cv personal statement examples for students with no experience

CV personal statement examples

17 eye-catching examples + writing guide

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If you want to secure job interview, you need a strong personal statement at the top of your CV.

Your CV personal statement is a short paragraph which sits at the very top of your CV – and it’s aim is to summarise the benefits of hiring you and encourage employers to read your CV in full.

In this guide I have included 17 CV personal statement examples from a range of professions and experience levels, plus a detailed guide of how to write your own personal statement that will get you noticed by employers

CV templates 

17 CV personal statement examples

To start this guide, I have included 10 examples of good personal statements, to give you an idea of how a personal statement should look , and what should be included.

Note: personal statements are generally used by junior candidates – if you are experienced, check out our CV profile examples instead.

Graduate CV personal statement (no experience)

Although this  graduate has no paid work experience, they compensate for it by showcasing all of the skills and knowledge the have gained during their studies, and demonstrating how they apply their knowledge in academic and personal projects.

When you have little or no experience, it’s important to draw out transferable workplace skills from your studies and extracurricular work, to showcase them to employers.

Graduate CV personal statement (part time freelance experience)

This candidate has graduated with a degree in biochemistry but actually wants to start a career in digital marketing after providing some digital freelance services to fund their studies.

In this case, they haven’t made much mention of their studies because they aren’t relevant to the digital marketing agencies they are applying to. Instead they have focused their personal statement around their freelance work and passion for the digital field – although they still mention the fact they are degree educated to prove their academic success.

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School leaver CV personal statement (no experience)

This candidate is 16 years old and has no work experience whatsoever, but they compensate for this by detailing their academic achievements that relate to the roles they are applying for (maths and literacy are important requirements in finance and accountancy roles).

They also add some info on their extracurricular activities and school work-placements, to strengthen this student CV further.

    Top tips for writing a CV personal statement

• Thoroughly research the jobs and companies you are planning to apply for to identify the type of candidate they are looking for – try to reflect that in your personal statement
• Don’t be afraid to brag a little – include some of your most impressive achievements from education, work or personal life
• Focus on describing the benefits an employer will get from hiring you. Will you help them to get more customers? Improve their workplace? Save them time and money?
• If you have no work experience, demonstrate transferable workplace skills from your education, projects, or even hobbies

School leaver CV personal statement (part time experience)

Although this person has only just left school, they have also undertaken some part-time work in a call centre alongside their studies.

To make the most of this experience, they have combined their academic achievements with their workplace exposure in this personal statement.

By highlighting their GCSE results, summer programme involvement, work experience and expressing their ambitions to progress within sales, this candidate really makes an appealing case for hiring them.

College leaver CV personal statement (no experience)

This candidate has left college with good grades, but does not yet have any work experience.

To compensate for the lack of workplace exposure, they have made their A level results prominent and highlighted skills and experience which would benefit the employers they are targeting.

Any recruiter reading this profile can quickly understand that this candidate has great academic achievements, a passion for IT and finance and the ability to transfer their skills into an office environment.

College student CV personal statement (freelance experience)

As this student has picked up a small amount of freelance writing work during their studies, they have made sure to brag about it in their personal statement.

They give details on their relevant A level studies to show the skills they are learning, and boost this further by highlighting the fact that they have been applying these skills in a real-life work setting by providing freelance services.

They also include key action verbs that recruiters will be looking for , such as creative writing, working to deadlines, and producing copy.

Academic CV personal statement

Aside from junior candidates, the only other people who might use a personal statement, are academic professionals; as their CV’s tend to be more longer and detailed than other professions.

This candidate provides a high level overview of their field of study, length of experience, and the roles they have held within universities.

School leaver CV personal statement with and sports experience

Although this person has no work experience, they are still able to show employers the value of hiring them by selling their other achievements and explaining how they could benefit an organisation.

They expand on their sports club involvement to demonstrate their teamwork, leadership skills, communication and motivation, which are all important traits in the workplace, and will be looked upon favourably by recruiters and hiring managers.

