How to Write a CV With No Experience: A Graduate Guide

No work history yet? Learn what to put first, how to turn projects, volunteering and part-time work into evidence, and how long your CV should be.

Writing your first CV can feel like being asked to describe a career you have not started yet. The good news is that a first CV does not have to rely on job titles. Employers hiring for entry-level roles read CVs looking for evidence of skills, and that evidence can come from your degree, your projects, volunteering, part-time work and the activities you have taken part in.

This guide covers what to put first, how to turn coursework and projects into proof, when a skills-focused layout helps, how long your CV should be and where a short cover letter fits. The examples feature hypothetical graduates, so replace every detail with your own real facts and numbers.

What employers look for in a graduate CV

In the Job Outlook 2026 Spring Update from the US National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), employers said the skills they most want to see on entry-level resumes are teamwork, problem-solving and communication. Their wish list is long: more than half named 10 or more skills. NACE's announcement of the results adds technical skills, a strong work ethic and analytical or quantitative skills.

The same research makes a point that matters more than any list: naming a skill is not enough, because employers want examples. The shift towards skills is measurable too. In NACE's Job Outlook 2026 survey, 70% of employers said they use skills-based hiring, up from 65% a year earlier.

Internships still carry weight. NACE reports that when two candidates are equally qualified, employers overwhelmingly choose the one with internship experience. If you have not had an internship yet, the rest of this guide shows how to build evidence from what you have already done, and where to look for structured experience.

Put your strongest evidence first

When your work history is short, the order of your sections does much of the work. The UK National Careers Service advises putting education straight after your introduction if you are early in your career or do not have much work experience. A typical graduate CV runs in this order:

1. Name and contact details
2. A short profile of 2 to 3 lines
3. Education, with relevant modules, your graduation project and any awards
4. Projects
5. Experience: internships, part-time jobs and volunteering
6. Skills and languages
7. Courses and certifications
8. Activities and interests (optional)

Move a section up when it is your strongest evidence for the job in front of you. A graduate applying for a software role might put Projects above Education, while one applying for a customer-facing role might lead with part-time work. Personal details follow local convention: UK guidance, for example, is to leave out your age, date of birth, marital status and nationality, while expectations differ elsewhere. Our guides for the Gulf, Egypt and the Levant and the Maghreb explain what is expected where.

Section by section

Profile

Two or three lines under your name that say who you are and what you are looking for. Make it specific to the role and include only what you can back up.

Example (hypothetical): Business administration graduate (2026) with a final-year project on inventory costs for a local retailer and two summers of part-time retail work. Seeking a junior operations role. Uses Excel for data cleaning and pivot tables.

Education

This is your main credential, so give it detail:

• Degree, institution and graduation date, or your expected date.
• Your grade or GPA if it helps you. MIT's career office advises giving the scale whenever you include a GPA, for example 3.6 out of 4.0.
• Up to five or six modules relevant to the job, kept to about two lines, as MIT also suggests.
• Your graduation project or dissertation title. The University of York's careers service recommends naming relevant modules and project titles instead of giving only your degree title.
• Awards, scholarships and honours.

Projects

Coursework counts. MIT's career office lists class projects, competitions and even personal projects alongside jobs and internships as experience worth including. For each project, give a title, the context (course, team size, your role) and one or two lines on what you did and what came of it. Your graduation project may be the strongest evidence you have, so do not reduce it to a passing mention.

Experience: internships, part-time work and volunteering

Title this section Experience rather than Employment history so it can hold everything that shows you at work. The National Careers Service says to include work placements, volunteering and paid jobs, with the most recent first. York's careers service also advises including part-time work of any kind; the trick is to describe what the job shows. Instead of listing the task, say that you followed procedures and handled several small tasks at once in a busy workplace.

If you are a Saudi graduate, the Human Resources Development Fund's Tamheer programme offers on-the-job training that aims to give graduates practical experience and close the gap between their qualifications and the skills the job market needs; check the eligibility conditions on the fund's page. Wherever you study, ask your university careers office about internships and cooperative or summer training.

