A CV for new graduates: how to write one without work experience

"I have no experience": what do you actually have?

That sentence is what stops most graduates from writing, and it is usually not accurate. Try listing everything you have done in recent years, then sort it:

• Academic projects: your graduation project, research, and course projects related to your field.
• Co-op, summer or on-the-job training.
• Volunteering: charities, events, university initiatives.
• Student activities: clubs, committees, competitions, representing your university.
• Part-time or freelance work, however small; it can show responsibility and dealing with people.
• Courses and certificates related to the field.
• Personal projects: a website, an app, a design, a blog, a channel.

Pick what serves the target role and write it up like experience: what you did and what came of it. A graduation project in data analysis tells more about what you can do than the phrase "good at analysis".

A suggested order

1. Name and target title (for example: industrial engineering graduate), and contact details.
2. A two-line summary: your field, what you are good at and what you are looking for.
3. Education: degree, major, university and graduation year, and GPA if it is strong. It is fine to list courses that matter for the job.
4. Projects, training or volunteering: whichever is strongest for this role comes first.
5. Skills: tools, software and languages.
6. Activities, certificates and courses.

Over time, once you have a job, move experience above education.

A summary that says what you mean without overclaiming

Do not write "ambitious graduate seeking an opportunity to prove myself". Write what you actually offer and what exactly you are looking for.

How to write up a project or a placement

For each, give a title, a period, and two or three lines: what the goal was, what you in particular did, and the result. Name the tools you used, because they are the skills you are proving. If it was teamwork, give the team size and your part in it.

What if the job is far from your major?

Many graduates work in a field other than the one they studied. In that case do not hide your major, but bring forward what transfers to the new role: the analysis, writing, presenting and teamwork skills you showed in projects and activities, the tools you are good at, and a course or training in the new field if you have one. Make the summary frank: "Graduate in X, moving toward Y, having studied Z". Frankness is better than leaving the reader to work it out.

What to avoid

• Listing every course you took. Mention only what relates to the job.
• Exaggeration: do not add experience or a skill you do not have, because you will be asked about it.
• Filling the page with activities far from the field just to look busy.
• Length: one page is enough.
• Templates with rating bars and percentages for skills.

Add a link that shows more than paper can

A graduate gains a lot from a single link gathering projects and CV. If you have work to show (designs, programs, reports, research), a simple page presenting it gives an employer a reason to trust what you wrote. If you have no work yet, do not rush; concentrate first on a well-made CV.

Practical tips to get started

• Ask a lecturer or training supervisor to act as a referee, and tell them before you put their name down.
• Keep a file where you note every academic or volunteer achievement as it happens; it saves you remembering later.
• Look at the employer’s site and at pages of graduates who went before you in the field to learn the job titles in use, but do not copy anyone’s CV.
• Send the CV with a short message naming the role and why you suit it.