder should not just help you fill empty boxes. It should help you decide what belongs on your CV, what does not, and how to turn limited experience into evidence a New Zealand employer can actually use. For graduates, the biggest CV mistake is trying to sound “professional” without giving the recruiter anything concrete to assess. I do not need perfect career history from a graduate. I need signs of judgement, learning ability, communication, reliability, relevant skills, and enough role alignment to justify an interview.
In the New Zealand job market, a graduate CV has one job: make it easy for a recruiter or hiring manager to understand where you fit, why you are worth speaking to, and whether your background matches the role requirements. That means clear structure, relevant keywords, practical examples, and no decorative nonsense pretending to be substance.
Most graduate CV builders focus on formatting. Formatting matters, but it is not the real problem.
The real problem is that graduates often do not know what hiring teams are trying to assess. So they either underwrite their CV because they think they have “no experience”, or they overwrite it with vague claims like “motivated team player with excellent communication skills”. Lovely. Also completely unhelpful if there is no evidence behind it.
A useful graduate CV builder should help you build five things:
A clear career direction, even if you are still early in your career
A relevant skills profile based on the job advert, not random buzzwords
A strong education section that shows useful academic, project, and technical relevance
Work experience evidence, including part-time work, internships, placements, volunteering, retail, hospitality, tutoring, student leadership, or family business experience
Proof of employability, such as achievements, results, responsibilities, systems used, communication examples, problem-solving, and references if appropriate
When I screen graduate CVs, I am usually looking for reasons to keep reading. The issue is that many CVs accidentally make that difficult.
A graduate CV often gets rejected quickly when the recruiter cannot answer basic questions within the first scan:
What kind of role is this person applying for?
What degree or qualification do they have?
Are they eligible to work in New Zealand?
Do they have relevant skills for this job?
Have they done any project, internship, placement, part-time work, or volunteer experience that shows practical ability?
Can I see evidence, or just adjectives?
Does this CV feel tailored to this job, or has it been sent everywhere from Auckland to Invercargill with the same tired summary?
A graduate CV in New Zealand should usually be one to two pages. One page can work if your experience is limited, but two pages is acceptable if the content is relevant and well structured. The mistake is not having two pages. The mistake is using two pages to say very little.
Use this structure:
Contact details
Career summary
Key skills
Education
Relevant projects, placements, or internships
Work experience
Achievements, leadership, volunteering, or extracurricular experience
A CV builder can be useful, especially if you are staring at a blank page and wondering whether your summer job counts as experience. It does. But a CV builder can also produce a painfully generic CV if you let it make too many decisions for you.
Use the builder for structure, not judgement.
A CV builder can help with:
Section layout
ATS friendly formatting
Consistent spacing
Prompts for missing information
Downloadable CV formats
Basic wording ideas
But you still need to make the strategic decisions:
Your graduate CV summary should be short, specific, and relevant. It should tell the recruiter what you studied, what type of role you are targeting, and what practical strengths you bring.
Do not write a personality paragraph. I know every graduate has been told to say they are passionate, hardworking, enthusiastic, and eager to learn. The problem is that none of those claims are wrong. They are just not enough.
Weak Example
Recent graduate with excellent communication skills, strong attention to detail, and a passion for learning. I am hardworking, reliable, and seeking an opportunity to grow my career in a dynamic company.
Why this fails: It could belong to almost anyone applying for almost anything. There is no field, no evidence, no direction, and no useful positioning.
Good Example
Commerce graduate with a major in Accounting and experience using Excel, Xero, and financial analysis through university projects and part-time administration work. Seeking an entry-level accounting or finance role where I can apply strong numerical accuracy, client communication, and process improvement skills.
Why this works: It gives the recruiter a clear direction, relevant qualification, tools, practical experience, and role fit.
For New Zealand graduate applications, your summary does not need to be dramatic. It needs to be useful.
A good graduate CV summary should include:
Your qualification or field of study
Your key skills section should not be a dumping ground for every skill you have ever heard of. It should be a relevance filter.
For graduate CVs, I usually prefer a skills section with practical categories, especially if the candidate has limited work history.