Activities and interests

Clubs, societies, sports and community roles are evidence too. The National Careers Service gives the example of a sports team captain, a role that shows leadership and organisation. List positions of responsibility with one line on what you did in each. Be selective with hobbies: Prospects points out that interests linked to the job help show who you are and give an interviewer something to ask about, while bland ones such as reading or socialising will not catch a recruiter's eye.

Skills, languages and courses

List only skills you can demonstrate, and support each one elsewhere on the page; our guide to CV skills shows how. Give each language an honest level. For online courses and certificates, York suggests a section of their own, with a note on what each course taught you.

Turn coursework and projects into evidence

You have probably done more than you realise. Use this four-step method:

1. Take stock. Write down everything from the past few years: modules with strong marks, group work, presentations, volunteering, part-time jobs, society roles, online courses and interests. York's careers service recommends this kind of self-reflection before you start writing.
2. Ask three questions of each item. What did I do? How did I do it (tools, methods, languages)? What came of it? MIT's career office suggests explaining the how as well as the what, for example by naming the programming language you used.
3. Write one line per item, starting with an action verb. Add a number only when it is real: how many people attended your presentation, how much your event raised, how many people were on your team.
4. Match each line to the job advert. Keep the lines that prove a skill the employer asked for and cut the rest.

Here is how that looks in practice. Every row is an invented example; use only your own facts.

Key takeaway: one line that shows what you did and what happened is stronger than a string of adjectives. Prospects advises replacing over-used words such as team player and hardworking with real examples.

When a skills-focused layout helps

If your experience is thin or spread across unrelated jobs, try a skills-based (functional) layout. Prospects describes it as a CV that puts the spotlight on your abilities instead of your job history, which makes it a good fit for students and recent graduates. York's careers service adds that it moves the emphasis away from work experience. A simple structure:

1. Name, contact details and a short profile
2. Education
3. Key skills: three to five skills taken from the job advert, each followed by one line of evidence
4. Experience: internships, part-time work and volunteering
5. Courses, languages and activities

Every skill heading needs proof beneath it. Prospects uses a good example: saying you stay calm under pressure means little until you show a situation where you did.

How long should your CV be?

Aim for one page. MIT's career office recommends a single page unless you have a lot of experience or a postgraduate degree. UK guidance is a little more flexible: the University of Chester careers team, quoted by Prospects, recommends no more than two A4 pages, and a shorter CV for students applying for part-time jobs. Whatever the length, do not pad it. A tight page of evidence reads better than two pages of filler.

Keep the format plain and consistent. The National Careers Service recommends a clear font such as Arial, Times New Roman or Calibri at size 11 or larger, with headings and bullet points. If you will apply through online portals, read our guide to ATS-friendly CVs.

Mistakes that weaken a first CV

• Claims without proof. Words like motivated or hardworking tell the reader little unless an example backs them up.
• Stretching the truth. Prospects warns never to lie or exaggerate. The facts on a CV are easy to check, and you may be asked about any line at interview.
• Duties instead of results. Write what you achieved, not only what you were asked to do.
• One CV for every job. The National Careers Service advises writing your CV to match each job and employer, using the advert as your guide.
• Leaving out small experience. A weekend job or a volunteering role can prove reliability, communication and teamwork.

Add a short cover letter

When your CV is short, a cover letter lets you connect your studies and activities to the job in a few sentences. York's careers service suggests using it to stress the skills the employer is looking for rather than repeating your CV word for word. Our cover letter guide walks you through the structure.

How Tabhar helps

Tabhar's CV builder has ready-made sections for education, projects, courses and certifications, volunteering, achievements, skills and languages, so a strong graduate CV does not depend on a long work history. You see the printed page as you type, and switching templates changes the design without touching your content. PDF and Word export is available on every plan, including Free.

Before you apply, you can run your CV through the free ATS checker without signing up, and paste a job title and description to see how your CV matches it. On paid plans, AI writing help suggests clearer wording for a project or volunteering line as a before-and-after, and nothing changes until you accept it. If you start from an AI-generated draft, every personal fact in it is a bracketed placeholder for you to complete, so none of your history is invented. You can compare plans on the pricing page.

Related reading

• Which skills to put on a CV, and how to prove them
• How to write a CV summary, with examples
• Common CV mistakes and how to fix them

Sources