Getting Started with NextCV: Generate Your First Tailored CV in 60 Seconds
A complete walkthrough of NextCV — from creating your profile to downloading a job-specific CV, cover letter, and interview prep guide. Everything you need to know.
You found a job posting you actually want. Now you need a CV that speaks directly to that role — not a generic document you blast out to every employer, but something that mirrors their language, addresses their specific requirements, and gives you the best possible chance of making it through the first round.
That is exactly what NextCV was built to do. In the time it takes to make a cup of coffee, you can walk away with a tailored CV, a human-sounding cover letter, and an interview cheat sheet that preps you for the questions you are most likely to face. This guide will walk you through every step, from creating your account to downloading your finished documents, plus tips for squeezing every bit of value out of the tool.
What Is NextCV and Who Is It For?
NextCV (https://nextcv.net) is an AI-powered CV and cover letter builder with a single core promise: tailored per job in seconds. Where traditional CV builders produce a static document you send to every employer, NextCV reads each job posting you give it and writes a version of your CV that is deliberately shaped around that role. It surfaces the skills and experiences an employer cares about most, matches your language to their language, and produces a result that reads as though you spent an afternoon customizing it manually.
It is particularly useful for:
- Active job seekers applying to multiple roles and struggling to keep up with manual tailoring
- Career changers who need help translating experience from one field to another
- Recent graduates whose CVs benefit from being framed more strategically
- Senior professionals who have a lot to say but need help prioritizing what matters for each application
- Anyone who dreads writing cover letters — the AI produces natural, confident prose, not the stiff corporate language most templates generate
NextCV is available in English, Swedish, and French, so it works for job markets across multiple countries and languages.
Step 1: Create Your Account
Head to nextcv.net and click Get Started. You can sign up with an email address and password, or use your Google account for one-click access. Either way, the process takes under a minute.
Once you are signed in, three free credits land in your account automatically — no card required, no trial period to worry about. Each credit lets you download one finished document as a PDF. You can generate, preview, and edit as many times as you like before spending a credit, so there is no pressure to commit until you are happy with the result.
Step 2: Build Your Profile
Your profile is the foundation everything else is built on. The AI draws directly from what you enter here, so the more thorough you are, the better your outputs will be. This is a one-time investment — once your profile is complete, every future generation takes seconds.
Work Experience
Add each role with a job title, company name, start and end dates, and a description of your responsibilities and achievements. The descriptions do not need to be perfectly polished — bullet points, notes, even rough drafts work fine. The AI will restructure and rephrase them. What matters is that the raw material is there.
One of the most impactful things you can do here is include quantified achievements. Instead of writing "managed a team," write "managed a team of 8 engineers, reducing sprint cycle time by 30%." Numbers give the AI concrete facts to work with, and they translate directly into stronger bullet points in your final CV. If you have metrics — revenue figures, percentage improvements, team sizes, timelines — include them all.
Education
Add your degrees, institutions, graduation dates, and any relevant coursework or honors. For recent graduates, this section carries more weight, so be generous with detail: thesis topics, academic projects, relevant modules, and any awards or distinctions.
Skills
List your technical and soft skills. Do not overthink the format — a flat list of keywords works fine. The AI knows how to contextualize them. If you have tools, languages, frameworks, methodologies, or certifications, include everything you can think of. NextCV will select and emphasize the subset that is most relevant to each job you apply for.
Languages
Specify which languages you speak and your proficiency level. This is especially relevant if you are applying to multilingual markets or international companies.
Projects
This section is underused by most candidates but can be genuinely differentiating. Add personal projects, open-source contributions, freelance work, volunteer projects, or anything you built outside a formal job role. For career changers and developers especially, projects can speak louder than job titles.
Photo
You can upload a professional photo to include in your CV. Photo conventions vary by country — they are standard in Germany, Sweden, and much of continental Europe, while many English-language markets prefer no photo. Include one if it fits the market you are applying in.
Step 3: Generate Your First Tailored CV
Once your profile is saved, click Generate in the navigation. This is where the magic happens.
Paste the Job Description
Find the job posting you want to apply to. Copy the full text — title, responsibilities, requirements, nice-to-haves, all of it — and paste it into the job description field on the Generate page. The more complete the posting, the better the AI can read what the employer is actually looking for.