Useful graduate skill categories include:
Technical skills: Excel, Python, MYOB, Xero, SQL, AutoCAD, Canva, Adobe Creative Suite, CRM systems, data analysis, laboratory techniques, research methods
Role specific skills: financial reporting, customer service, stakeholder communication, content writing, market research, administration, coding, testing, documentation, health and safety, case note writing
Transferable skills: communication, teamwork, problem-solving, organisation, attention to detail, time management
Workplace skills: handling customer queries, meeting deadlines, following procedures, managing competing priorities, working across teams
The key is to avoid unsupported soft skills. “Communication” alone says very little. “Customer communication across high-volume retail shifts” says more. “Written communication through research reports and client-facing emails” says even more.
New Zealand employers often care about practical fit. They want to know whether your skills can survive outside a university assignment. So where possible, connect the skill to context.
For graduates, education is usually one of the strongest sections. Do not treat it like a formality.
A good education section should include:
Qualification name
Institution
Location
Graduation year or expected completion date
Major, specialisation, or relevant papers
Academic achievements if strong and relevant
Major projects, thesis, capstone work, or research topics
Many graduates think their part-time work is irrelevant. Usually, they are wrong.
Retail, hospitality, call centre work, tutoring, admin, warehouse work, volunteering, and family business responsibilities can all show useful employability signals. The trick is not to inflate them. The trick is to translate them properly.
A hiring manager may not care that you worked in a café because they need someone to make flat whites in an accounting firm. They care that you handled pressure, communicated with customers, managed time, followed procedures, solved small problems, turned up reliably, and worked with a team.
That matters.
For each role, include:
Job title
Employer
Location
Dates
Three to five bullet points focused on responsibilities, achievements, and transferable skills
Do not write a task list that sounds copied from a job description. Write what you actually did and what it proves.
For many graduate roles, projects are the missing bridge between study and employment. This is especially true in technology, engineering, design, marketing, science, policy, finance, health, and research-related fields.
If you completed relevant university projects, internships, placements, practicums, case competitions, simulations, research assignments, or portfolio work, give them a proper section.
Use this structure:
Project title
Context, such as university project, internship, capstone, placement, or personal project
Tools, methods, or systems used
Problem or objective
Your contribution
Outcome or learning
Good Example
Recruiters are not reading graduate CVs like novels. We are scanning for fit, risk, and interview potential.
The first scan usually looks for:
Relevant qualification
Graduation date
Work rights
Location or relocation clarity
Relevant skills
Internships, projects, placements, or practical exposure
Communication quality
Evidence of reliability or achievement
Applicant tracking systems are common in New Zealand recruitment, especially for larger employers, graduate programmes, universities, government roles, banks, professional services firms, and national brands. The ATS is not usually “rejecting” you in some dramatic robot villain way. More often, it is storing, parsing, sorting, and helping recruiters search applications.
Still, your CV should be easy for systems and humans to read.
Use these ATS friendly CV builder rules:
Use clear section headings such as Education, Work Experience, Key Skills, and Projects
Avoid text boxes, graphics, columns, icons, photos, and unusual formatting
Use standard fonts and simple spacing
Include keywords naturally from the job advert
Save your CV in the requested format, usually PDF or Word
Do not hide keywords or stuff the CV with repeated phrases
Use this template as a practical builder structure. Adapt it for each job rather than sending the same version to every employer.
Name
Phone number
Email address
City, New Zealand
LinkedIn or portfolio link if relevant
Work rights if relevant
Career Summary
Two to four lines explaining your qualification, target role, relevant strengths, and practical evidence.
Key Skills
Skill with context
Skill with context
Skill with context
Skill with context
Skill with context
Good bullet points do three things: they show what you did, where you did it, and why it matters.
Use these as models, not copy-and-paste filler.
For business, finance, or accounting graduates
Analysed financial data in Excel as part of a university project, using formulas, pivot tables, and charts to identify cost trends and present recommendations
Supported invoice processing and document filing in a part-time administration role, maintaining accuracy across supplier records and payment information
Completed accounting papers covering financial reporting, management accounting, taxation, and business law
For marketing, communications, or media graduates
Created social media content for a student club, increasing event awareness through weekly posts, audience research, and basic performance tracking
Developed a marketing strategy for a local business project, including competitor analysis, customer personas, budget planning, and campaign recommendations
The biggest mistakes are usually not dramatic. They are small decisions that make the CV harder to trust.
