Writing a first CV when you have no experience to put on it
The Cvizo team2 min read
A first CV is not empty, it is badly ordered. Nobody hiring a junior expects employment history. They are looking for evidence you did something on your own and finished it, and you already have that.
In short
- A finished project counts as experience. One described concretely beats four listed by name.
- Work outside your field belongs on the page. It shows you held a job and stayed in it.
- Put the strongest evidence first, whatever section it happens to live in.
- Cut any line you cannot follow with a concrete example. Adjectives about yourself are not evidence.
A first CV is not empty, it is badly ordered. Nobody hiring for a junior role is looking for employment history, because they know you do not have any. They are looking for evidence that you did something on your own and carried it to the end. You have that evidence. You are leaving it out because it does not look like a job.
What counts as experience when you have no job history
A project you finished. Your own, coursework, something for a friend, something voluntary. What matters is that it exists and that you can show it. One project described concretely outweighs a list of four that are only names.
Work outside your field. Retail, hospitality, a call centre, tutoring. It may have nothing to do with the role, but it shows you held a job and stayed in it. A recruiter reads that as readiness to work, and at this stage that is real information.
Anything you organised. A society, a team, a student committee, an event. If you were responsible for something that had a deadline and other people in it, that is experience.
Internships, however short. A month is a month. Write what you did there, not how long it lasted.
What order should a first CV go in
Invert the standard layout. Projects and skills go near the top, under the summary, and education drops below them unless your degree is directly the subject of the job.
On the first screen a recruiter is answering one question: will this person be able to do it. The name of a university does not answer that. A described project does.
Describing a project so that it lands
Three things, in this order: what it is, what you specifically did, and how it ended. The last part is the one almost everybody drops.
A coursework web shop, built by four of us. I owned the basket and the payment integration. Delivered on time and still running at X.
It does not have to be large. It has to be yours and it has to have finished.
What not to write instead
Do not fill the gap with adjectives. “Motivated team player, fast learner” appears on every junior CV ever submitted and carries no information at all, because everybody writes it and nobody checks it.
Do not stretch one thing across three sections either. When the same project turns up under Experience, Projects and Skills, the recruiter sees one achievement spread thin.
The empty-line test
Read every line on your CV and ask: could somebody who had never done this write exactly the same sentence?
If yes, the line says nothing about you. “Proficient in Microsoft Office” passes that test for everyone alive. “Ran the shift rota for eight people” passes for nobody who has not done it.
You need about five lines of the second kind. The rest can stay, but those five are what decides.
