Resume · 7 min read

How to write a resume with no experience (that isn't padded)

The first resume is the hardest one you will ever write, because you're being asked to evidence something you haven't formally done yet. The instinct that follows — inflating small things into grand ones, filling space with adjectives, listing every school prize — is understandable and consistently counterproductive. Recruiters read graduate resumes constantly and are extremely good at spotting padding, which is unfortunate because a genuinely modest first resume, honestly presented, tends to do well.

Start by widening what you count as experience, because most people applying for their first role have considerably more relevant material than they think. Paid work of any kind counts, including retail, hospitality, tutoring and delivery — these demonstrate reliability, customer handling and working under pressure, which are exactly the things employers worry about with an untested hire. Internships and placements count. University projects count, particularly anything with a real user or a real dataset. Freelance and volunteer work counts. Open-source contributions, a society you ran, a team you organised, a hackathon you entered — all of it counts.

What does not help is listing these as job titles with no content. “Barista, 2023–2024” tells the reader nothing. “Barista — trained four new staff on the till system and covered the weekend close alone, handling around 200 customers a shift” describes someone who was trusted with responsibility. The raw material is almost always there; the failure is in the description rather than the experience.

The section order matters more on a first resume than on any other, because you're leading with your strongest evidence rather than with chronology. A structure that works: a short summary, then education, then projects, then experience, then skills. Once you have real professional experience the order flips and experience leads — but until then, projects are usually your best evidence and should appear before a part-time job that has nothing to do with the role.

The summary should be two lines and specific. Skip the objective statement — “seeking a challenging role in a dynamic organisation where I can grow” is filler and every graduate writes it. Instead say what you are, what you can do, and what you want. “Computer science graduate with a focus on data engineering. Built and shipped a scheduling tool used by around 200 students, and contribute regularly to an open-source parser. Looking for a first role in backend or data.” Concrete, honest, and it takes the reader ten seconds to place you.

Projects are the single highest-leverage section on a first resume, and they are also where most people waste the opportunity by listing a title and a technology stack. Treat each project the way you'd treat a job: what the problem was, what you built, what the outcome was. “Final-year project: a timetabling tool for student societies. Built with Python and PostgreSQL, deployed for two societies with about 200 users, which taught me more about handling edge cases in real data than any coursework did.” The number of users matters less than the fact that it was real and finished.

That word — finished — is doing a lot of work. Two completed, documented, deployed projects beat six half-built tutorials every time, because employers hiring juniors are principally worried about whether you can carry something to completion without supervision. If you are choosing what to build now to improve your resume in a month, choose smaller and finish it.

Coursework can be listed, but selectively and only where it's relevant. A line naming four or five modules that map onto the job is useful context. Listing every module you took is not, and neither is including grades for individual assignments. If your degree classification is strong, include it; if it isn't, omit it rather than drawing attention, and let the projects carry the case.

The skills section needs discipline, because it's where first resumes most often lose credibility. List only what you could defend in a technical conversation. Do not list a language you used once in a tutorial, and do not use self-assessed proficiency bars — a graphic claiming you are 80% proficient in Python invites the obvious question of what the missing 20% is, and it parses badly in applicant tracking systems. Group by category, name real tools, and be prepared to be asked about every item.

Include the things people leave off out of misplaced modesty. If you funded your studies by working twenty hours a week alongside a full course load, that is evidence of exactly the reliability employers are uncertain about — say so. If you organised something with a real budget or real people depending on it, that's operational experience. If you taught yourself something outside your course, that's self-direction, which is the trait most often cited as the difference between juniors who work out and juniors who don't.

Length is one page, without exception at this stage. A two-page resume with no professional experience signals that you can't distinguish important from unimportant, which is itself a judgement about you. If you're struggling to fill one page, the fix is more detail on fewer things rather than more things — expand your two best projects rather than adding a third weak one.

The things to leave off: your photograph, date of birth, marital status, full postal address, nationality unless work authorisation genuinely requires stating it, secondary-school results once you have a degree, and a references-available-on-request line that occupies space to convey a universal default. Also leave off any hobby that's simply a category — “reading, music, travelling” is filler. A specific interest that says something about you is fine and occasionally builds rapport; a generic list does neither.

Tailor to each role, which is easier without much experience rather than harder, since you have fewer moving parts. Read the job description, note the concrete skills it names, and make sure every one you genuinely have appears in your resume using the same words. If it says PostgreSQL and you wrote “databases,” change it. Reorder your projects so the most relevant one is first. Fifteen minutes per application, and it materially outperforms sending the same document to forty employers.

Group projects need careful handling, because they are where first resumes most often become quietly misleading. Describing a four-person university project as though you built it alone will not survive a technical conversation, and interviewers ask about projects precisely because they are easy to overstate. The honest version is also the more impressive one: name the project, then state your specific part. “Four-person team building a route-planning tool; I owned the data layer and the API, and wrote the test suite.” That tells the reader what you can personally do, which is the only thing they were trying to establish.

If your work can be seen, make it easy to see. A single link to a code repository, a portfolio, or a short write-up of your best project is worth more than several lines of description, because it converts a claim into evidence someone can check in thirty seconds. Put it in the header next to your email rather than burying it. One caveat that matters: make sure what's behind the link is presentable before you send it. A repository whose most recent activity is an abandoned tutorial, or a portfolio with three unfinished pages, actively undermines the resume that pointed at it. One clean, documented project with a readable summary beats a profile full of half-finished ones.

Be honest about the difficult part: entry-level hiring is competitive, response rates are low, and this is not a reflection of your worth. Two things reliably improve the odds more than resume refinement does. The first is applying to smaller companies, where there are fewer applicants per role and less rigid screening than at the large employers everyone targets. The second is having a person involved — a referral, a conversation at a meetup, a lecturer's contact, an alumni connection. A first job found through a human is the norm rather than the exception, and twenty minutes spent on one real conversation frequently returns more than another ten applications.

Internships, placements and apprenticeships remain the most reliable route into a first role, and are worth pursuing even slightly beyond the point that feels dignified. So is contract or temporary work in an adjacent function, which gets you a real employer on the page and something concrete to describe. The gap between “no professional experience” and “three months of professional experience” is the largest single step change in how your resume is read, and it is far larger than the gap between three months and a year.

Finally, run the honest check before you send: could a specific claim on this page be tested in an interview, and would it hold? Every line should survive “tell me more about that.” A modest resume where every item is real and defensible outperforms an impressive one that collapses under a follow-up question — and interviewers, particularly with junior candidates, ask follow-up questions precisely because they know how easy this document is to inflate.

Frequently asked questions

What do I put on a resume if I have no work experience?

Projects, coursework, part-time or volunteer work, societies you ran, and anything self-taught. Lead with a short specific summary, then education, then projects — projects are usually your strongest evidence and should come before unrelated part-time jobs.

How long should a first resume be?

One page. A two-page resume with no professional experience suggests you can't tell important from unimportant. If you're struggling to fill it, add detail to your two best projects rather than adding a third weak one.

Should I include my part-time retail or hospitality job?

Yes, but describe it properly. A bare title tells the reader nothing; “trained four new staff and covered the weekend close alone” demonstrates reliability and responsibility, which are exactly what employers are uncertain about with an untested hire.

Should I use skill bars showing my proficiency level?

No. Self-assessed percentages invite the question of what the missing portion is, they're unverifiable, and graphics parse badly in applicant tracking systems. List only skills you could defend in a technical conversation, grouped by category.

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