Students

How to write a CV with no experience

Every student thinks they have nothing to put on a CV. Almost all of them are wrong -- they are just filing the evidence under headings nobody reads.

1. One page. This is not negotiable yet.

   With no full-time roles, two pages means padding, and padding is obvious. The constraint does the editing for you.

2. Lead with what you can prove.

   If your degree is the strongest thing, lead with the degree. If a project is stronger, lead with the project. There is no rule saying education comes first.

3. Coursework counts if you treat it like work.

   A final-year project with a real dataset, a real constraint and a real result is experience. Describe it the way you would describe a job: problem, what you did, what came out.

4. Part-time work is not beneath mentioning.

   Shop floor, bar, call centre, coaching underage teams. It shows reliability, dealing with people, and turning up. Recruiters read it as evidence you can hold a job.

5. Societies and teams are leadership evidence.

   Ran the accounts. Organised sixty people. Kept a club alive through a bad year. Name the responsibility and the scale, not the title.

6. Every bullet starts with a verb and ends with an outcome.

   “Built a dashboard that cut the committee’s reporting from a day to an hour.” Verb, thing, effect. If a bullet has no effect, it is a duty, and duties are forgettable.

7. Put the numbers in even when they are small.

   Sixty members. Four events. €2,000 budget. Small real numbers are more persuasive than large vague claims, and everyone knows a student budget is a student budget.

8. Skills sections should be honest and specific.

   List what you would be comfortable being tested on tomorrow. “Python” when you have written one script is a trap you set for yourself in the interview.

9. Cut the objective statement.

   “A motivated graduate seeking opportunities” tells a reader nothing and costs you the most valuable space on the page. If you want that space to work, put one line about the specific role there instead.

10. Have one person who does not know your field read it.

    They will catch the jargon and the assumed knowledge. Panels often do not know your field either, which is the point.