Mission Impossible: how to write a recent graduate cv when you have no experience yet

I imagine you are sitting now at the floor wrapped in a black graduation robe with a square hat perched on your head, the hat that you rented to celebrate your freedom and forgot to return. Only there is no freedom, is there?

College may be over, but you have student loans to pay, parents are no longer willing to support you, you desperately need money to pay the bills, to buy food and new video games. 

Grasping your laptop nervously you surf the Internet while trying to find the solution. What are the options, you wonder? Well, you could always sell your organs, but you have only one spare kidney and the liver has been through college so nobody would buy that. You could always work on a temporary job as a waiter or play guitar in the subway – that would break your parents’ hearts but anyway would not bring much cash.

Or… Just don’t toss away this idea at once! You could actually use your education to earn a living. Seems crazy, huh? Especially when there are dozens of applicants competing for any decent position and you have nothing to brag about in your CV except winning beer pong championship (just to be sure – do NOT mention it) to beat them.

Experience

Obviously, you’ve got no experience. However, it is, unfortunately, the most important part of any CV and no head-hunter would be happy to see this part blank.

So let’s not make them upset and write down something.

If you need experience but do not have it yet – go and get some. It is that simple. Volunteer or get an internship (even a paid one if you get lucky), that will help you to get into the flow of things, practice your skills and gain experience points for your resume. Moreover, as an intern, you could get noticed by someone in the company you’ll be working in and skip all this looking-for-a-job-havoc with its resumes and tiresome interviews altogether. 

However, if you do not plan on spending your time by working on a low-paid entry position just to get relevant experience – you can manage with experience you’ve already got. Namely…

Additional experience

You probably tried moonlighting as a baby sitter, a waiter or a bartender. Although this may seem irrelevant to the position you’re applying… To be frank, it IS irrelevant, but you can improve it by describing the qualities that helped you to do this job, emphasize communication and leadership skills, persistence and hard work.

Education

Well, at least you have THAT, thank you, Lord. So go ahead and write down your alma mater – full name, all capital letters. Moreover, state not only your major but the list of the most relevant subjects and your grades, mention all the academic papers you wrote and projects you were involved in and describe all the challenges and hardships you overcame to succeed in college.  

Profile | Personal Statement

Now, this is your chance to shine. A personal statement is basically the summary of one’s career and professional path, but you’ve only begun it! 

In that case, show how eager you are to start working, state your readiness for constant self-improvement. Tell the head-hunter the reasons why you have chosen this profession, what do you want to achieve, why do you think you can do it and why exactly would you be great to have as an employee.  

Be concise but convincing. Consider adding some puns to get noticed. 

Overall Tips

Here are some general tips useful for creating a student’s resume.

• Do not forget to include a bullet-pointed list of relevant skills to your college graduate resume.
• Find out what are the relevant terms and keywords for your profession and make sure to use them in your CV. 
• Also, do not forget foreign languages if you know any.
• Proofread, you only left college recently – you should remember how the words are spelt.
• Do not limit yourself with a CV, go ahead and write a cover letter addressing it directly to the head-hunter
• Do not be lazybones. It’d be no use writing a CV and simply sending it around without a single change. You’d better rewrite and tailor your resume to every new position you’re applying – adding or changing keywords, rethinking the relevance of certain skills and experiences would be extremely helpful. 

• Provide references. Find some college tutors who loved you the most or, in case no one can remember you, try to persuade some of the professors that you loved them and their subject more than donuts from the college canteen, so they will give your references. In your CV, note that references are available on request. Chances are no one will ever request those but this line will definitely impress head-hunters.
• Be smart. To carve out a career is not a piece of cake, it requires some discipline, hard work and a bit of luck. Consider yourself lucky since with our CV builder you could spare some time and effort when creating a free resume online. With Applyya, it will take you only 5 minutes to compose a professional-looking CV. From this short article you’ve learned the basic principles of creating a resume for recent college graduates, with Applyya you could easily apply (pun intended!) this knowledge. 

Best of luck with those loans and take good care of your kidneys, just in case you couldn’t find a job!