How to write a CV that actually gets interviews in South Africa

Hiring managers spend under 30 seconds on a CV on the first pass. Your CV has one job: survive that 30 seconds. Here's how to write it so it does.

What recruiters actually look at first

Your name and what role you're applying for (at the top).
Your most recent job title and company.
How long you've been there.
Your education.
If all of that looks right, then they read the bullets.

Your job is to make those first 4 points scannable in 5 seconds.

The structure that works

Header (top of page, 3–4 lines)

Name: [Your Name]
Email: you@example.com
Phone: +27 ...
Location: [City, Province]
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/you

Skip the photo. Skip the ID number. Skip date of birth. They open you up to discrimination and aren't required by law to share.

One-line summary (optional but helpful)

"Software engineer, 5 years, backend (Python/Go). Looking for fintech or health-tech role, Cape Town or remote."

Experience (most space)

Most recent job first. For each role:

Senior Developer — Company Name
March 2022 – present · Cape Town (hybrid)

- Led migration of legacy PHP monolith to Node microservices serving 1.2M users.
- Reduced p95 API latency from 800ms to 180ms through caching and query rewrite.
- Mentored 2 juniors; both promoted within 18 months.

Education

Qualification, institution, year. Matric / NSC if you don't have a degree. Certifications below if relevant.

Skills

Short. Grouped. "Python, Django, PostgreSQL, AWS, Docker." Not "hard-working, team player, passionate about excellence" — those are filler.

Bullet points that actually work

Bad:

"Responsible for the development of various features on the website."

Better:

"Built and shipped 8 features on the customer dashboard, including the top-rated self-service refund flow."

Best:

"Built self-service refund flow used by 40K customers monthly; reduced refund-related support tickets by 62%."

The formula

Verb (built, shipped, led, reduced, grew)
What you did (self-service refund flow)
Result with a number (62% reduction in tickets)

Numbers don't have to be financial — time saved, users affected, incidents reduced, conversion lifted. Be honest; no one cares about a 0.01% improvement.

What to cut

"References available on request" — assumed.
"Excellent communication skills" — everyone says this; show it by writing well.
Every job older than 10 years (unless deeply relevant).
Temporary jobs from high school.
The "Hobbies" section, unless one is directly relevant (e.g. you play chess competitively and you're applying to a strategy role).
Essay-length job descriptions. Never more than 5 bullets per role.

Length

Experienced professionals: 1–2 pages. More than 2 only if you're very senior, with good reason.

Students / recent graduates: 1 page. Focus on projects, internships, clubs, and academic results.

Career changers: 1 page emphasising transferable skills with a strong personal summary at the top.

Tailoring to each job

Do NOT send the exact same CV to 40 jobs. Do:

Tweak the summary line per application.
Reorder bullets to front-load the most relevant work.
Match some language to the job description (keywords help ATS filters).

You don't need 40 completely different CVs. You need 1 solid CV you tweak 5% for each application.

ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems) reality

Most SA corporates use ATS software that parses your CV before a human sees it. To survive:

Use simple formatting — no tables, no columns, no text boxes.
Submit in PDF — Word is fine too but PDF preserves layout.
Use standard section headings ("Experience", "Education").
Include keywords from the job ad naturally in your bullets.
Don't name your file "CV.pdf" — name it "Yourname-CV.pdf".

The cover letter question

If it's optional, write a 3-paragraph one anyway for jobs you really want:

Paragraph 1: Role + why you're a great fit in 2 sentences.
Paragraph 2: Top 2 relevant achievements from your CV.
Paragraph 3: Why this specific company (one genuine reason).

Keep it under 250 words. No "Dear Sir/Madam" — find the hiring manager's name on LinkedIn.

Before you send

Read every line aloud — if you stumble, rewrite.
Spellcheck. Then have someone else spellcheck.
Make sure your phone number has country code.
Make sure the email in the header is the email you actually check.
Test the LinkedIn URL works.

A clean, short, specific CV wins over a fancy, long, generic one every time.