What the AI Does
When you hit generate, NextCV does several things at once:
- Parses the job posting to identify the role, seniority level, required skills, preferred skills, responsibilities, and any specific language the employer uses
- Maps your profile against those requirements — surfacing the most relevant experiences, rephrasing descriptions to mirror the posting's vocabulary, and reordering sections to lead with what matters most
- Writes a cover letter that connects your background to this specific role — not a template with blanks filled in, but prose that reads like it was written by someone who actually wants the job
- Generates an interview cheat sheet with likely questions for this role and suggested STAR-format answers drawn from your own experience
The entire process takes a few seconds. When it is done, you are taken to a preview where you can read through everything before spending a credit.
Step 4: Preview and Edit Your Results
The preview page shows your CV, cover letter, and interview cheat sheet side by side. Take your time here — this is where you polish before you commit.
Editing Sections
If any section of the generated CV does not quite land — a bullet point that misses the mark, a summary that undersells you, phrasing that does not sound like you — you can edit it directly. Section editing is always free. You can refine any part of the CV as many times as you want without spending a credit. Credits only come into play when you download the finished PDF.
This is an important point: there is no penalty for generating and reviewing. If you generate a CV and decide to adjust your profile and generate again, that is fine. You are only charged when you click download.
Switching Templates
NextCV offers multiple CV templates, and template switching is always free. Browse through the available designs and pick the one that fits your industry and personal style. A creative field might call for something more visually distinctive; a conservative industry might benefit from a cleaner, more traditional layout. You can switch templates without any cost until you find the right fit.
Step 5: Download Your Documents
When you are satisfied with the result, click Download PDF. This uses one credit and generates a polished, print-ready PDF of your CV. Your cover letter is included separately, also as a PDF.
The downloaded documents are professionally formatted and ready to send. No watermarks on paid downloads. No further editing needed unless you want to make last-minute tweaks in a word processor.
How the Credit System Works
NextCV uses a credit system designed to be simple and fair. Here is what you need to know:
Downloads cost 1 credit each. Generating, previewing, editing, and switching templates are all free. You only spend a credit when you download a final PDF.
Three free credits come with every new account. No card required, no strings attached. This gives you room to explore the tool, test it against real job postings, and form an opinion before spending anything.
Credits never expire. Whatever you buy stays in your account indefinitely. There is no monthly reset, no subscription to cancel, no "use it or lose it" pressure.
Credit packs are priced for different levels of activity:
| Pack | Price | Credits | Per Credit | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $3 | 3 credits | $1.00 | — |
| Job Hunter | $9 | 15 credits | $0.60 | Save 40% |
| Power | $19 | 50 credits | $0.38 | Save 62% |
The Job Hunter pack is the most popular option — at 60 cents per download, it is a sensible middle ground for an active job search spanning weeks or months. If you are applying intensively across many roles, the Power pack brings the per-download cost to 38 cents, which is hard to beat for the quality of output you get.
7-day refund on unused credits. If you buy a pack and change your mind within a week, unused credits are refundable. This removes the risk from trying a larger pack.
Getting the Best Results: Tips for a Stronger Profile
The AI is only as good as the material you give it. These habits make a measurable difference in output quality.
Lead With Impact Numbers
Go through your experience entries and add numbers wherever you can. How many people did you manage? What was the budget you oversaw? By what percentage did you improve something? How many clients, users, or customers did you serve? Numbers anchor claims in reality and give your CV the specificity that most candidates lack.
Write for the Role You Want, Not Just the Role You Had
When describing past positions, think about which aspects of that job are most relevant to the kind of work you are pursuing. Include those details explicitly. The AI will amplify what is there — it cannot invent relevance that is not in your profile.
Keep Your Profile Current
Every time you take on a new project, gain a new skill, or wrap up a significant piece of work, add it to your profile. A profile that grows with your career means every future generation draws from a richer pool of material.
Use the Full Job Description
Resist the urge to paste just the headline or bullet points. Paste the entire job posting, including introductory paragraphs about the company and role. These often contain language and values that the AI picks up on and incorporates into your cover letter in ways that make it sound genuinely personalized.
Generate Multiple Versions for Different Role Types
If you are applying to both senior individual contributor roles and people-management roles, consider maintaining slightly different profile entries that emphasize different aspects of your experience. You can generate tailored versions for each direction and compare them side by side.
Using the Interview Cheat Sheet
The interview cheat sheet is one of NextCV's most underrated features, and most users who discover it properly never go back to generic interview prep.
