• Personal detail - This is where you write down your address, date of birth, postcode and telephone numbers.

• Personal Profile - A personal profile gives you the chance to sell yourself to an employer. It is one of the first things they will read on your CV so you need to make a positive first impression. You only have a limited amount of space so you should make the personal profile relevant to the job you are applying for.

You should tell the employer, in a couple of lines, what your important skills and personal qualities are. Skills are things that you can do, for example:

• I can use a word processor
• I can measure accurately

Instead of using the phrase 'I can' all the time, you can use 'I am able to ...'. Personal qualities can be similar to skills but describe what you are like rather than what you can do, for example:

• I am reliable
• I am honest
• I am trustworthy
• I am a good listener

If you say that you are reliable, you must be able to demonstrate this,

e.g.  "I am a self motivated school leaver with good communication skills and an ability to use my initiative."

Education
You should include the name of any schools or colleges you have attended. You don't need to write down the full address but the town or city. You should include the date you attended.

Qualifications
You should include all your qualifications and grades. You do not have to write down every time you took an exam - just include your final results e.g. if you took Maths GCSE three times and got grades E, D, C - only write it down once with the grade C as your result as this is your final qualification.

Work Experience
Include the names of the companies that you have worked for even if only on a part-time basis or through a work experience placement. Write down the dates you worked there and list your main duties.

Training
You need to include the names of training organisations you attended and courses or programmes you followed. Don't forget to include dates.

Interests
You can include brief details about what you do in your free time. This section becomes more important if you have been out of education for a while and have little work experience to talk about. In this section, you can show how you have been filling your time.

Other Information
If you have anything else you wish to include in your CV you can add a section for other information to include things like:

• I have a full, clean driving licence.
• I can start working after ...
• I am available for evening work.