What to put on a South African CV

A lot of CV advice in South Africa is out of date. Older templates ask for your ID number, age, marital status and even a photo. You do not need any of that. A modern CV is shorter, safer and focused on one question: can this person do the job?

Here is what to include, what to leave out, and why.

The sections every CV needs

Contact details

Put these at the top:

• Your full name
• A cell number you answer, with voicemail set up
• A sensible email address, ideally your name (not a nickname)
• Your town or suburb and province, for example "Mitchells Plain, Western Cape"

You do not need your full street address. The area is enough for an employer to know whether you can get to work.

Profile

Two or three sentences about who you are, what you are good at and the job you want. Change it for each type of job you apply for.

Work experience

List your most recent job first. For each one give the job title, the employer, the town, and the months and years you worked there. Then add two to four bullets about what you did and achieved.

Education

Start with your highest qualification. For matric, write "National Senior Certificate", the school, the year, and your pass type (higher certificate, diploma or bachelor pass). Matric is a qualification at NQF level 4. The NQF (National Qualifications Framework) is the system that ranks South African qualifications from level 1 to level 10, so employers can compare them.

For college or university, give the qualification name, the institution and the year you finished, or "expected 2027" if you are still studying.

Skills

Mix practical skills (cash handling, forklift operation, Excel, typing) with people skills (customer service, teamwork). Keep it to things you can explain in an interview.

Languages

South African employers value languages because many jobs involve serving the public. List each language and how well you speak, read and write it, for example "isiZulu: fluent; English: fluent; Afrikaans: basic".

Driver's licence

If you have one, give the current code. The codes changed a while ago, so it helps to show both names:

• Code B (old Code 8): light motor vehicles
• Code C1 (old Code 10): medium trucks
• Code C or EC (old Code 14): heavy and articulated trucks

If you drive for work, also mention a PrDP (professional driving permit) if you have one.

References

Give two or three people who have supervised or taught you, with their name, job title, company and phone number. Ask them first. Writing "available on request" wastes a chance to make things easy for the employer.

What to leave out

A South African CV does not need any of the following:

• ID number
• Date of birth or age
• Marital status
• Race
• Gender
• Religion
• A photo
• Health information

None of these show whether you can do the job, and some of them can lead to unfair treatment, even if nobody means it.

Why leaving them out protects you

POPIA, the Protection of Personal Information Act, is the South African law about how personal information is collected and used. It says organisations should only collect the personal information they actually need.

Think about where your CV goes. You might send it to dozens of companies, recruitment agencies and job sites. It gets forwarded, printed and saved on computers you will never see. If your CV carries your ID number and date of birth, anyone who gets hold of it has most of what they need to try to open accounts or take out loans in your name. Leaving those details off is a simple way to protect yourself.

When the employer will ask

This does not mean you hide anything. When an employer is serious about you, usually after an interview or when making an offer, they will ask for a copy of your ID, often a certified copy. A certified copy is a photocopy that has been stamped and signed as a true copy by a commissioner of oaths, for example at a police station. They may also ask for certified copies of your matric certificate and other qualifications. Keep recent certified copies ready so you can send them quickly.

Some application forms do ask for these details. Government jobs, for example, use the Z83 application form, which has its own questions; fill it in as instructed. Some companies also ask for race and gender separately for employment equity reporting. That is different from putting them on your CV.

Keep it neat and short

• One page if you are starting out, two pages if you have several jobs
• A clear font and simple headings, so ATS software (which many companies use to sort CVs before a person reads them) can read it
• Save it as a PDF with your name in the file name, for example "Thandi-Mokoena-CV.pdf"

See it done properly

Browse our CV examples, such as the cashier and call centre agent CVs, to see these sections filled in. If you are writing your first CV, read how to write a CV with no experience.

Build yours the right way

Our builder only asks for the details that belong on a CV, so you never have to wonder what to leave out. Fill it in on your phone, choose one of our CV templates, and preview it for free.