They also draw upon their future plans to study business studies and take a part time job, to further prove their ambition and dedication.

History graduate CV personal statement

This history graduate proves their aptitude for both academic achievement and workplace aptitude by showcasing valuable skills from their degree and voluntary work.

They do this by breaking down the key requirements for each and showing how their skills could be beneficial for future employers, such as listening, communication, and crisis management.

They also describe how their ability to balance studies alongside voluntary work has not only boosted their knowledge and skills, but also given excellent time management and organisational skills – which are vital assets to any employer.

Law graduate CV personal statement

This legal graduate makes the most from their work university work placements by using it to bulk out the contents of their CV personal statement.

They include their degree to show they have the necessary qualifications for legal roles, which is crucial, but more importantly, they showcase how they applied their legal skills within a real-life work setting.

They give a brief overview of the types of legal professionals they have been working alongside and the type of work they have been carrying out – this is all it takes to get the attention of recruiters and show employers they have what it takes to fulfil roles in the legal sector.

Medical student CV personal statement

This medical student proves their fit for the role by showcasing the key skills they have gained from their studies and their work experience placements.

In just these few sentences, they are able to highlight the vast amount of experience they have across different disciplines in the industry, something which is particularly important in the medical sector.

As they have not graduated yet and are still studying, they have provided proof of their most recent grades. This can give the recruiter some indication as to the type of grade they could be graduating with in the near future.

Masters student CV personal statement

This masters student has started by specifying their area of study, in this case, accounting, and given details about the specific areas of finance they are most interested in. This can hint towards their career goals and passions.

They have then carefully listed some of the key areas of accounting and finance that they are proficient in. For example, business finance, advanced corporate finance and statistics.

They have also outlined some of the transferable skills needed for accounting roles that employers will be looking out for, such as communication, attention to detail and analytical skills.

Finance student CV personal statement

As this finance student has recently undertaken some relevant work experience, they’ve made sure to shout about this in their personal profile.

But more than this, they have included a list of some of the important finance skills they gained as a result of this work experience – for example, financial reporting, processing invoices and month-end reconciliations.

Plus, through power words and phrases such as ‘prevent loss’ and ‘ improve upon accuracy and efficiency’, they have also showcased how they can apply these skills in a workplace setting to benefit the potential employer.

Internship  CV personal statement

This digital marketing professional has started their personal profile by outlining their most relevant qualifications and work experience, most notably their freelance role as a content manager.

They have also provided examples of some of the key marketing skills that potential employers might be looking for, including very detailed examples of the platforms and tools they are proficient in – for example, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest.

They have then closed their statement by giving a detailed description of the type of role or opportunity they are looking for. In this case, an in-house position in a marketing company.

Graduate career changer personal statement

Switching careers as a graduate can be tough. Especially when it comes to writing a personal statement that will attract employers in your new chosen field.

This candidate is looking to move from history teaching into journalism, so they have created a statement which briefly mentions their current workplace, but mainly focuses on highlighting transferable skills which are relevant to journalism. They achieve this by discussing the writing skills they use in their current role, and mentioning their hobby of writing – including some publications they have been featured in for extra brownie points.

Business management graduate personal statement

This business management proves their ability to work within a junior business management position by swiftly highlighting their impressive degree (to ensure it is not missed) and summarising some of the real-life experience they have gained in management during their university placements and volunteering. They do not let their lack of paid work experience, stop them demonstrating their valuable skills.

PhD graduate

PhD graduate roles attract a lot of competition, so it’s important that your CV contains a personal statement that will quickly impress and attract recruiters.

This candidate provides a short-but-comprehensive overview of their academic achievements, whilst demonstrating their exceptional level of knowledge in research, languages and publication writing.

By highlighting a number of skills and abilities that are in high-demand in the academic workplace, this CV is very likely to get noticed and land interviews.

How to write a personal statement for your CV

Now that you’ve seen what a personal statement should look like and the type of content it should contain, follow this detailed guide to one for your own CV – and start racking those interviews up.

Guide contents

What is a CV personal statement?

