13 Apr 2023
Leaving school, college or University can be daunting especially when you begin looking for a job. While being in education, you will often receive limited advice on how to write a CV, but actually applying for a job can feel difficult if you have no work experience to show.
Although it may seem difficult initially, you can still create a CV that stands out. When writing a CV with no work experience, you need to create a functional CV. A functional CV focuses on skills rather than work history and allows you to add a variety of experiences and skills, and showcases your character better.
If you’ve never had a job, add any voluntary experience and extracurricular activities to your CV to showcase your dedication and team working experience. The skills you can talk about are known as transferable skills as these are the kind of skills that you will carry with you and develop throughout your working life. The skills you add to a functional CV can include the following:
● Teamwork
● Time Management
● Organisation skills
● How you deal with conflict
● Managing team activities
● Managing Finances
These bullet points will need to include information about when the actions occurred and how you developed the skills you have mentioned. Time management can be your perfect attendance record at school, college or university.
Organisation skills can talk about how you have managed to juggle the trials and tribulations of parenthood and studying successfully. Just because you haven’t had jobs, it doesn’t mean that you haven’t developed important skills just by living your life, so think about some of the ways you have used the skills noted above.
In addition to skills, you will need to include your name, contact details, a personal statement and your qualifications. Whilst it may be tempting for some, you must avoid lying on your CV, as during your interview you may be asked about your false information, which normally leads to an abrupt end to an interview!
Ideally, keep your CV limited to one page, or two at a maximum. Any more than this can put an employer off, as they often receive quite a few CV’s for one job and will likely skim through all of them, so make sure the main points stand out.
The design of the CV should be visually appealing to stand out among the others. Be as creative as you like but avoid using fonts like Comic Sans or fonts that are too ‘arty’. You want to stand out but not be completely off the wall or make it so the text is hard to read. This just makes your judgement seem off.
Once you’ve put together your CV, proofread it a couple of times to make sure there are no grammar or spelling mistakes. Even as little as one spelling mistake can cause your employer to dismiss your CV straight away.
And finally, when you’re ready to begin applying, search for new jobs with Our Bob.
