SwissJobs.app or a Word template — what convinces Swiss recruiters?

Feature comparison

Everything about Microsoft Word was read from the vendor's own page on 4 September 2026; our rows come from the code (lib/stripe/trialConfig.ts) and from walking the live flow. "not stated" means it could not be read on their site — not "does not exist".

Pricing side by side

Everything about Microsoft Word was read from the vendor's own page on 4 September 2026; our rows come from the code (lib/stripe/trialConfig.ts) and from walking the live flow. "not stated" means it could not be read on their site — not "does not exist".

The official list this page measures against

So that the yardstick is not our own idea of a good CV, it comes from outside. The SECO page for job seekers on arbeit.swiss is written for adults looking for work rather than for school leavers. It calls the CV the important part of an application and sets two hard limits: no gaps in the chronology, and no more than three pages.

Then comes the list of what a CV usually contains, and that list is the checklist here. Eight items, worded identically across the German, French, Italian and English editions of the page: the heading ‘CV’ · the personal details, photograph included · the professional experience so far · education and training · the language skills · special knowledge or activities · interests or hobbies · and the references.

Two neighbouring instructions belong to the answer as well. The CV must be chronological with the most recent job first, and the work references — the Arbeitszeugnisse, the written employer testimonials a Swiss dossier carries and a US resume does not — must be complete, in order, and gathered with the diplomas into one single PDF. If you have arrived recently and have never seen one, that is the part of a Swiss application no template teaches you about.

The official Word template, opened rather than described

Switzerland has exactly one free CV template with official provenance: «Lebenslauf zum Ausfüllen», a DOCX on the CV page of berufsberatung.ch, the portal run by the SDBB on behalf of the cantons. It was downloaded and opened on 4 September 2026. It is one page, under two hundred words, set in Arial with blue section titles.

It has six sections and this is the complete list: Personalien (personal details) · Schulbildung (schooling) · Sprachen (languages) · Interessen und Hobbys · Schnupperlehren (short taster placements) · Referenzen. Under personal details sit name, address, telephone, e-mail, date of birth, place of birth, nationality — and a «Familie» field in which the sample person lists mother, father and brother with their occupations. Where the photograph goes, the file carries an embedded grey silhouette of a person.

Two of the eight SECO items are therefore absent, and they are not the small ones. There is no section for previous professional activities; the only experience section is «Schnupperlehren» and lists placements of two to three days. And there is no section for special knowledge — no line for software, systems, machines or professional certificates. Six out of eight.

A third gap shows up when the file and its own page are laid side by side. The page says in as many words that if you are a foreign national you should state your residence permit, «for example permit C or B». The file has no line for it — only nationality. Anyone who wants to state the permit has to build the line themselves, which is exactly the group most likely to need it.

The language rows are built differently from the way postings read, too. The file offers «Erstsprache», «Zweitsprache» and «school knowledge, 5 years». For an apprenticeship application that is a sensible answer. A posting that asks for B2 or C1 gets nothing back from it that can be compared.

Three languages, and none of them English

The CV page declares alternate versions for German, French and Italian and for nothing else; the English paths on the same site loop back on themselves rather than resolving to a page. So the free official template is available to a German, French or Italian speaker in Switzerland and not to an English-speaking one — the largest single group of recent arrivals in Zurich, Zug and Basel.

What is available in English is the rulebook. The SECO page carries the full eight-item list, the three-page limit, the chronological order and the PDF instruction in English, and it is worth reading once before you pick any tool. Our own pages are in four languages and the document is produced in the language of the interface, which is the practical part of the same problem: an application written in English for an English posting, in a Swiss shape.

And that shape is the thing an international template gets wrong rather than badly. It is a CV, not a resume: two pages rather than one is normal, a photograph is conventional rather than discouraged, the workload is stated as a Pensum in per cent, language ability is a level rather than an adjective, and the Arbeitszeugnisse travel with the file. Zety, Canva and the Microsoft gallery all produce a clean document that quietly answers a different country’s expectations.

What our own document is missing

The same test, run on us, by the same method: on 4 September 2026 a starter document was produced through the editor without signing in, and its sections were counted. There are sixteen across two pages, among them Profile, Competences, Key Achievements, Professional Experience with company, period and city, Education, Certifications, Languages, Tools, Interests and an Availability block carrying the work-permit line. A place for the photograph sits in the header.