Cv personal statement or cv profile, personal statement format, what to include in a cv personal statement.

• Personal statement mistakes

How to write persuasively

A personal statement is a short paragraph at the top of your CV which gives employers an overview of your education, skills and experience

It’s purpose is to capture the attention of busy recruiters and hiring managers when your CV is first opened – encouraging them to read the rest of it.

You achieve this by writing a tailored summary of yourself that explains your suitability for the roles you are applying for at a very high level, and matches your target job descriptions .

One question candidates often ask me is , “what is the difference between a personal statement and a CV profile?”

To be honest, they are almost the same – they are both introductory paragraphs that sit at the top of your CV… but there are 2 main differences

A personal statement tends to be used more by junior candidates (graduates, school leavers etc.) and is relatively long and detailed.

A CV profile tends to be favoured by more experienced candidates , and is shorter in length than a personal statement.

Note: If you are an experienced candidate, you may want to switch over to my CV profile writing guide , or example CV profiles page.

To ensure you grab recruiters’ attention with your personal statement, lay it out in the following way.

Positioning

You need to ensure that your personal statement sits at the very top of your CV, and all of it should be totally visible to readers, without the need to scroll down the page.

Do this by reducing the top page margin and minimising the space taken up by your contact details.

This will ensure that your whole personal statement can be seen, as soon as your CV is opened.

We have a Word CV template which can help you to get this right.

Size/length

Your personal statement needs to contain enough detail to provide an introduction to your skills and knowledge, but not so much detail that it bores readers.

To strike the right balance, anything between 8-15 lines of text is perfect – and sentences should be sharp and to-the-point.

As with the whole of your CV or resume , your personal statement should be written in a simple clean font at around size 10-12 to ensure that it can be read easily by all recruiters and employers.

Keep the text colour simple , ensuring that it contrasts the background (black on white is best) and break it into 2 or even 3 paragraphs for a pleasant reading experience.

It should also be written in a punchy persuasive tone, to help you sell yourself and increase your chances of landing interviews , I cover how to do this in detail further down the guide.

Quick tip: A poorly written CV will fail to impress recruiters and employers. Use our quick-and-easy CV Builder to create a winning CV in minutes with professional CV templates and pre-written content for every industry.

Once you have the style and format of your personal statement perfected, you need to fill it with compelling content that tells recruiters that your CV is worth reading.

Here’s what needs to go into your personal statement…

Before you start writing your personal statement, it’s crucial that you research your target roles to find out exactly what your new potential employers are looking for in a candidate.

Run a search for your target jobs on one of the major job websites , look through plenty of adverts and make a list of the candidate requirements that frequently appear.

This research will show you exactly what to include in your personal statement in order to impress the recruiters who will be reading it.

Education and qualifications are an important aspect of your personal statement, especially if you are a junior candidate.

You should highlight your highest and most relevant qualifications, whether that is a degree, A levels or GCSEs. You could potentially go into some more detail around modules, papers etc. if they are relevant to the roles you are applying for.

It’s important that you discuss the experience you have gained in your personal statement, to give readers an idea of the work you are comfortable undertaking.

This can of course be direct employed work experience, but it doesn’t have to be.

You can also include:

• School/college Uni work placements
• Voluntary work
• Personal projects
• Hobbies/interests

As with all aspects of your CV , the content should be tailored to match the requirements of your target roles.

Whilst discussing your experience, you should touch upon skills used, industries worked in, types of companies worked for, and people you have worked with.

Where possible, try to show the impact your actions have made. E.g . A customer service agent helps to make sales for their employer.

Any industry-specific knowledge you have that will be useful to your new potential employers should be made prominent within your personal statement.

For example

• Knowledge of financial regulations will be important for accountancy roles
• Knowledge of IT operating systems will be important for IT roles
• Knowledge of the national curriculum will be important for teachers

You should also include some information about the types of roles you are applying for, and why you are doing so. Try to show your interest and passion for the field you are hoping to enter, because employers want to hire people who have genuine motivation and drive in their work.

