Your first CV with little or no work experience
Writing your first CV can feel impossible: employers want experience, and you need a job to get experience. The good news is that recruiters hiring graduates and interns don't expect a long career. They look for signs that you can learn, work with others and finish what you start. You have more of that evidence than you think.
Change the order of sections
On an experienced professional's CV, work comes first. On yours, lead with your strengths:
- Contact details and a short summary (two or three lines).
- Education, with relevant details.
- Projects, academic or personal.
- Experience: internships, part-time jobs, volunteering.
- Skills and languages.
- Activities or certifications, if relevant.
Make education work harder
Don't just list the degree. Add what shows ability:
- Your grade or honours if they are good.
- Relevant courses: "Courses: database design, network security, cloud computing".
- Your final-year project, thesis or dissertation, with one line about the result.
- Scholarships, awards and competitions.
Projects are experience
A project you built, organised or led counts, whether it was for a class, a club or yourself. Describe it like a job:
Booking app for the university library (team of 4, 2026). Built the back end in .NET and PostgreSQL; the app is now used by about 300 students to reserve study rooms.
Link to your portfolio, GitHub or a public page if you have one.
Every job counts
Part-time and summer jobs in retail, restaurants, delivery or tutoring show reliability, customer service and time management. Keep the bullets short and focus on what transfers:
- "Handled cash and card payments for about 150 customers per shift with no discrepancies."
- "Trained three new team members on the opening procedure."
Volunteering, student associations and sports teams count too. Leading a club, organising an event or raising money are real achievements.
Skills: be specific and honest
List tools you have actually used (Excel, Python, Figma, AutoCAD, SAP…) and the languages you speak with a level. Avoid inflating: "basic" or "intermediate" is respected; "expert" after one course is not.
Summary example
Business administration graduate (2026) with a focus on marketing analytics. Ran social media for the university entrepreneurship club, growing its audience from 600 to 2,400 followers. Comfortable with Excel, Google Analytics and Canva. Arabic native, English fluent. Looking for a junior marketing role in Doha.
Length and format
One page is right for a first CV in almost every country. Use a clean template; a professional design helps, but content matters more. Follow the country rules: no photo or age for the US, UK and Canada; photo and nationality for the Gulf.
Before you send
- Ask a teacher, career centre or friend to read it.
- Make sure your e-mail address is professional.
- Adapt the summary to each employer.
CV Passport has templates for students and first jobs (filter by age 18–24 in the template gallery) and lets you start from an empty CV in your own language.