Using the same CV for every role
A generic graduate CV usually performs badly because entry-level roles can still be very different. A marketing assistant CV should not look the same as a customer service CV, even if both are graduate friendly.
Writing a vague career summary
If your summary could apply to any graduate in New Zealand, rewrite it. The recruiter should know your direction within seconds.
Hiding useful experience
Do not bury internships, placements, projects, volunteer work, or part-time work. If it proves something relevant, use it.
Overclaiming skills
Do not say you are advanced in Excel if you have only used basic formatting. Recruiters and hiring managers can test skills quickly. Overclaiming creates doubt.
Ignoring work rights
If your work rights may be a question, address them clearly. Employers should not have to guess whether you can legally work in New Zealand.
Making the CV too designed
Creative layouts often create more problems than they solve. Unless you are applying for a design role and submitting a portfolio separately, prioritise clarity.
Listing responsibilities without outcomes
“Worked in a team” is weak. “Worked in a team of five to complete a final-year research project, contributing data analysis and presentation slides” is stronger.
Including irrelevant school details for too long
Tailoring does not mean rewriting your entire CV every time. It means changing the emphasis so the most relevant evidence is easy to find.
Before applying, read the job advert and identify:
Required qualification
Technical skills
Soft skills
Tools or systems
Responsibilities
Industry language
Location requirements
Work rights or availability requirements
Before submitting your graduate CV, check it like a recruiter would.
Ask yourself:
Can someone understand my target role within ten seconds?
Is my qualification easy to find?
Have I shown relevant skills from the job advert?
Have I included projects, placements, internships, or part-time work that prove employability?
Are my bullet points specific enough to be credible?
Have I removed filler phrases?
Is my CV easy to read on a screen?
This sounds blunt, but it is useful: hiring is partly a risk assessment.
For graduate roles, employers know they are hiring potential. But they still want to reduce uncertainty. Your CV helps them answer:
Can this person learn the role?
Will they communicate well with the team?
Do they understand the job they applied for?
Are they reliable?
Do they have enough foundation knowledge?
Will they need reasonable training, or constant hand-holding?
Are there signs of initiative?
Choose a graduate CV builder that gives you a clean, ATS friendly format and enough flexibility to tailor your content. Avoid builders that push heavy graphics, skill bars, photos, icons, or layouts that look nice but make your experience harder to read.
The best CV builder is the one that helps you create a document that is:
Clear
Relevant
Specific
Honest
Easy to scan
Easy for an ATS to parse
Tailored to the New Zealand job market
Written by Simar Malhi, a recruiter and headhunter with international recruitment experience. I write about CVs, job applications, hiring decisions, and the reality behind recruitment processes. My goal is to help candidates understand more honestly how employers, recruiters, and hiring managers actually select candidates.
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Create ResumeFor graduate roles in New Zealand, employers are often not expecting a polished senior professional. They are looking for signs that you can learn, follow through, communicate sensibly, handle responsibility, and understand the basics of workplace expectations.
That is the part many CV templates miss. A graduate CV is not about pretending to have ten years of experience. It is about making your early experience credible.
This is where a proper graduate CV builder should guide you. Not just “add your skills here”, but “choose the skills that match this role and prove them with examples”.
New Zealand employers tend to be practical. They may value potential, but they still want something to assess. If you are applying for an accounting graduate role, your CV should not make the recruiter hunt through your education section to find accounting papers, Excel skills, internship exposure, or customer service experience. If you are applying for a marketing assistant role, your CV should show content, campaigns, analytics, social media, research, writing, design tools, customer insight, or relevant projects.
The easier you make the match, the more likely your CV survives the first screen.
Technical skills, tools, licences, or certifications
References available on request
You can adjust the order depending on your strongest evidence. If your degree is highly relevant and you have limited work experience, place education and projects before general work experience. If your part-time work shows strong customer service, leadership, sales, admin, teamwork, or reliability, do not bury it.
