How to Write a CV With No Experience

Writing your first CV with no paid work history feels like being asked to describe a job you have never had. Every employer wants “experience”, yet nobody starts with any. A CV with no work history is not a weaker CV, it is a different kind of CV, one built around potential and transferable skills rather than a job title, and employers hiring for entry-level roles and apprenticeships know how to read it that way.

This guide covers structure, what to put in place of a work history, and how to turn ordinary school, college or volunteering experience into CV content that says something real about you.

Start with structure, not content

Get the shape right before you worry about wording. A clear, well-ordered CV with modest content will always beat a cluttered one crammed with everything you can think of. For a first CV, aim for this order:

1. Contact details — name, phone number, email address and general location (town or city is enough, you don’t need a full postal address).
2. Personal statement — two to three sentences summarising who you are and what you’re looking for.
3. Education — most recent first, with relevant detail.
4. Work experience or work-related activity — even brief, informal or unpaid experience belongs here.
5. Skills — a short, specific list, not a generic one.
6. Extracurricular activities and interests — only if they add something relevant.
7. References — “Available on request” is standard and perfectly acceptable.

Keep it to one page, in a plain, readable font (Arial, Calibri or similar) at 10-12pt, with consistent headings and enough white space that it doesn’t look cramped. Save it as a PDF unless an employer’s application system specifically asks for a Word document, so your formatting doesn’t shift on their screen.

What goes where education would normally sit

Your education section should do more than list school names. Include the school, college or provider and dates attended; qualifications achieved or being studied for, with grades where good and an expected completion date otherwise; relevant subjects or coursework connected to the role (a Design and Technology project for an engineering apprenticeship, an enterprise project for an admin role); and any awards or positions of responsibility, space permitting.

Structured taster days, employer talks or industry visits are worth naming too. A student who attended a Ron Dearing UTC or ENL UTC placement day, or a college open event with an employer like Phillips 66, has something concrete to point to that shows genuine interest, not just a CV line.

What to put instead of a job history

This is the part that trips people up, because “work experience” doesn’t have to mean paid work. Employers reading entry-level CVs know that, and are really looking for evidence that you turn up reliably, follow instructions and work well with other people. That evidence can come from:

• Work experience placements arranged through school or college, even a single week.
• Volunteering — a community event, a charity shop, coaching a junior sports team, a school open day.
• Part-time or casual work, including babysitting, dog walking or a paper round, even if never formalised with a contract.
• Extracurricular responsibility — team captaincy, running a school club, organising a fundraising event.

The key is not what the activity was, but what it demonstrates: turning up every Saturday to help at a car boot sale shows reliability and customer contact. Treat these the same way you would treat a job, with a heading, a date range, and a couple of bullet points about what you actually did.

Build a skills section that means something

A skills list is only useful if it’s specific. “Good communicator” and “team player” tell an employer nothing on their own, because everyone writes them. Instead, pair each skill with where it came from:

• Teamwork — five years playing for a local football team, including two seasons as vice-captain.
• Customer service — a term volunteering on the till at a charity shop, handling cash and helping customers.
• Time management — balancing GCSE coursework deadlines with a part-time paper round six mornings a week.

Mirror the language of the job advert or apprenticeship listing where you honestly can. A logistics or ports employer might value attention to detail and timekeeping; a healthcare employer might value calmness under pressure. Match your real experience to what the role asks for, rather than guessing.

A worked example bullet point

Generic bullet points are the single biggest weakness in first CVs. Compare these two ways of describing the same volunteering role:

Weak: “Volunteered at a food bank. Helped out and worked with the team.”

Stronger: “Volunteered weekly at a local food bank, sorting and shelving donations, greeting visitors, and working alongside five other volunteers to prepare parcels within tight time windows — developed reliability, attention to detail and the ability to stay calm during busy periods.”

The stronger version names the setting, describes what you actually did, and states the skill it built. For a Humber-specific example, someone applying for an entry-level role at a ports or logistics employer might write:

“Completed a week’s work experience at a local warehouse, following health and safety procedures, helping track stock using a paper checklist system, and working to deadlines during a busy delivery period — gave me a first look at how a logistics operation runs day to day.”

That single sentence does more than a page of vague adjectives, because it’s concrete, true, and connected to the environment you’re applying into. The same approach works for food manufacturing, healthcare support, retail or office roles.

Tailor it every time

Resist the urge to send the same CV everywhere. Read the job description or apprenticeship listing, note the two or three things it asks for most, and check your CV reflects them before you send it. This might mean reordering your skills section or swapping which piece of experience you lead with, and it takes ten minutes.

Once your CV is solid, a strong covering letter or application form usually comes next — our cover letter guidance for apprenticeships covers how to write one that complements rather than repeats your CV. If you’re weighing up routes into work, see our comparison of apprenticeships versus university and our guide to finding a job in the Humber. If you’re not yet sure which sector to aim at, our sector guides cover the region’s main employers, from offshore wind to food manufacturing, and what entry-level roles in each tend to look like.