Ultra Clean, and free to take.

What actually goes on a resume

If you have never written one, the whole thing can feel like a test with rules nobody told you. It is not. A resume answers five questions, in this order, and nothing else.

• Who are you and how do I reach you. Name, phone, email, city. Not your full home address — a city is enough and safer.
• What are you applying for. One line under your name with the job title from the advert.
• Why should I believe you can do it. Two or three sentences at the top, then your work history with what you actually did.
• What did you study. Your highest qualification and the year.
• What can you do and when can you start. A short skills list and your availability.

That is the whole document. One page. If something you are about to write does not answer one of those five questions, leave it out.

When you have never been hired

The page can still be full, and everything on it can be true. Employers hiring for a first job already know you have no work history — they are looking for evidence that you turn up and can be taught.

• Family business work counts. Write it, and write "(family business)" so it is honest.
• Volunteer work counts. Mosque, school, charity drive, community event.
• Helping in someone else's shop or stall counts, even unpaid, even a few hours a week.
• School responsibility counts. Class monitor, sports team, society, tuition you gave to younger students.
• Anything you did repeatedly and reliably counts. That is the whole quality being hired.

Put a number on each one wherever you can. Customers served, bags packed, students taught, hours per week. Numbers are what turn a small thing into evidence.

Do not exaggerate

It is tempting to stretch — say your English is excellent, add a job you never had, round two months into a year. Every one of these costs more than it gains.

Interviews for hourly work are short and practical. They will speak to you in English if you claimed it. They will ask what you did last Saturday at the shop. They will phone the number you gave. A claim that collapses in the first two minutes ends the interview, and often the relationship with that employer permanently.

Write "basic English" if it is basic. Write "two years, weekends" if that is what it was. An honest small resume gets hired constantly. An inflated one gets found out, and word travels in a way that costs far more than one job.