The best CV structure is not the one that looks clever. It is the one that helps the recruiter understand your fit quickly.
Which skills are most relevant to this role?
Which experience should be emphasised?
What evidence will matter to this employer?
What keywords from the job advert should naturally appear?
What should be removed because it distracts from the role?
A common graduate mistake is treating a CV builder like a magic hiring machine. You fill in every section, download a nice PDF, and assume the job is done. But if the content is vague, the layout will not save you. Recruiters do not interview fonts.
The strongest graduate CVs are built backwards from the job advert. Start with the role requirements, then decide what evidence from your study, work, projects, and life experience proves you can do the job.
The type of role you are targeting
Two to four relevant strengths
Practical evidence where possible
Work rights if relevant and helpful
If you are an international graduate applying in New Zealand, be clear about your work rights. Do not make the recruiter guess. If you have an open work visa, permanent residency, citizenship, or valid right to work in New Zealand, state it simply in your contact section or summary.
Weak Example
Communication
Leadership
Teamwork
Problem-solving
Good Example
Customer communication developed through part-time retail work, including handling enquiries, complaints, and product advice
Team collaboration through final-year engineering project involving design reviews, documentation, and weekly progress updates
Excel skills including pivot tables, formulas, data cleaning, and basic reporting through university finance projects
Time management across full-time study, part-time work, and volunteer commitments
The second version gives a recruiter something to believe.
Practical tools, methods, or systems used
The biggest missed opportunity I see in graduate CVs is underdeveloped education sections. Candidates spend three or four years studying something relevant, then write one line and move on. Meanwhile, the employer is trying to work out whether they have the right foundation for the role.
For example, if you are applying for a data analyst graduate role, your education section should mention relevant papers, tools, projects, and methods. If you are applying for a civil engineering graduate role, include design projects, software, site exposure, group assignments, and any health and safety knowledge.
Good Education Format
Bachelor of Commerce, Major in Marketing
University of Auckland, Auckland
Completed 2025
Relevant study included consumer behaviour, market research, digital marketing, brand strategy, and business analytics. Completed a final-year group project developing a campaign strategy for a local retail brand, including customer research, competitor analysis, budget planning, and presentation to a panel.
This is much stronger than simply listing the degree. It shows the employer how the education connects to the role.
Weak Example
Retail Assistant
Served customers, stocked shelves, used the till, and helped the team.
Good Example
Retail Assistant
Cotton On, Christchurch
March 2023 to February 2026
Assisted customers in a high-volume retail environment, providing product advice and resolving basic enquiries
Operated POS systems accurately across cash, card, exchange, and refund transactions
Supported stock replenishment, visual merchandising, and store presentation during peak trading periods
Balanced part-time work with full-time study, maintaining consistent availability and reliability
Built confidence communicating with a wide range of customers and team members
This does not pretend retail is corporate strategy. It shows practical workplace value.
Developed a customer insight report for a New Zealand hospitality business as part of a group project. Conducted survey research, analysed competitor positioning, identified customer segments, and presented recommendations on pricing, promotion, and customer retention. Contributed to survey design, data interpretation, slide preparation, and final presentation delivery.
This type of content helps the recruiter see your thinking. It also gives you material for interviews.
For technical graduates, projects can be even more important than general work experience. If you are applying for a software graduate role, your CV should not simply say “Python, JavaScript, SQL”. Show what you built, why you built it, what you used, and what problem it solved.
Keywords that match the job advert
Overall clarity and effort
The second scan is more judgement-based. This is where the recruiter asks: does this person look like they understand the role? Have they made it easy to assess them? Is there enough here to send to the hiring manager without having to explain obvious gaps?
That last point matters. Agency recruiters and internal recruiters often need to justify why they are shortlisting someone. Your CV should give them the language to do that.
For example:
“Strong candidate. Recent finance graduate with relevant Excel and Xero exposure, part-time admin experience, and final-year project in financial analysis.”
That is much easier to submit than:
“Seems nice. Says they are passionate.”
Passion is not a shortlist strategy.
