How to Write a CV With No Work Experience

By Robert Page — twenty years in hiring and leadership roles · about the author

"No work experience" is almost never literally true. What's usually true is "no experience with a job title on it." Those are very different problems, and only one of them is actually a problem. This guide covers what to put on a CV instead, in an order that makes sense to the person reading it.

Start with a genuine inventory, not a CV

Open a blank document and list, without editing yourself, everything from the last three or four years: every module or project with a mark you're proud of, every part-time or holiday job, every placement, every sport or society (especially if you held any kind of role — treasurer, captain, organiser), any volunteering, any freelance or informal work (tutoring, admin for a family business, running a small online shop). This list is your raw material. Almost everyone finds it's longer than expected.

The structure that works

For a graduate CV with limited formal work history, this order usually serves you better than a rigid "always put work experience first" template:

1. A short personal statement (3–4 lines)

State your degree, one or two genuine strengths, and the type of role you're aiming for. Skip generic lines like "hard-working team player" — they say nothing a hiring manager hasn't read five hundred times already. Instead, be specific: what you studied, and one concrete thing you're good at.

2. Education, with detail that earns its place

Your degree goes here, but don't stop at the title and grade. Add genuinely relevant modules, your dissertation topic if it's relevant to the role, and any group project — described in terms of what you did and delivered, not just what the module was called.

3. Relevant experience — widened to include what actually counts

This is the section to rename mentally from "work experience" to "relevant experience," and it's where most of the translation work happens. A part-time retail job genuinely demonstrates customer handling, working under pressure, and reliability. A committee role in a society demonstrates organisation and stakeholder management. A group dissertation project demonstrates collaboration and delivering to a deadline. Write these as achievements, not duties — "organised a 12-person charity event that raised £600" beats "helped with events" every time.

4. Skills — specific, not decorative

Skip the adjective list ("motivated," "dynamic," "team player"). List things you can actually demonstrate if asked: software you can use competently, a language you speak, a technical skill from your course. If you list a skill, be ready to give one real example of using it — that's the test for whether it belongs on the page.

Three mistakes that get graduate CVs binned

Padding with irrelevant filler. A long list of GCSEs, or hobbies with no bearing on the role, dilutes the genuinely strong material sitting elsewhere on the page. Cut anything that isn't doing active work to support your application.

Describing duties instead of outcomes. "Responsible for social media" tells a hiring manager nothing. "Grew a society's Instagram following from 200 to over 1,000 in one term" tells them exactly what you're capable of.

Apologising for the gap. Never write anything like "despite my lack of experience." You're not short of evidence — you're short of a job title. Let the CV show the evidence and leave the apology out entirely.

What's next

Once your CV reflects what you've actually done, the next challenge is usually the cover letter, and then the interview itself — including questions that assume experience you technically don't have. The paid guide, Toward The Offer, covers both in full, along with assessment centres and negotiating the offer.