This is especially true if you don’t have much work experience, as you need something else to compensate for it.

CV personal statement mistakes

The things that you omit from your personal statement can be just as important as the things you include.

Try to keep the following out of your personal statement..

Irrelevant info

Any information that doesn’t fall into the requirements of your target roles can be cut out of your personal statement. For example, if you were a professional athlete 6 years ago, that’s great – but it won’t be relevant if you’re applying to advertising internships, so leave it out.

Generic clichés

If you are describing yourself as a “ dynamic team player with high levels of motivation and enthusiasm” you aren’t doing yourself any favours.

These cliché terms are vastly overused and don’t provide readers with any factual details about you – so keep them to a minimum.

Stick to solid facts like education, skills , experience, achievements and knowledge.

If you really want to ensure that your personal statement makes a big impact, you need to write in a persuasive manner.

So, how do you so this?

Well, you need to brag a little – but not too much

It’s about selling yourself and appearing confident, without overstepping the mark and appearing arrogant.

For example, instead of writing.

“Marketing graduate with an interest in entering the digital field”

Be creative and excite the reader by livening the sentence up like this,

“Marketing graduate with highest exam results in class and a passion for embarking on a long and successful career within digital”

The second sentence is a much more interesting, makes the candidate appear more confident, throws in some achievements, and shows off a wider range of writing skills.

Quick tip: A poorly written CV will fail to impress recruiters and employers. Use our quick-and-easy CV Builder to create a winning CV in minutes with professional templates and pre-written content for every industry.

Your own personal statement will be totally unique to yourself, but by using the above guidelines you will be able to create one which shows recruiters everything they need.

Remember to keep the length between 10-20 lines and only include the most relevant information for your target roles.

You can also check our school leaver CV example , our best CV templates , or our library of example CVs from all industries.

Good luck with the job hunt!

CV Examples Cabin crew

CV Examples for Students + Comprehensive Guide

We have all been there, being a job-hunting student trying to crush a job application , land our first job, that precious internship, etc. Here, we help you navigate the first step of the process: Crafting your best possible CV as a student.

• 1. Student cv examples
• 2. How to write a CV as a Student
• 2.1 Previous work
• 2.2 Student CV format
• 2.3 Student CV layout
• 3. CV Header for students
• 4. CV personal statement student
• 5. Skills for student CV
• 6. Work experience
• 7. Student cv with no work experience at all
• 8. Education or Qualifications section
• 9. Additional sections on a student CV

Student CV Examples

Among the following student CV examples you can find a recent-graduate looking for a summer job related with electronics, an BA student looking for an internship, a nurse student CV, a student teacher CV, a grad school resume, and an economics college student looking for a position in the academic job market. Easily browse these sample resumes in PDF format by clicking the "Download CV button"

High School Student about to start Vocational School with a no-experience resume

University student - Senior year CV example

College student without experience outside academia.

Student Teacher CV example

Student Nurse CV example

How to write a great CV as a Student

Many people tend to think that crafting a great Cv as a student is more complicated than usual, since students tend to have a shorter work history or no work history at all. In this article we debunk some myths, include real-life samples, and challenge you to do some introspective work to be able to come up with the best possible version of your CV. Shifting the focus to sections like the personal statement , the skills section , the education section , etc. without forgetting about the work history, that even though it won't probably be the most important section on your CV, it can definitely help you build a stronger application. Let's dive in!

Grammar mistakes are a huge red flag for recruiters, not because they expect candidates to have excellent written skills but because they mean that you didn't pay attention to the details, and in a competitive job-market this is a basic and very important skill that they will find in other candidates. Grammar mistakes in your Student CV are very easy to fix: Make sure you use a grammar checking tool when writing your CV.

Things to consider before Starting your Student CV

Before kickstarting your student CV writing process, we highly encourage you to stop for a second and understand why you need a CV. The most likely scenario is that you need it to apply to a specific role or set of roles. In this case we encourage you to identify what skills are necessary for these target roles or singlerole. Some of the skills can be easily found in the role's job description; others require a little bit of industry knowledge and common sense. Checking the business' physical or online presence can also help.

