How to write a CV in New Zealand
Your CV has one job: get a stranger to spend fifteen more seconds on you, then book a call. In a market averaging around 40 applications per interview on global benchmarks, small CV improvements compound fast. Here's what works in New Zealand specifically.
NZ conventions, quickly
- Two to three pages is normal here. One page (the US habit) can read as thin; five reads as unedited.
- No photo, no date of birth, no marital status. They invite bias and NZ employers don't expect them.
- "Referees available on request" is fine. Never print referee phone numbers on a document you're sending to strangers, and warn your referees before anyone calls. Track who you've given out and how often, because referee fatigue is real.
- NZ readers scan for local signal: work rights (state them plainly if you're on a visa), NZ experience or its equivalent, and familiarity with the tools their ads mention.
The structure that works
- Header: name, city, phone, email, LinkedIn. Nothing else.
- Profile, three lines max: who you are, your strongest proof, what you're looking for. Rewrite this per application; it's the most-read paragraph on the page.
- Experience, newest first: for each role, one line of context (what the company does, your scope) then bullets of achievements, not duties.
- Skills and tools: a scannable list, using the words the ad uses, where they're true.
- Education and certs: brief, at the end, unless you're a recent graduate, in which case it leads.
Achievements beat duties, every time
"Responsible for monthly reporting" tells them what your job description said. "Cut month-end reporting from five days to two by automating the data pulls" tells them what happens when they hire you. The formula: verb, thing, number. If you can't remember your numbers, that's normal; start a wins journal now and future CVs write themselves.
Beat the software, then the human
Many NZ employers, and nearly all large ones, run applications through screening software before a person reads them. It's not smart. It matches words.
Keep one honest master CV with everything, and cut a tailored version per application. Log which version went to which employer. When the phone rings three weeks later, you want to know exactly what they're looking at.
Cover letters: short, specific, human
One page that names the company and the role, answers the two or three requirements the ad leads with, each with one piece of proof from your CV, and closes courteously. A letter that could be sent to any employer is read as exactly that. The full structure, with public-sector letters and openings that work, is in Writing a cover letter in New Zealand.
The quiet mistakes that cost interviews
- A filename like CV_final_v7_ACTUAL.docx. Send a PDF named Firstname Lastname CV.pdf.
- An email address from 2004 that seemed funny in 2004.
- Unexplained gaps. One honest line ("2024: family care" or "2025: made redundant in the Westport closures, retrained in x") beats a suspicious silence.
- Claiming tools you'd fail a five-minute conversation about. NZ is a small market; people check.
- Sending the tailored-for-Xero version to Datacom. This is a tracking failure, not a writing failure, and it's fatal.
Track which CV went where
Jobtracker logs the CV version, cover letter and referees sent with every application, so you're never caught guessing on a callback.
Create your free account Or try the demo first