First job

What to put on a CV with no work experience: what actually counts

written by your CV · with Lino · 14 June 2026 · 7 min read

Hi, I’m your CV. Yes, that exact piece of paper you’ve been staring at for half an hour, not knowing what to write because you’ve never had a full-time job. Let me tell you a secret: hiring managers looking for a graduate don’t want years of experience, they want proof of potential. And you have more proof than you think. I’ll pull it out, one piece at a time. But first I have to tell you something uncomfortable about those six seconds.

Six seconds. That’s how long I last on the recruiter’s desk

Let me be clear, because it’s the figure that changes everything: according to eye-tracking studies, a recruiter looks at me for an average of six or seven seconds during the initial screening, and eighty per cent of that glance lands on your name, headline, dates, and education. Translated for you: the top third of my page must scream value, or the rest gets ignored. It isn’t unfair, it’s maths: hundreds of us arrive for a junior role, and nobody reads us line by line.

So the first rule isn’t “write more”. It’s “put the right thing at the top”. And when experience is missing, the right thing is your education told well, with two lines above it that say who you are.

6-7s

the average time they look at me

26%

of CVs have at least 5 results with numbers

91%

of employers want “communication” among the skills

And here I panic

«Hey, stop! You just wrote “passionate about challenges in dynamic environments” and “enthusiastic” for the fourteenth time. If you do that, they look at me for six seconds and turn the page. Don’t give me adjectives: give me facts, at the top, right away. I’m begging you.»

And if right now you feel lost in front of me, let me ask you straight away, without waiting for the end: do you want me to help you? Keep reading, because I’ll explain everything — and if at some point you’d prefer a real hand, there’s Bravo CV to do it with you.

“Experience” is a broader word than you think

Calm down, I’ve got this. Experience doesn’t only mean “paid employment with a contract”. For me, everything that helped you develop skills counts — and should be written down: university modules, your dissertation, short placements, summer part-time jobs, volunteering, being a student representative, society roles, a hackathon, a personal project. Did you run a busy student union bar? That’s customer management under pressure. Did you coordinate a group project? That’s teamwork and organisation. Write it on me.

The difference isn’t what you did, it’s how you tell it on me. And here comes the golden rule, the one that turns me from an anonymous sheet into a ticket to the interview.

Don’t describe what you did. Show me the result

Every line of mine shouldn’t be a task, it should be a result with proof. Recruiters call it the CAR or XYZ formula: action verb, what you did, measurable result. It sounds like a subtlety; it’s the difference between being rejected and being called. Watch how I change, before and after.

✗ How you write meTook part in a group project for a marketing module.

✓ How I should lookCoordinated a team of 4 students in a semester-long marketing project, delivering a week early and achieving 85% (First Class), the highest grade in the cohort.

✗ How you write meWaiter in a restaurant over the summer.

✓ How I should lookHandled up to 40 covers per shift in a high-footfall restaurant, keeping service times under 10 minutes even on peak weekends.

Did you notice what fires me up? Numbers. Quantify the academic stuff too: team size, duration, grade, percentile, how many people, how much budget. It’s a detail very few bother with — only twenty-six per cent of CVs have five or more results with a number — and that’s exactly why it makes you stand out. One strong, quantified line of mine beats five vague ones.

🤝

Can’t find the right number to put in your results? Want me to help? Bravo CV asks you the right questions and pulls out the data you already have but can’t see — then we rewrite the weak lines together.

Soft skills: show, don’t tell

For a graduate, soft skills are the main proof of potential, because technical experience is thin. The market is crystal clear: most employers hire “for skills”, communication is wanted by the vast majority, and problem-solving close behind. On LinkedIn, most of the fastest-growing skills of the year are soft skills.

But beware the trap: if you write a soft skill in a list, it’s worth nothing. “Good communication, problem-solving, leadership” is hot air. Prove it within an experience, with a fact. Not “excellent communication skills”, but “as a student rep, I gathered feedback from 200 students and presented it to the faculty, resulting in extended library hours”. That single sentence, on me, demonstrates communication, initiative and stakeholder management — without naming any of them. Show, don’t tell.

📌

Are your soft skills listed or demonstrated? Want me to help you find out? Bravo CV reads me like a junior recruiter — structure, results, soft skills, ATS readability — and marks line by line what’s proof and what’s just an adjective.

The details that get you rejected without you noticing

Three quick things you always ruin on me. Keywords. Mirror the job advert: pick up the right words, hard and soft, without overdoing it. On average candidates include only half the relevant ones, so tailoring me to each advert is half the job done. Languages. Write them with the level, “English C1”, not “good English”: it’s precise and credible. Length. For a recent graduate I fit on one page, around five hundred words. If you stretch me you don’t have more experience, you have less focus. And drop the clichés like “knowledge of Word and the internet”: they cost me authority.

Lino, your LinkedIn, leads the way

«Guys, while you fix Vito, don’t forget about me. 72% of recruiters check us both: they open my profile first, then maybe ask for him. If Vito says “placement March-July” and I say “January-August”, they get suspicious. The message between us can change, but the facts — companies, dates, titles — must match to the letter. Trust Lino.»

Read alsoApplication number 87: why copy-pasting won’t get you an interview (and how an ATS reads you) · read the article

My checklist before you hit send

Before you send me, check nine things on me. Education and profile in the top third of the page. A profile of two or three sentences anchored to something concrete, not a generic “objective”. Every line is a result, not a task. At least four or five results have a number. Every soft skill is demonstrated within an experience. The advert’s keywords are there, without overdoing it. Languages have the CEFR level. I fit on one page, without clichés. If you tick all nine, you no longer have a blank sheet: you have me, ready for the interview.

Where to start tonight

Don’t fill me with adjectives like the first time. Open me and do one thing only: take your strongest experience — a project, a placement, a part-time job, some volunteering — and rewrite it as a result with a number in it. Just one line, done well. Tomorrow you rewrite another. When you’ve sorted them all, align Lino so he tells the same facts as me. It’s in this order that I go from a CV with no experience to a CV that gets you the interview.

So, do you want me to really help you?

Bring me onto Bravo CV: I’ll tell you what to rewrite on me line by line, check that Lino and I tell the same flawless identity, and guide you to the ready version. You start from a blank sheet, I take you back to the interview.

Yes, help me with Bravo CV

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