How To Do A Resume With No Work Experience

Heres What To Include In Your Resume If You Have No Work Experience

The first thing employers look at when evaluating job candidates is the credentials listed in their resumes. The more work experience a candidate has, the better his chances of getting called for an interview. But what if you have no experience to speak of? What if youre a fresh graduate on your first job search, or a student looking to fill one of the part-time jobs in Singapore?

To help boost your chances of being noticed even among the more experienced applicants, start by ensuring you include the following information in your first resume:

The Best Font Size For A Resume

The size font you use on a resume will depend on how much you have written, as you need your content to fill up one entire page. A good place to start is using 16pt for your name, 12pt for your section headers, and 11pt for the body of your text. Experiment conservatively until your one-page resume looks complete.

Highlight Your Relevant Experience

Since you still dont have real-life work experience to flaunt yet, your college internships and volunteer work will be your escape from the never-ending paradoxical loop. Though not as heavy as the actual ones, they still matter. They also allow you to network and make connections that can help you in your career. So when youre applying for a job with no experience, be sure to list all relevant internships, volunteer work, and other relevant activities to your target job.

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Focus On Your Education

You may find it helpful to start with the education section of your resume. List your school and dates attended, as well as:

• Relevant coursework: Have you taken classes that relate to the job youâre applying for ? Be sure to list them.

• GPA: A strong GPA can show employers that you have the skills and work ethic to succeed in the job.

• Academic achievements: Also include anything else that demonstrates your ability to succeed academicallyâmaking the deanâs list or the National Honor Society for example.

• Extracurricular activities: Focus on the activities that align with the job listing. Involvement in student council, for example, could demonstrate leadership skills, collaboration, and problem solving. Playing a team sport shows that you can collaborate and manage your time.

• Certifications or online courses: If youâve taken any training, bootcamps, courses, or certification programs outside of school, include them here if relevant.

If youâre still enrolled in a program, list it as âin progressâ with your anticipated graduation date.

Think About The Whole Story

Scan your resume to see if it really does tell the story of your career. Does it show learning and progress? Does it highlight your greatest accomplishments? Your resume should show just how you got to where you are and all of the battles you have fought and won to get there. Then, it needs to show why those amazing feats make you the best possible candidate for the job you want.

Remember, an employer with an opening may be facing a stack full of resumes and, yes, you’re just one of the many. But if they have a job opening that means they want one of those resumes to jump up and make them take notice. In the humdrum of dozens of resumes littered with phrases like Partnered with manager to improve team efficiency, that could put them to sleep, a resume that uses great action verbs and tells a vivid story of who you are as an employee will make them perk right up and reach for their phone.

Your resume is your story and you’re the hero. Make sure your story has plenty of action through your resume wording.

Click on the following link for more resume advice.

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Examples Of Transferable Skills

Below we have provided a list of common transferable skills to help get you started on identifying which skills you possess and how you can frame them on your resume to improve your chances of landing a job interview.

Of course, there are hundreds of skills that are good to include on a resume.

It is important to choose skills that both accurately represent your talents as well as provide relevance to the job description provided.

For more ideas on good skills to include, check out our guide on 100+ key skills for a resume in 2021.

Here are a few examples of transferable skills and how to list them:

Personal Project Relevant To A Job:

For example, lets say you hosted a bake sale in your neighborhood and are now applying for a job as a cashier at a grocery store. You could explain that while selling your baked goodies, you practiced your customer service, money handling, and food service safety skills.

Example of how to list a personal project in a resume:Summer Bake Sale Hosted a summer bake sale in my neighborhood every weekend from April to August 2018. Created and handed out flyers, took and fulfilled customer orders, handled cash payments, and home baked all products. Skills learned include customer service, money handling, and food service safety.

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The Power Of Resume Action Verbs

Verbs are action words. Run, hit, jump are all verbs. The reason verbs are so powerful is that they show a person doing something. Why is that important? Largely because in life, and in the professional world, you can either be doing nothing, having things done to you, or you can be the one doing things.

You obviously don’t want your resume to display that you’ve done nothing. Nor do you want it to tell the story of someone who was along for the ride, letting the world dictate the rules. You want your resume to clearly show that you are in charge of your own career and you take the reins.