And still: six out of eight, the same score as the official template. We have no title line — the header opens with the name and the job title rather than the word «CV». And we have no references section; arbeit.swiss says a CV normally notes that references are available on request, and that note is not in our starter document. Both take a minute to add in the editor, but neither is provided, and that is the honest finding.

Anyone reading a comparison written by one of the two products should expect precisely this: that our own row was held to the same standard as the other one. The number is not a selling point for us. It shows that the count of sections is not where the two paths actually differ.

The difference is not the headings, it is the text under them

A template decides which headings appear on the page. It does not decide what stands under them — and that is what the person reading thirty applications between two meetings actually reads. Two documents with identical sections can fit a posting completely differently, and no template changes that, because a template has never seen the posting.

That is where the two paths separate. In our editor the posting is read and the sections are written against it: the profile names the role that was advertised, the experience entries move the tasks the posting asks for to the front, the language rows carry levels because postings ask for levels, and the workload appears where the posting names one. About a minute, from the text of the advert.

Then the automatic part stops. Every line is editable by hand, and an instruction field takes sentences like «drop the third role and shorten the profile». That combination is what a downloaded file cannot offer: it is freely editable, but each new application starts from the same text you wrote last time.

In fairness, we are not alone in the idea — other Swiss tools tailor a CV to a posting as their headline feature, and there you paste the posting in yourself. Our narrower and checkable claim is that the posting is already loaded, because the page you read it on hands it to the CV.

Price, account, and the moment it costs something

This is where the comparison goes against us, and it belongs on the page. The official Word template costs CHF 0, needs no account, no card and no cancellation. Afterwards the file sits on your device, works offline, and will still open in ten years. If you need one document, that is both the cheaper and the more durable answer, and no argument of ours beats it.

With us the route to a finished document is free: the editor opens without signing in, the starter document is produced without an account, and the preview shows both pages. Payment happens at one point only, and that point is the download — export as PDF and as Word both require active access, which means the seven-day trial or Premium. The trial asks for a card and a cancellation if you do not want to continue. Premium is CHF 15 a month or CHF 95 a year.

On design, so the figure does not sound bigger than it is: 54 design variations, stated as the arithmetic — 2 layouts x 3 fonts x 9 accent colours. Those are not 54 drawn designs but combinations of one Swiss layout that mix freely. A large template gallery offers more visual variety than we do, and if visual variety is what you are after, that is where to get it.

One limitation of our Word export belongs here too, because it appears on none of our marketing pages: the photograph does not survive into the DOCX. The Word file carries the text, the sections and the structure but no image — if you need the file for further editing, you place the photo again in Word. For sending it makes no difference, because what you send is the PDF.

What the person at the other end can actually check

The question in the title assumes somebody chooses a tool. In practice the person opening the dossier never sees the tool. They see a PDF with a file name, and inside it eight sections or six. What the file was made with is not legible from the file — which is why «what did you build it in» is the wrong axis for the decision.

Three things are legible, and they come from the same official sources. Completeness first: a gapless chronological order with the most recent entry at the top, which a template does not fill for you. Then the attachments: work references complete, diplomas and certificates, all gathered into one single PDF. And third, the fit to the posting — for which the French edition of the official CV page gives the shortest advice there is, telling applicants to compare their own qualities and skills against the keywords of the advert.

What none of that supports is a promise. Nobody outside an employer can see into their selection process — not us and not Microsoft — and anyone claiming a document «gets through» is selling a certainty that does not exist. Only the mechanism is demonstrable: a CV that uses the posting’s own wording is found by a keyword search, and the synonym for it is not.

The short answer, sorted by situation

Take the official Word template if you are applying for an apprenticeship or a taster placement, and if you read German, French or Italian. It is built for exactly that, it is complete for that purpose, and it costs nothing. Take it as well if you are applying for one single job, if you want to work without an account, or if an agency explicitly asks for an editable file.

Take an internet template gallery if appearance matters more to you than structure and you are willing to add the Swiss lines yourself: permit, workload in per cent, language levels, the note about work references.

Take SwissJobs.app if one application is turning into a series, if each version has to fit a different posting, or if you need the whole thing in English, French or Italian rather than German. The gain is not the layout and not the number of sections — as counted above, neither is an advantage. The gain is that the text is rewritten per posting instead of being dragged across by hand, which is when the line that mattered this time gets forgotten.

Checked 4 September 2026. Official templates and portal pages change; the files are linked under the sources below and opening one takes a minute.