For each job you generate a CV for, NextCV produces a role-specific set of likely interview questions drawn from the posting's requirements, plus suggested answers in the STAR format (Situation, Task, Action, Result) anchored to your own experience.
This means instead of memorizing generic answers from interview guides, you are preparing answers that are specific to this role, specific to this company's priorities, and grounded in real things you have actually done.
How to use it effectively:
- Read through it the day before the interview, not the night before. Give yourself time to internalize the structure of each answer rather than cramming.
- Practice out loud. The written STAR answers are starting points, not scripts. Saying them aloud a few times transforms them from text you read into stories you tell.
- Customize where needed. If a suggested answer does not accurately reflect your experience, update your profile to add the relevant context and regenerate. Or simply use the suggested structure as a scaffold and fill in the details that are actually true for you.
- Focus on the "Result" step. When practicing, make sure every answer ends with a concrete outcome. That is the part most candidates rush through, and it is the part interviewers remember.
Pro Tips for Power Users
Apply for Multiple Roles Without Starting From Scratch
Once your profile is complete, each new job application takes 60 seconds or less. Paste the job description, generate, review, and download. Because your entire career history is already in the system, there is no re-entry work between applications. This makes NextCV genuinely useful at scale — applying to 20 roles over a month does not mean spending 20 hours tailoring documents.
Use It as a Gap Analyzer
Even if you do not immediately download, generating a tailored CV for a job you are considering tells you something valuable: it shows you which parts of the job posting your current profile does not cover well. If the AI produces thin content in a particular section, that is a signal that your profile is light in an area this employer cares about. Use that gap as a guide for what to develop next — a course, a side project, a certification.
Pair It with Your Research
NextCV handles the CV and cover letter. You handle the company research. Before any interview, spend 20 minutes on the company website, recent news, and LinkedIn. The interview cheat sheet prepares you for the skills-based questions; your research prepares you for the "why do you want to work here" and cultural fit conversations. Together, they cover nearly every interview scenario you are likely to face.
Track What You Have Sent
When you download a CV, note which version of your profile was active at the time. If the interviewer references something specific from your CV, you want to know exactly what they are looking at. Some users keep a simple spreadsheet: job title, company, date applied, version of the CV sent. It takes 30 seconds per application and saves awkward moments in interviews.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to rebuild my profile for every job I apply to? No. You build your profile once and it persists across all your applications. The AI reads the same profile and generates a new tailored output for each job description you provide. You can update your profile at any time to add new experience or skills.
What happens if I am not happy with the generated CV? Edit the sections you want to change — it is always free. You can also update your profile with more detail and generate again. You only spend a credit when you download, so there is no cost to iterating.
Can I use NextCV for industries outside of tech? Yes. NextCV works for any industry and any role type. The AI adapts to whatever job description you provide — it is as comfortable tailoring a CV for a marketing manager role as it is for a software engineer position. The key is a well-filled profile.
What languages are supported? NextCV is currently available in English, Swedish, and French. The interface, the generated documents, and the cover letters all support all three languages.
Do my credits expire? No. Credits stay in your account indefinitely. There is no subscription, no monthly reset, and no expiry date on anything you purchase.
What is the refund policy? Unused credits are eligible for a refund within 7 days of purchase. If you buy a pack and have not used all the credits within a week, you can request a refund on the unused portion.
How do I switch between CV templates? On the preview page after generating, there is a template switcher that lets you browse and switch between available designs. Template switching is always free and does not use credits.
Is my data secure? NextCV uses Supabase for authentication and storage, which follows industry-standard security practices. Your profile data and generated documents are stored securely and are only accessible from your account.
Can I use NextCV if I am not actively job hunting? Absolutely. Many users generate a fresh CV every few months to capture recent work and keep their professional materials current — whether or not they are actively applying. Having a polished, up-to-date CV ready means you are never caught unprepared when an opportunity comes up.
What if the job posting is in a different language than my profile? NextCV handles multilingual generation. If you paste a Swedish job posting, it can produce a Swedish-language CV and cover letter even if your profile was entered in English. Switching your language preference in account settings gives you the most consistent results.
Ready to Start?
Your first three downloads are free. No credit card required, no commitment to continue. Create your profile, paste a job posting, and see what a genuinely tailored application looks like.
The job you want is out there. The only thing standing between you and it is a CV that actually speaks to the role. NextCV makes that part fast, repeatable, and a lot less stressful than doing it by hand.