The next step will be to spot specific examples within your experiences (if you have them), academic background, academic achievements, experiences, volunteering, free-time activities or hobbies, etc. that proof you have acquired and/or practiced those skills, and are ready to apply them in the role/roles you are applying to. Use the recommended CV sections that you will find below to make sure you cover them all.

This exercise of identifying these skills will give you a huge advantage, and the next step will be to write a "master CV" that you will be able to use as a base to create new variations for many target roles if you want to do so.

The perfect student CV format & useful tips

Like usual, there isn't a one-size-fits-all format. The best format for a student CV will depend on the amount of work history and information you have. Students with lots of relevant work history and academic background will pick CV templates with larger room for these types of sections, while students with fewer professional history will pick a template that can fill up a page with fewer content. It also depends if you are also attaching cover letters or not.

In addition to the template/ design, the format of a student CV is determined by the structure and order of its sections, that we will cover in the next segment. Depending on the structure and sections you pick, it will be considered a skill-based CV or a Chronological CV,but don't get too messed up with these terms, since hint: it doesn't really matter how your CV format is called.

Skill-based CVs tend to be more common among students, since this format highlights your abilities and qualifications over heavily focusing on your work history like the reverse-chronological CV does.

One important tip is that no matter what you turn your CV in as a PDF, even if you use a Miscrosoft Word CV template to make it. The reason is because turning your CV otherwise can very easily alter its format and content, and you want to avoid this at all costs. Of course, this rule doesn't apply if the job application form specifically requests a file other than a PDF, then turn it in the specifically requested format. But otherwise, even if it isn't specified, always turn in a PDF CV. Find here PDF CV templates .

Student CV Layout

The general rule says that you should be able to fit your CV in one page; this is especially easy in the case of students. Remember that if your CV is longer than that, you can always use an online CV like the one you can see below, or a portfolio type of website to present extended information. That being said, teaching and research positions in academia tend to accept and actually prefer long CVs with all the candidate's information; in these cases CVs can be 2 pages or even more.

The layout of your student CV will depend on the importance you want to give to the work history section. In order to decide this, check out this segment . If you have relevant experience, we recommend you to go with the first layout, if you have a work history but most of the transferable skills are in other parts of your CV like your interests, your academic background, personal statement, the skills section, etc. then go with the second one, and if you have no experience at all then go with the third one.

Personal Statement

Work Experience

Additional Sections

These are just proposed layouts; the final ideal section structure will have to be decided on a case-to-case basis, depending both on the student's profile and the skills required in the target roles.

In terms of your CV format, it is important to make sure that it can be properly read by ATS applicant tracking software . And in terms of its content, it's equally crucial to follow this article's guidelines to ensure your student CV covers the minimum requirements for the role. If your CV can't be read by these softwares or you haven't include the right keywords , there is a big chance your CV won't get to the eyes of a human.

CV Header for students

This is a comprehensive list of action verbs you should be using on your cabin crew CV:

Often overlooked, the CV header is inevitably the segment that will be first noticed on your CV, therefore it is smart to make good use of it. In addition to your full name, your cabin crew CV header should contain:

• A valid and professional and valid email address. High school students and other students should avoid using emails with nicknames and other addresses created just for fun. Ideally use an email that uses your name and surname. If you don't want to change your email address with these characteristics, just create a new one and forward incoming email to your old email address.
• A valid phone number
• A professional CV headline, also known as Job title , is a one-liner of your most relevant / prominent skills. Here you have a whole article that will help you craft the best CV headline. Check out the CV headline examples for students.
• Location or desired location
• Social media profile links
• Personal website links
• Availability

Even though it is very obvious, it's important to mention that both email address and phone number should be yours, don't use email addresses or phone numbers that belong to other people.