Use full terms and common abbreviations where useful, such as applicant tracking system and ATS
Keep dates, job titles, and employer names easy to identify
A graduate CV does not need to be visually exciting. It needs to be readable. Some of the most effective CVs I see are not beautiful. They are clear, relevant, and easy to assess. That is the point.
Education
Qualification
Institution, Location
Completion year or expected completion year
Include relevant papers, projects, academic achievements, tools, research, placements, or practical learning connected to the role.
Relevant Projects, Internship, or Placement Experience
Project or Role Title
Context and date
Explain the purpose of the project or placement
Mention tools, methods, systems, or frameworks used
Describe your contribution
Include outcomes, results, presentations, reports, or practical learning
Work Experience
Job Title
Employer, Location
Dates
Describe responsibility with evidence
Show transferable skill in context
Mention systems, customer interaction, teamwork, targets, procedures, or pressure where relevant
Include achievement or reliability signal
Achievements, Leadership, or Volunteering
Include scholarships, awards, clubs, mentoring, student associations, community work, sport leadership, fundraising, tutoring, or other relevant responsibility.
Technical Skills or Certifications
Include software, licences, short courses, coding languages, platforms, tools, safety training, first aid, or industry-specific certifications.
References
References available on request.
For New Zealand applications, referee details are often requested later in the process. You usually do not need to list full referee contact details on the CV unless the employer specifically asks.
Wrote research reports and presentations translating customer insights into practical brand and communication recommendations
For IT, software, or data graduates
Built a web application using JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and SQL, focusing on user login, database structure, and basic reporting functionality
Cleaned and analysed data using Python and Excel, identifying trends and presenting findings through charts and written commentary
Collaborated in a group software project using GitHub, weekly stand-ups, testing notes, and documented feature updates
For engineering or construction graduates
Completed a final-year design project involving technical calculations, CAD drawings, documentation, and group presentation to academic reviewers
Applied health and safety considerations during site observation, including hazard awareness, PPE requirements, and communication with supervisors
Used AutoCAD and project documentation to support design development, technical reporting, and practical problem-solving
For health, social services, or education graduates
Completed placement experience supporting client, student, or patient interactions under supervision, maintaining professional communication and confidentiality
Prepared case notes, learning reflections, or observation reports in line with placement expectations and professional standards
Built strong interpersonal skills through supervised practical experience, group work, and communication with diverse communities
Notice the pattern. The bullet points are not trying to sound impressive for the sake of it. They are trying to make the candidate assessable.
If you are a university graduate, school information should usually be minimal unless it is recent, impressive, or relevant.
Forgetting the human reader
ATS optimisation matters, but a human still decides whether you are worth interviewing. Write for both.
Then adjust your CV in four places:
Career summary: Mention the role type and strongest relevant fit
Key skills: Move the most relevant skills to the top
Education: Highlight papers, projects, or tools linked to the job
Experience: Rewrite bullet points to emphasise transferable evidence
For example, if a job advert asks for strong communication, Excel, customer service, and attention to detail, your CV should show those things in context. Do not just list them. Prove them.
This is where many graduates lose interviews. They assume the recruiter will connect the dots. Sometimes we can. Often we do not have time. And honestly, making the recruiter do extra work is not a strong application strategy.
Have I made my work rights clear if needed?
Would I be comfortable being asked about every claim in an interview?
That last question is important. Your CV is not just a document. It is the agenda for the interview. If you write “strong data analysis skills”, expect to be asked what data you analysed, what tools you used, what you found, and what you did with the information.
Do not put anything on your CV that collapses under one follow-up question.
Can they represent themselves professionally?
A strong graduate CV reduces uncertainty. It does not need to prove you can do everything. It needs to prove you are worth a conversation.
This is why clarity beats cleverness. A recruiter should not have to decode your CV like a group assignment where one person did all the work and everyone else added fonts.
Strong enough to support an interview conversation
But remember this: the tool builds the document. You build the argument.
Your argument is simple: here is what I have studied, here is what I have done, here is the evidence I can bring, and here is why I am a sensible person to interview for this graduate role.
That is what gets a graduate CV taken seriously.
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