How To Write A Resume With No Experience

Resume With No Experience Examples

Everyone has potential, especially at the starting phases of your career. Just because you donât have all the desirable life experiences, it doesnât stop you from being an ideal candidate.

With that in mind, weâve compiled a list of successful samples from first-time resumes and student resumes. These are applications from job seekers who have little to no formal work experience.

Decide On A Resume Format

There are a few dominant resume templates in use today: chronological, functional, and hybrid, which is a combination of the two. A chronological resume format lists a candidate’s work experience in reverse-chronological order. A functional resume format focuses on highlighting the candidate’s skills and achievements, rather than work experience. While the functional resume format can be an attractive option for job seekers with little experience, most employers prefer a chronological or hybrid resume format. Whatever resume format you decide to use, be sure that your format remains consistent throughout the job resume.

Education Section Of Resume

In a resume for first job, you should put the education section above experiences. Even if itâs only high school, put it first and align with the job responsibilities.

Now, letâs see a few first time resume with no experience samples of this section.

Wrong:

Completed a BA degree in management.

Right:

Additional Tips on Work Experience Resume

Here are some more tips for shaping your experience resume sections:

• use past experiences to highlight key job skills
• emphasize soft and transferable skills
• include roles you performed at school or college
• use keywords in your resume no experience to pass ATS
• highlight your experiences of working in a team.

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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.

Extracurricular Activities Sports And Clubs

After you awards and achievements, create a section for extracurricular activities. List anything you are passionate about that shows your positive attitude and aptitude for the job youre applying for, such as playing a musical instrument, clubs, sports and other activities. In your resume, list the relevant activity and include a brief description.

Example of how to list extracurricular activities, sports and clubs:Piano Has played piano for 8 years and practices, on average, 4 hours per day.Babysitting Babysits neighbors, 8 and 3 years old, twice a week.Swimming Competitive swimmer, having won multiple gold and silver medals in state competitions.

Recommended Reading: How To List Several Positions With Same Company On Resume

Assess What You Offer

When you’re learning how to write a resume with no experience, remember that what you lack in job history you may make up for in your motivation to excel. Put yourself in the hiring manager’s shoes and ask, “Why should I hire this person when there are 100 other applicants with more experience?”

Before you revamp your resume, research your target positions on Monster and review the job descriptions to see which qualifications are most important. A key to understanding how to make a resume with no experience is finding where your background overlaps with the duties described in the job description. Ask yourself these questions:

• What skills, abilities, and credentials are listed as desirable?
• Do you offer competencies, personal attributes, or unpaid experience that compensate for your lack of work history?
• How would the employer benefit if you were hired?
• What are the top five reasons you should be selected for an interview?

These will help you find skills that can help differentiate you from your peers.

Volunteer Work And Activities

Lastly, create a section for volunteer activities. This could be formal or informal volunteering, such as serving food at a local homeless shelter or helping your neighbor rake leaves. For each volunteer activity, include who you volunteered with, what your role was, the dates and hours you volunteered and a brief description.

Example of how to list volunteer work and activities in a resume:Coral Springs Soup Kitchen, Coral Springs, Florida 25 Hours Meal Prep and ServingPrepares, serves, and cleans up after meal service at a local homeless shelter on a bi-weekly basis.

Also Check: How To Add Lines In Word For Resume

How To Write A Resume Summary For Students/fresh Graduates Quick Recap

If you follow the tips above, youll have a great entry-level resume summary that will stand out and catch a recruiters or hiring managers attention so you can get more interviews.

After you write your entry level resume summary, here are two more articles that may be helpful when job searching with no experience:

Get Started With A Resume Template

Using a resume template will help you properly structure the information on your resume, and make your resume appear more professional.

Hania Syed is a Melbourne-based Freelance Writer with a passion for marketing and storytelling. When shes not writing, she can be found exploring the citys cafes or libraries.

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Other Things To Consider When Creating Your First Resume

• Proofread carefully. Demonstrate your attention to detail by thoroughly reviewing your resume for typos, grammatical errors and inconsistencies. Consider asking a friend or mentor to look over the document before you submit it to an employer. Each time you update your resume, review it thoroughly.

• Be confident. Employers want to know youre proud of your achievements and confident in your skills. Make sure this comes through in your resume by highlighting all your best and most relevant strengths and accomplishments.

• Keep it concise. Recruiters often have several applications to review and may spend less than a minute reading your resume. Your resume should be powerful but brief. It should be easy for the recruiter to quickly understand how your history and experience align with the job theyre offering.

Writing your first resume is an exciting moment as a new professional. Its an opportunity to show employers how youve prepared yourself for the workforce and why hiring you will add value to their organisation. By crafting a compelling resume today, youll be able to build on it as you grow your skills and experience over your career.

Tailor Your Cv To Each Role

If youre applying to multiple jobs, it is key that you tailor your CV specifically to each different role as recruiters will be able to tell if youve submitted a generic CV. The best way to do this is to refer back to the job description and draw upon key elements to shape your application. You should also remember to adapt your opening statement and refer directly to the role you are applying for.

Recommended Reading: How To Add Coursework To Resume

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.

List Your Skills And Relevant Coursework

Even if you donât have paid or full-time work experience, you likely have skills and knowledge that employers value. If, like Tom, you have some college education, you can even list your relevant courses on your resume. This will likely be part of your education section, not your resumeâs skills section. Save your skills section for hard skills and core competencies you can actually put into action: computer software, language fluency, and innate talents can all fit there.

