What should I include on my resume if I have no prior experience?

The best things to include on your resume if you have no experience

You don't have any professional experience on your resume? No worries – as long as you read this guide on how to write a resume with no work experience.

There are numerous reasons why you might not have any prior work experience to include on your resume. There are numerous other things you can include on your resume to demonstrate to employers that you are the ideal candidate for their open position.

When you don't have any work experience, it's critical to highlight previous activities, skills, and other experiences to demonstrate your unique skills, professionalism, and competency. When hiring entry-level employees, managers look for two qualities in their resumes: attitude and aptitude.

That is to say:

1. Attitude – a cheerful, hardworking, and endearing personality

2. Ability – the ability to learn on the job quickly.

Keep these two characteristics in mind as you write your resume, and include any relevant experiences that demonstrate that you have the right attitude and aptitude for the job.

1. Professional synopsis (even if you have no experience)

Instead of a career objective, modern resumes require a professional summary. Your professional summary should appear immediately after your name and contact information and should consist of two or three sentences that provide a general overview of your background, interests, and abilities.

Because you lack work experience, your professional summary should include one or two adjectives that describe your work ethic, level of education, relevant skills, and professional passions or interests. Each professional summary should be tailored to the position for which you are applying.

2. Key skills you've acquired in school and through other experiences

List your skills that are relevant to the position you are applying for after your professional summary. Simply browsing job descriptions for that specific job title will give you a good idea of the skills required for that job. Typically, many skills will be listed in the requirements or qualifications section that you can copy.

Don't be afraid to include skills that you haven't used professionally. List them if you learned about them in school or if you practiced them in an extracurricular activity! Just make sure that you are completely honest about your level of competency during an interview.

3. Academic achievements and education

Create a resume section for your education after your key skills. Include any degrees you have earned or are currently pursuing. If you dropped out of school before earning a degree, you can list the credits or hours you earned.

List the school, the location, your degree, your field of study, and the dates you attended for each degree. Academic honors and awards, such as graduating with Cum Laude, should also be included.

4. Training, classes, and certifications

Now is the time to list any relevant classes, training, or certifications on your resume.

Include coursework from school that is relevant to the position you are applying for underclasses. Simply substitute the class title for the class number, such as ECON101. You can also write a one- to two-sentence description of the course if it is relevant to the job you're applying for.

List where you received the training, the type of course taken, the date you received it, and the date it expires for each training session and certification on your resume (if any).

5. Relevant personal or academic projects to the job

You can also include personal or academic projects that are relevant to the job you're applying for, such as a school group project or a neighborhood summer bake sale. Simply relate your projects to how you are a good fit for a company's position. Before you begin writing a project, consider how you will explain its significance during an interview.

Personal job-related project:

A job-related academic project

It is simple to include an academic project in a resume. Include the location of the project, the class in which it was completed, the title of the project, the date it was completed, and a summary of its purpose.

6. Achievements and awards

Create a section for awards, achievements, and accomplishments after relevant projects. You can include academic or school achievements, such as 'Best Presentation in a Class' or 'Highest Grade.' You can also include any personal accomplishments, such as winning a medal in sports or placing second in a spelling bee.

List where you received the award, the name of the award, the date you achieved it, and a brief description, if necessary, for each award, achievement, and accomplishment.

7. Extracurricular activities, sports, and organizations

Make a section for extracurricular activities after your awards and achievements. List any activities that demonstrate your positive attitude and aptitude for the job you're applying for, such as playing a musical instrument, clubs, sports, and other extracurricular activities. Include a brief description of the relevant activity in your resume.

8 Volunteering and extracurricular activities

Finally, include a section for volunteer activities. Volunteering can be formal or informal, such as serving food at a local homeless shelter or assisting a neighbor with raking leaves. Include who you volunteered with, what your role was, the dates and hours you volunteered, and a brief description of each volunteer activity.

How to Format a Resume When You Don't Have Any Experience

A clear, easy-to-read, and consistent format is critical for capturing the attention of an employer or hiring manager, especially if you have no formal work experience.

9 What is the ideal length for a resume?

If you have no experience, your resume should be one page long. However, your resume must fill one entire page, so you may need to add more detail or experiment with formatting so that it is a full page-long resume.

10 Resume Fonts That Will Make You Stand Out

Throughout your resume, use a traditional font such as Times New Roman or Arial. On the same resume, do not use more than one font type.

11 What is the best font size for a resume?

The font size you use on a resume will be determined by how much content you have written, as you need your content to fill an entire page. Use 16pt for your name, 12pt for section headers, and 11pt for the body of your text as a starting point. Experiment cautiously until your one-page resume appears complete.

12 Best Color Schemes for Resumes

When you don't have much work experience, it's usually best to stick to a simple black and white color scheme. On a resume, plain black text on a white page is a safe bet.

13 The best paper for printing a resume

When printing your resume, use a clean white sheet of printer paper. There's no need to splurge on expensive thick or colored paper.

14 A good resume is consistent.

The importance of consistency in creating an impressive resume cannot be overstated. This means that all items on the page that are similar must be aligned and formatted in the same way.

15 Resume Section Formatting

Separate resume sections by underlining and bolding them with a font size that is one or two points larger than the rest of the text. This allows a hiring manager to quickly scan your resume and pick out the important information.

Using a resume-building template when creating a resume, especially if you have no experience, saves a lot of time. Using a free resume template allows you to focus on writing the content rather than formatting it.