Graduate CV Example — Landing Your First Job With No Experience

"I've got no experience — what do I even put on my CV?" It's the question hundreds of thousands of graduates ask every year. The good news: a candidate with no experience plays by different rules. Tell your story right and you can get ahead of the competition even with zero work experience.

The CV Strategy for a No-Experience Candidate

A senior person's CV is about "what I've done"; a graduate's is about "what I can do." For a candidate with zero experience, an employer looks at 4 things:

• Quality of education — university, course, grade, project
• Internships / freelance — a real work signal, even a small one
• Side projects — someone who builds off their own initiative learns after hours
• Clarity of expression — your summary and bullet points show how clearly you think

The 7 Sections of a Graduate CV

1. Header

A professional email (firstname.surname@gmail), phone, LinkedIn URL, city. If you're a developer add a GitHub URL, a designer a portfolio URL, a marketer a personal blog/Medium URL.

2. Professional Summary — The Most Important 4 Lines

A no-experience candidate's summary needs 3 things: (1) what you studied / your degree, (2) your most notable skills, (3) the sector / role you want to grow in.

Weak: "Enthusiastic, ambitious, team-player graduate eager to work."

Strong: "Industrial Engineering graduate (University of Warwick, 2026). On the side I did 2 years of freelance data analysis (Power BI, Python). I'm looking to grow as an operations analyst at a logistics or e-commerce company."

3. Education — This Is Your Work Experience

Put it at the top, because it's your strongest asset. Include:

• University, course, graduation year
• Grade (write it if it's a 2:1 or above; leave it off if below)
• Dissertation / final-year project (if relevant to the role)
• Scholarships (if any), awards/commendations
• Key modules you took (4-5, chosen to match the role)

4. Internships and Part-Time Jobs

Even a single internship gives you at least 3 bullet points. If you worked in a café, translate it into transferable skills like "customer satisfaction" and "operating the till/POS system."

Example:

• "Ocado data analytics internship (3 months): Built 4 Power BI dashboards tracking the Search team's query performance, and automated the weekly executive report (manual 3 hours → 5 minutes)."

5. Projects — A No-Experience Candidate's "Work Experience"

A university group project, a personal app, a hackathon submission — they all count. For each project:

• Name + a one-line summary
• Your role (call out leadership within the team)
• The technologies you used
• The outcome (user count, demo URL, GitHub stars)

6. Skills

Hard skills (technical tools) + soft skills (communication, teamwork, problem-solving). Copy the keywords from the job ad word for word.

7. Certifications / Additional Information

Online course certificates (Coursera, Udemy, university careers service) count. Language levels in CEFR format (B2, C1). Add any volunteering briefly.

A Full Graduate CV Example

5 Common Mistakes on Graduate CVs

1. Saying "I have strong communication skills." No — show it: "Chaired a 20-member student society and structured the weekly meetings."
2. Listing primary-school achievements. Only include university and beyond. Even A-level grades can be skipped.
3. Putting secondary school front and centre. It goes below university, no grades, just the school + leaving year.
4. Overly formal, inflated wording. Words like "henceforth" or "endeavour to execute" read strangely. Keep it plain.
5. No numbers. Even without experience you can pull concrete figures from a project, internship or freelance job.