CV headline for students - Great examples

Highly-motivated student with passion for electronics and robotics

BA Student with experience managing a channel with >1K Subscribers

Awarded Student with 4 experience pursuing an MBA at UCLA

Creative BA Student with strong digital branding skills

Hospitality management senior bilingual in English and Spanish

Marketing Student with 2 years experience with real clients

Immigration Law recent graduate with 1 year experience

Journalism sophomore with strong video editing skills

Nursing school junior with focusing on palliative care

Civil Engineering Technician with land surveying experience

UX Designer with 8 years product design role experience

High School student

BA student ready to work

BA student looking for opportunity

Marketing Student

Nursing School Junior

Civil Engineering senior looking for summer internship

2d Year academic foundation programme practicioner

Hospitality Management Student

Do you notice the difference? It's not that these last CV headlines are completely wrong; definitely better to add these rather than not adding a CV Headline at all; however, they are missing an opportunity to mention key skills that define you and that ideally align with the target role.

CV Personal Statement

Also known as "professional summary", "executive summary", "about me", etc. this is the section for you to shine as a highly motivated and capable student. This section is a brief summary of your skills and experience, where you will explain at a glance: who you are and what you have done over the years. After reading the job description as described here , you want this summary to detail why you are the ideal candidate for the position. This means that ideally, the personal statement should be rewritten for each position you apply to. If you are applying to very similar positions and come up with a summary, that is good for all of them, that is also a good way to go about it.

Be as concise as you can be: the ideal length of the professional summary on a student CV is one or two paragraphs, with no more than 200 words.

As you can see in the following example, the personal statement, can also include your career goal or CV objective, since lately there has been voices against including this in a specific section on your CV. This goal shouldn't be vague and must be totally aligned with the company's goals.

CV personal statement student examples

I am a multi-disciplinary creative professional with a passion for digital marketing channels and design. At a young age I got involved in multiple projects around personal and corporate communication and branding, including my Digital Marketing Youtube channel with over 1K subscribers. These projects have allowed me to develop a deep knowledge and understanding of how the main marketing channels work, as well as applying a wide range of skills like illustration, photo and video editing, motion graphics, etc.

With a year of experience in the retail industry and about to finish my double major in English and Scenic art studies, I am currently looking for a creative digital marketing position where I can be involved in the campaign design and strategy process in order to kickstart my career in the advertising industry.

I am a BA Student that has acquired excellent communication and visual art skills through my years of education and personal projects. I am a very curious person, specifically when it comes to social media platforms and I am highly motivated to add value to the company as a key part of your team.

Student CV key skills section

Skills are commonly divided into two categories: Hard and soft-skills. The hard skills are those skills that can be measured more easily, like languages or technical skills. You can say that you are proficient in the usage of Adobe Photoshop or fluent in Spanish and there isn't much room for interpretation: we are going to assume you can use photoshop like a pro and hold a conversation in Spanish understanding that you could make mistakes but these won't affect communication. These type of skills can be listed and included in your CV by quantifying them whether with proficiency descriptions or with scale charts:

Soft skills, on the other hand, are inter-personal and behaviorial skills, very hard to quantify and highly subject to interpretation. Therefore, it isn't generally a good idea to use lists to include soft-skills in a CV; instead candidates should use other sections to include them, as described here .

However, skill-based CVs are an exception to this norm, particularly in the case of students with a no-experience resume where the skills section becomes one of the most important sections. So, when it makes sense, it is totally fine to list your soft-skills in. But you should still avoid including bullet points in descriptionless lists. Instead, as shown in the examples below, you should include examples of how you have used those skills, alternatively mentioning how you acquired them.

When it comes to including the skills section in a Student CV there is many possibilities, here are three smart ways to go about it:

• A Skills / Skills summary section combining all your hard and soft skills, with subsections.
• Many sections grouping skills in categories.
• A dedicated section for each relevant skill.

Adding one or more skills sections to your CV doesn't mean you can't include examples showing off your skills in other CV sections. You should still use your achievements, responsibilites, executive summary etc. to emphasize what you are most talented at.