Using action verbs in your resume shows more than where you’ve worked and for how long, it shows what you did and what you accomplished. But, not all verbs are created equal.

Objective Or Professional Summary Section

This is the first impression about you on your resume. Use this to show your achievements and share your career aspirations too.

The trick is that you need to customize the statement to the job description or role that you bring you an inch closer to the interview.

Your resume professional summary section is the most important component of your resume. So, think for a while and then compose.

In case the hiring manager doesnt see what he is looking for there, he is not going to look any further and i.e. is very true.

Avoid using the typical Objectives which you copy or past from other samples. Too many other applicants will copy the exact words and you will lose the battle.

Instead, you should go for the best skills or qualification that make you valuable and unique. But, dont overdo it.

You need to know that your career objective samples are just for your guidance and we need to customize it.

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Showcase Your Volunteer Work Or Academic Projects

No one needs to know how you learned to be proficient at Microsoft Word or PowerPoint in high school, but if you are going to present yourself as a young leader, communicator or organizer, the person reading your resume will want to know why you think you are good at those things. You can tell them all about it in a “Volunteer Experience” or “Relevant Volunteer and Academic Experience” subheading on your resume.

If you led a church mission, wrangled a PTA into the black, or organized an event for a group in your area, these experiences can be of interest to a potential employer. They tell the interviewer that this person might not have work experience, but they do have a different experience that has yielded the same knowledge.

If you were an athlete in school, you probably have relevant team experience that you could add to this section that shows you are a reliable team player and leader. Take this opportunity to show how those experiences gave you valuable lessons and skills you will carry into the workplace. As Stephanie’s mother said, everyone has to start somewhere, and chances are high that you have more marketable experience than you realize.

How Am I Supposed To Get Experience If Every Job Requires Experience

The best way to gain experience is to consider internships, freelance jobs or volunteer opportunities. You may complete some of this work experience while you are in school or unemployed. Internships and volunteer opportunities can equip you with the hands-on experience that employers are looking for.

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Include Relevant Clubs & Organizations

Sometimes the extracurriculars you are involved in can be a big help to you when building a resume.

If you were an editor for your school paper, for instance, it will be great to have clips for a portfolio and relevant experience if you are trying to get work as a junior editor or copywriter.

Being the president of a club also shows a great deal of initiative, organization, and drive, which are all valued in the workplace. Really take some time to think through the activities youve been involved in and how they are relevant to the position you are applying for.

First Resume Example With No Work Experience Example

Writing your first-ever resume can be a challenge. How do you sell yourself to an employer when youre a student who doesnt have any experience in your targeted field?

When writing your first resume with no formal work experience, it’s appropriate to include casual jobs like babysitting, pet sitting, lawn mowing, and shoveling snow. You can also include volunteering, internships, and school and community activities.

All experience counts, and the best way you present yourself, your skills, and your assets to a hiring manager is to provide them with a strong resume that showcases your own unique talents.

Here’s how to write your first resume, what to include, how to show employers the skills you have, a sample resume to review, and a template you can use to get started writing your resume.

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How To Make A Resume For A First Job Or With Little Experience

Actually, wed like to suggest that you have plenty to talk about when making your no experience resume.

When you are sitting there with a blank sheet of paper, wondering how to make a resume for a first job, fine, you might not have any formal work experience, that does not mean that you are lacking in relevant achievements that you can call on to make the best possible start in your career. To write a resume with no work experience, you need to tell the story of your potential.

Your education, internships, volunteering and various projects and hobbies will likely contain the most fascinating insights into who you are as a person. You might be surprised at just how many transferable skills you actually possess when you sit down to make your resume for a first job. Just because they werent acquired in an office setting doesnt mean that they cant be put into practice in one.

If you carefully curate how to write your resume to match up with the demands of the job, your absence of work history will matter less. If you show the right blend of attitude and aptitude, employers will hire for potential.

What To Do With The Employment History Section In A Resume With No Experience

While you may consider your employment history with no experience an obstacle as you make your resume, the lack of paid experience does not mean that you have not developed skills via other opportunities.

