Build your CV, then save it as a PDF
Fill in the form and the CV builds itself as you type, then download it as a PDF. It is written for the New Zealand market: the length, the layout and the things to leave out are already set the way employers here expect. Your work stays in this browser. The PDF itself is laid out on our server, so the pages break the same way wherever you open it, and nothing about it is kept: no account, no copy, no record of what was in it.
This is an example, not your CV. Sam Example is invented, and so is every employer in it. It is here because an empty builder teaches nobody anything: read one line of it, then write over the top. It disappears the moment you type.
Your details
No photo, no date of birth, no marital status and no nationality. Employers here do not expect them, and they invite unconscious bias before anyone has read a word of your work.
Match the wording in the advertisement. It sits under your name and tells the reader in one second what they are holding.
A suburb and a city is plenty. A full street address is a privacy risk on a document you send to strangers.
Professional summary
Three or four short lines beat a paragraph. Say what you do, the ground you have covered, and what you are after. Write it again for each application: this is the part that gets tailored.
0 characters
Work experience
Achievements, not duties. One per line, start with the verb, and put a number on it wherever you honestly can: "cut handling time from 14 minutes to 9" says more than "responsible for process improvement". Most recent role first.
Dates print as Mar 2026. If your browser shows a plain box rather than a month picker, type it as 2026-03.
Education
Qualifications, tickets and licences all belong here. If you trained overseas, name the country: a reader who does not recognise the institution still needs to place it.
Skills
Separate them with commas or put one on each line. Use the words the advertisement uses, because a screening tool matches on exactly those words and cannot read a synonym.
Referees
"Available on request" is completely normal in New Zealand and is the safer default. Printing a referee's mobile number on a document you send to strangers hands it to every one of them, and your referee did not agree to that.
Ask every referee first, and tell them which role is calling. A surprised referee is a bad reference.
Live preview
This is the document. What you see here is exactly what prints.
When the print dialog opens, set Destination to Save as PDF (on a Mac, use the PDF button at the bottom left). That step is the one that gives you the file.
Saved as you type, in this browser only. Download PDF sends what you have typed to our server to be laid out, and it is not kept. Print instead does everything on this device.
What New Zealand employers expect
- Two to three pages is normal here. The one-page rule is a United States convention and reads as thin to a New Zealand recruiter. Five pages reads as unedited.
- No photo, no date of birth, no marital status, no nationality. Employers here do not ask for them and do not expect them, and every one of them invites unconscious bias before your work has been read.
- Work visa status: only if it helps you. If you have the right to work here, say so plainly in one line, because a reader who cannot tell often assumes the harder answer. If you do not, there is nothing to gain from raising it on the CV.
- Referees available on request is fine, and it is what most people do. Line your referees up before you apply, warn them before anyone calls, and keep track of how often you are sending each of them out.
Want the long version? How to write a CV in New Zealand goes through it section by section, with what to do about career gaps and overseas experience.
Your CV stays in this browser and is never sent to us, so keep the PDF once you have made it.