How to write a cv after a decade with no work!

[mousehousehiest]

I need help, all I have are my gcses and that's it. no work experience at all. I'm 30 now and youngest is going to nursery so I'm sorting my cv but all I have is my name and my gcses from 15 years ago.

I feel so rubbish.

I don't know what to put on a personal statement at the top because all I can do is wipe bums and kiss scraped knees.

I do not think CV's are really a thing now? All I can advise is my 16 year old has recently been in a position to look for work and I advised her to just keep applying (she has now got a job with zero experience for a national chain and has contracted hours, even for a weekend job, so her Annaul leave/company profit bonus after 6 months alongside other benefits).

You just need to sell yourself and your skill set on applications and keep trying. So for DD, she never had a job before but is punctual, has experience dealing with people etc. Tbh- she now works for a very well known bakery/sausage roll peddler- and when she started applying for jobs she had visions of where she wanted to work (more aspirational maybe)! However, she has a great manager and lovely colleagues and has quickly learnt this is what make work enjoyable! She is also quickly developing the skill sets and gaining the experience working with the public which will underpin her job applications/career going forward. Good luck!

I do not think CV's are really a thing now?
Depends on the job and if it's with an agency or the company directly. But I do consider the form to be kinda like CV. I essentially write the things on my CV to the forms in appropriate way but a CV is the basis of it. And then CV Goes into the attachment.

I would lead with your skills. So something like-

Name, contact details etc

Then a short summary of who you are which picks up what they ask for in the job ad- eg "A highly-organised and hard-working candidate with [summarise your GCSE results, point out your passes in English and maths if you have them] and substantial voluntary experience working with children. Now looking to build a career in [customer service- describe the role here] where I can make use of [skills that make you a good candidate]" - you can do a better one than this, make it specific to you and the job.

Education and skills

[GCSEs here. No need to put your school.]

[TA course]

[Any IT skills? Doesn't matter of you don't have a formal qualification- Proficient at X, Y and Z is fine. Driving licence? Languages?]

Experience

[Date]-[Date]

Part-time volunteer at XXX school

• supervised X children doing XXX
• organised XXXX
• responsible for XXXX
• [Anything about dealing with parents?]

[Date]-[Date]

Work experience undertaken as part of TA course [details], then bullet points as above saying what you actually did.

Between [year] and [year], I was a full-time carer for my children.