This section could still be titled employment history partly because the ATS software will be searching for relevant keywords here, but also because your time over the past few years has been employed in a variety of ways. Use the experience section to talk about them:

Volunteering. Any volunteering projects do not need to be industry specific. Pick out the behaviours that will be useful in your first role and share any functional hard skills that you have acquired. Volunteering is a great opportunity to learn from other colleagues.

Internships. A formal internshipmight be classed as employment by some, but the core value for a first employer is to demonstrate that you understand what it takes to work in an office. Even if the internship was for a couple of weeks, you are going into your first role with your eyes open. Invest in an unpaid internship now if you havent done it already.

Projects. Whether it is an academic or commercial project, time-limited activity with an end goal that needs to be met is the bread and butter of any new employees first year or two. Successful projects showcase organizational skills, team work, turning strategy into outcomes and gives individuals confidence in their ability to complete a tough task.

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No Experience No Problem

Getting your first job or a job in a new industry can be difficult. Employers want you to have experience, but often you need to be given the opportunity in order to get that experience. So what do you do?We asked Liz Duncan, Recruitment Manager for UniSuper , as well as Absolute IT Directors Tina Ng and Grant Burley and their Senior Consultant Patrick Lane what you should do when you have no experience, and what you should put on your resume.

No experience? No worries! A SEEK profile lets opportunity come to you. Complete yours today.

Whether you’re interested in teaching, media or travel _ or theres an entirely different industry you’re passionate about – theres a course thats perfect for you.

Tip #: Professional Summary

Resumes should always include a professional summary. This section should be at the very top of your resume under your name and contact details. It should be brief and give the reader an idea of your background, skills, and qualifications.

For a resume with no work experience, include your level of education, skills, interests, and work ethic in the professional summary. Also, it is crucial to tailor your professional summary for each position youre applying to. That way, the hiring manager will immediately see what makes you the ideal candidate.

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Trainings Courses And Certificates

The ideal option is when you have higher education and want to work in your specialty. But life makes its own adjustments, and such ideal scenarios are far from real life. You may have realized that you are not interested in that profession, and you want to do something completely different

There are professions in which it is impossible to work without higher education for example, doctors or chemical engineers. But for the rest there are online courses, distance learning, which may be quite reasonable and teach very specific skills. You can learn from the best professionals in the field at EdX, Udemy, or Coursera. Pass at least one course in the desired profession, get a certificate and indicate it on your resume.

Include the courses you completed at the University, if they are relevant to the position you are applying for. It is enough to indicate the name of the course, as well as add a brief description of what you have learned, and what skills you have acquired. Add a start and end date for the course.

Write about attending seminars, conferences, master classes only if they are related to the work you want to get.

An example of how to write about a course in a resume:

Hospitality Basics Course: Introducing the hospitality industry, including various career paths. In-depth lessons on food and drink, including categories of restaurants and various types of catering.

An example of how to list a certificate:

According To Deb Hornell

Business consultant, career coach, and founder and president of Hornell Partners.

Employers primarily want to know what differentiates you from other candidates, and you dont necessarily need work experience to convey this.

Reflect on the experiences youve had internships, volunteer work, entrepreneur activities, awards and honours, Hornell says.

What have you learned about yourself? What sets you apart and how would you bring value to a potential employer? These descriptors can be woven into the resume, cover letter or email, she explains.

If applicable, include a thesis or dissertation title GPA and extracurricular activities like internships or roles which require you to apply and be selected, such as teaching assistant, resident hall assistant, or other paid work on campus.

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Work Experience Example For A Resume

Here is an example of a well-written job experience section for a resume:

Work Experience

Processed cash, check, and credit transactions, maintaining 98% accuracy to minimize end-of-day balancing errors Balanced check payments, identifying and resolving discrepancies immediately Accurately prepared and sent bank deposits semiweekly

Put Down Your Contact Information

Just like the name suggests, the first thing you add to your header is your personal and contact information.

Its the easiest part to get right, just keep it short and to the point.

In your contact information section, mention the following:

• First and Last Name
• A link to a professional profile or personal webpage

Make sure to use a professional-sounding E-mail.

I.e. something along the lines of

Youre sure to leave a wrong impression if you use an email you created back in preschool .

Pro Tip

Make sure to double-check, triple-check your contact information. After all, the recruiter cant contact you if you have a typo in your phone number.

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