Great examples of student CV skills usage

MY STRONGEST SKILLS

EXCELLENT COMMUNICATOR

• My academic background in English and scenic arts along with my passion for creative writing have given me the confidence to effectively communicate messages across channels using strong storytelling techniques.
• Through my customer services experience in a busy and demanding retail environment, I have improved my interpersonal communication skills, particularly when it comes to effective client communication.
• I have a true passion for creative work. Bringing ideas to life is something that has always come naturally. I developed a passion for digital illustration earlier in life, and I have consistently created marketing materials for countless events and businesses. You can check out my portfolio here.
• I am always exploring and learning about new formats, developing an interest in short video materials and websites, what brought me to create my personal blog and Youtube channel, maintaining a strong publication consistency over the last three years.
• My Youtube channel and my blog have ignited my analytical skills, pushing me to measure every detail and audience interaction with tools like Google Analytics, Sendgrid, Google Data Studio and Tableau.
• This has allowed me to consistently grow my audiences and increase the monetization of my blog and my subscriber's email list.

FAST-LEARNER

• Thanks to the selfless community contributors, I have learned many skills and following the motto 'learn by doing' put them into practice. I am thrilled with the evolution of web and video formats and look forward to keeping learning and using new trends and formats to grow.
• Excellent Communicator
• Fast-learner

EDITION SKILLS

• Adobe Photoshop ●●●●●○
• Adobe Illustrator ●●●●●○
• Adobe After Effects ●●●●●○
• Adobe Premier ●●●●●○
• Final Cut Pro ●●●●○○
• Figma ●●●●●○

MARKETING SKILLS

• Email Marketing ●●●●●○
• Facebook Business Ads ●●●●●○
• Linkedin Ads ●●●●○○
• Youtube Editor ●●●●●○
• Google Analytics ●●●●●○
• Google Ads ●●●●●○
• Google Data Studio●●●○○○
• CMSs: Wordpress, Hubspot & Webflow ●●●●●○
• Languages: HTML5 & MySQL ●●●●○○
• Communication ●●●●●○
• Team Work ●●●●●○
• Organization ●●●●●○

In the following example, we can see how a student has done a great use of her personal profile to describe some of the skills required for the job, even though she has a no-experience resume:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

I am a passionate electrical engineering student in my junior year, looking for an electronics apprenticeship in the Bournemouth area, that allows me to work on projects related to renewable energies , the internet of things or/and electric mobility.

I have more than 8 years experience troubleshooting electronic devices and home appliances, as well as installing electrical systems in tiny houses, caravans, etc. My engineering studies have given me the confidence and structure to start electrical projects around the internet of things and green power like the ones I present below.

• Organization skills
• Planning skills
• Internet of things
• Electrical Systems

Experience or no-experience, that is the question

Even though you might think that you don't have a work history, or that the experience you have doesn't relate to your targeted role, in most cases it is a better idea to include it in your student CV than to leave it out. The key is to take these informal or apparently unrelated experiences, and write a work description focusing on the transferable skills used in these kinds of experiences.

Let's take the case of the university student that is looking for an internship at a marketing or creative agency. He's never had a formal marketing job; however, he's been working on his personal brand for more than 3 years now with a blog with thousands of monthly visitors and a Youtube channel with more than 1K subscribers, the tasks he's performed to build those audiences will be very valuable on his next marketing job. Therefore he must mention these in his student CV, and even though they can be added in a separate section, including it as a work experience, it is a perfectly fine option to showcase his responsibilities and achievements.

Related experience example

BRAND MANAGER & PRODUCT OWNER 123easiestmarketing.com

08/2018 - Present

I started a blog and a Youtube Channel to share easy to digest but effective marketing pills with small business owners and entrepreneurs. My main responsibilities are:

• Create the content calendar for the Blog, the Youtube, and other social media profiles
• Researching and crafting interesting video and web content that drives traffic and engages users across channels focusing on Youtube, email subscribers & web visitors
• Developing a marketing automation strategy to onboard new subscribers across the different marketing channels ensuring a coherent brand identity

To the date, the site has consistently published a blog post per week and currently has 11K monthly organic visitors, while the Youtube channel has more than 1K subscribed users in more than 30 countries.