Don’t Miss: Relevant Coursework Example

Top Tips For Writing A Cv With No Experience

• Although you may have no formal work experience, be creative and fill your CV with anything that can demonstrate your workplace skills
• Use hobbies, interests, after-school clubs, sports teams and volunteering to highlight transferable skills
• Head your CV with a punchy profile to sell yourself to employers and explain why they should hire you
• Make your hard skill such as languages, IT software and written communication highly visible
• Provide lots of detail on what you have learnt in school to make up for your lack of experience

When Do You Need To Write A Resume With No Work Experience

Long story short, you need to structure a no experience resume when applying for a job for which you donât have relevant experience. It can be an internship resume with no experience or a high school graduate resume with no work experience.

Also, this type of resume is needed when you are making an inquiry for a job in a different industry or when switching from military to civil jobs.

Read Also: What To Say In An Email When Sending Your Resume

Advantages Of Having Little Experience

Even without having much past experience in the workforce, it doesnât stop you from being the ideal candidate. For instance, employers prefer to hire someone whose personal attributes and background are a strong cultural fit.

Here are 4 main reasons why having limited corporate experience can be an advantage:

• You have no habits yet, so they can mold you into their own
• Youâre more likely to introduce new ideas as you have a fresh perspective of the industry
• Candidates tend to be more passionate and interested in their profession
• Itâs more affordable for recruiters and can lead to bigger profits in the future

Use A Professional Summary To Set The Stage

If youre still using an objective statement at the top of your resume, you can go ahead and kick that to the curb right away.

Objective statements have gone by the wayside in the job search, because they really dont do anything but state the obvious. Everybody whos applying for a job has the same objective: to get the job theyre applying for. Otherwise they wouldnt bother tossing their hat into the ring.

Instead, opt for a professional summary. Its a short paragraph , that brings all of your most relevant skills right up front and introduces you as a candidate.

Particularly if youre someone without a lot of relevant experience, this summary gives the hiring manager your greatest highlights, and also arms them with some context to keep in mind as theyre reviewing the rest of your document.

Sticking with our digital marketing example, heres a look at what a summary statement might look like:

Recent graduate of Sacramento State University with a Bachelors Degree in Marketing Communications and a minor in Graphic Design. Proficient with a variety of marketing tools and programs, including Adobe Creative Suite, Google Analytics, Mailchimp, and more. Highly self-motivated, skilled communicator, and a dedicated team player.

Keep in mind that this is another place where you should be referring back to the job description. Any must-have things you see listed there should be injected into your own summary, so you hit the hiring manager with that information right away.

Read Also: How To Add A Resume To Indeed

How Can I Write A Good Resume With No Work Experience

Adhere to the following when writing a no experience resume:

• Describe your abilities and how they can assist the firm.
• Explain why youre a good fit for the companys culture.
• Always include a call-to-action at the end of your cover letter.
• Also, ensure that your cover letter is the appropriate length.

Add Achievements Awards And Skills When You Have No Experience

The functional resume format also leaves room for employment, achievements, awards, and skills near the bottom.

If you have some work experience that simply isnt relevant to the job for which youre applying, its still worth including on a functional resume to illustrate that youve been working. That said, you dont want to waste too much resume space on jobs with few transferable skills. Instead of detailed listings for each employment role, include only the company name, job titles, and dates.

Keep in mind: you arent limited to paid, professional roles. Clubs, committees, and volunteer work all count. The point of a resume is to show you have developed the right skills for a particular job. It doesnt matter if you were paid for that experience.

Lets go back to the earlier assistant job example. They require data entry experience. There are several ways you can show you have this skill. Maybe you have a certificate in Excel. Perhaps you were on a committee in high school or college which required you to use Excel. Include it!

Need to show you have interpersonal skills? Thats simple. If you were part of a club, fraternity, sorority, or the PTA then you definitely have those skills. Find a way to showcase them.

There are several ways you can spin non-paid work into usable resume points.

Also Check: Post A Resume On Indeed

Academic Project Relevant To A Job

Including an academic project in a resume is straightforward. Include where the project took place, what class it was a part of, the title of the project, the date it was completed and a short summary of its purpose.

Example of how to list an academic project in a resume:Coral Springs University, Coral Springs, Florida Intro to Hospitality Course McDonalds Restaurant Analysis Group ProjectWorked within a team of 4 to analyze data on the revenue, size, and customer base of a popular fast-food chain in Florida. Created and presented findings during a course presentation. Was personally responsible for collecting data on McDonalds revenue and creating a PowerPoint presentation.

Describe Your Educational Background

As a no-experience job seeker, your educational background is likely your strongest job qualification . This is especially true if youre writing a college freshman resume or have recently graduated.

One approach to highlight this background is to describe your relevant coursework first, like this:

You also need a resume education section, regardless if you want to mention your relevant classwork. And because youre applying for your first time job, its okay to make this section longer to fit your academic experiences.

Expand your education section by mentioning any student committees you were part of, and any scholarships, awards, or honors you were awarded. Additionally, include your GPA on your resume to further emphasize your work ethic and potential.

These details are helpful for recruiters and hiring managers, and give them another way to assess your resume other than work experience.

Heres an example of a smaller resume education section taken from a no-experience resume:

Graduate Studies

M.S. in Computer Science

California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CaliforniaB.S. in Electrical Engineering

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Tell Them More About Who You Are As A Person

Its time to get personal. Many employers prefer that candidates include a short section for hobbies and interests on their CV. This helps them get a better picture of your personality and provides them with a few talking points for the interview stage. Also, since employers receive tons of applications, adding a personal touch will help make your CV more memorable.

It can also be beneficial if your hobbies are related to your job, such as coding for a software role or writing a personal blog if you want to go into journalism or publishing but don’t worry if your hobbies arent revolutionary it could be as simple as baking, going to the gym or gardening.