What to write on CV when you have no work experience?

I'm a recent graduate from uni in Computing and now looking for jobs but I don't know what to write in experience part as I have not worked before. I have however repaired and upgrade computers, mobile phone screens and gaming consoles for friends and family in my spare time but since I started uni, I bought a car and been self employed offering mobile mechanic and valeting services as in my spare time during university, I was just spending money on my car to build it and also learnt mechanical skills along. It's not related to computers but I was wondering whether it would be ok to put this on CV?

Reply 1

M451

What's the role that your applying for? If it's anything technical, I'd definitely include it, and if you're struggling to fill it up anyway, I'd put it in regardless. The thing with CVs is that you should be able to justify why you did something and what you got out of it rather than just listing experiences. If you just say you did it, it won't have much of an impact. If you can say that it taught you how to handle an independent project, manage your own time, express your creativity, take responsibility for your own learning, gain practical experience to complement your academic qualifications, then it could make your CV a winner.

Reply 2

UWS

Original post by h4mza

I would include the bold parts in your CV, that's still relevant experience in both technical and working experience. Try to emphasise on those kinds of things, like what kind of skills you picked up from doing those activities and in your interview you can talk about how you can transfer those skills to the company. For example being self-employed, you would have to be independent, self-motivating and the fact that you did some service for clients, you can say it built on your experience with working with customers as well.

However small or irrelevant you think it is, it's still good to put on you CV and you can always make it stand out by talking about the skills and your experience from it.

Reply 3

Milkround

Official Rep

Hi there,

Sounds like you've got lots of things you can add to your CV that are relatable, even without work experience. Your hobbies and skills match to a technical job role and it shows you are genuinely interested in the area.

You might want to read this article: How to write a CV when you have no work experience: http://advice.milkround.com/how-to-write-a-cv-when-you-have-no-work-experience-2

Have you found any Computer Science roles you want to apply for yet?

Reply 4

h4mza

Cheers all, I'll have a look at the kind of skills I can put. The jobs I'm applying for are Computing/IT related, something like administrator, support technician, web developer or similar etc. I've so far applied for 30 jobs in 2 months and only got called for one interview last week which I didn't get accepted to as I was a bit nervous and didn't communicate much since it was my first ever interview, hopefully it should go better next time. Had a look at my old CV which is 2 months old and I can see it's just rubbish as it's me making claims without evidence from employers point of view so I'm starting a new CV now.

What to write on CV when you have no work experience?

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