BRAND MANAGER & PRODUCT OWNER

123easiestmarketing.com + Youtube Channel

Non related work experience example

Likewise, his work history includes a retail weekend work at an electronics store for more than a year, even though at first it could seem that this experience is completely irrelevant for the job application at hand, it really isn't, since working in a retail position has most likely developed his customer service and teamwork, both very transferable skills to most positions at a marketing/creative agency. Therefore, when including this experience, his focus has been on responsibilities and achievements that showcase these skills. Next, you can see an example showing how to include a non-related work experience in your student CV:

Non related experience example

Customer Services Assistant Expert DominicSmith Dublin

09/2016 - 08/2019

I worked 8-hour weekend shifts at the Electrical & Home Entretainment Expert store in Dundrum. Saturdays and Sundays are the busiest days of the week, when the in-store assistance doubles. As a customer services assistant I:

• Strategically delivered marketing materials and information to customers making sure our merchants branding guidelines were followed
• Delivered customer service assistance and advice based on the customer needs, always with an active problem-solving approach
• Was in charge of the stock management for the portable devices section.

Over my 3 years at Expert DominicSmith, I contributed to always achieving our quarterly revenue goals and successfully passed mystery-shoppers test scoring above the chain's average, gaining the recognition of our regional manager.

• Assisted customers
• Cashier-related tasks if required
• Restocking goods

No-experience resume / CV for students

Now, we understand if your response to our question is that you are a high school student genuinely has no experience, not even in sporadic garden or lown mowing. This is then the only case where you should write a 100% no-experience CV , which is totally fine; you will then relay on other sections to showcase your skills, like the Education, Hobbies Interests or Volunteering sections.

Qualifications or Academic background section

If there is a case where the education or qualifications section is more relevant than ever is in the case of students and recent graduates. Take advantage of this section to highlight any awards, honors you have obtained over your academic background.

Include only your higher education diplomas, avoid including lower education if you have obtained higher education diplomas afterwards. High school student resumes, should also only include their current studies with the predicted year of graduation. College students, vocational students or university students should include their A-Levels, GCSEs and the current degree they are studying including their estimated time of graduation.

Following, we attach an example of how to successfully maximize the use of the education section on a student resume example:

Qualifications example for students

B.A. IN ENGLISH & SCENIC ARTS

American College Dublin

• Graduated with first class honors: 3.25/4

09/2017 - 04/2022

B.A. IN ENGLISH & SCENIC ARTS American College Dublin

The power of additional sections on a student CV

Even though we have set a layout framework for student CV sections, there is no limit when it comes to the number or nature of sections. There are typical additional sections that can be very useful on a student's CV to showcase skills:

• Language skills
• Honors & awards
• Interests or hobbies
• Volunteering experience
• Complementary education
• Extracurricular activities

But then, as you can see in this high school student resume , where she has added a section under the name "Highlighted products" or another one to explain a specific project she is currently working on, the possibilities are endless, and will depend on the position and the with a list of interesting projects she's done over her academic years and free time, and the candidate.

Is it necessary to add student cover letters to your applications?

As you probably guessed, the answer to this question is that it depends. If the application process has a field for it, then you definitely have to include one, and as it happens with the CV you should target it as much as you can to the targeted role.

On the other hand, if the job application doesn't offer the possibility to add one, don't add one. Your personal statement will act as a sort of brief cover letter targeted to the role.

Finally, students that are sending a spontaneous application, should evaluate the convenience of adding a covering letter on a case-per case basis. There is actually three recommended options:

• Send an email attaching your cover letter and CV
• Send an email with the cover letter as the email content with the CV attached
• Send a brief email attaching the CV that includes a targeted personal statement where the candidate clearly aligns his/her goals with those of the role and company

Once again, make sure to use a grammar checking tool when crafting your application email, linkedin message or cover letter.

Montse Lorente

Coach & recruiter @ kaelon.co and co-founder @ cvonline.me