Fastest way to build a CV for placement year?

I am a 2nd year computer science student. I will do a placement year on my 3rd year. The problem is, my CV is quite empty right now (have no previous work experience) and companies will be receiving applications throghout October. I have some experience in most things (web design, game dev, ML, data science etc.) but don't have any finished projects that I can present. Some personal projects I have worked on are a chess engine, a 2d godot game, and a lot of small AI stuff with LLMs and NeRFs. I am a very very quick learner and worker and I believe I can use google and chatgpt quite well to get up to speed on any topic. I am planning to make a bunch of small projects in the following month. I need some personal project suggestions that look cool and show skills but not too time exhausting to actually implement. Also any suggestions on how to fill up my CV in a limited amount of time are also welcome. You can be a bit optimistic about how fast I will manage to learn things from ground up and implement them and assume I will spend most of my time on this for the following month since there isn't much time left. Thanks in advance!

Reply 1

Bean_cat

Original post by yusufozkan

Hi there, final year CS student here! I'm going to start off by saying that it's great to hear that you are considering a placement but my first piece of advice is that you should apply for internships alongside placements to maximise your chances of getting something.

To fill out your CV it would be worth listing all the basics like your degree, grades, qualifications etc but make sure you add in the coding languages you work with and your projects, if they're not completed, just choose your best ones to list. You could also try joining/ running a student society and take on some volunteering to build up some basic work skills.

It's worth doing online courses to mention in your cv I'd recommend checking out 'Short Courses on FutureLearn - make sure to select the 'free digital upgrade' option so that you can get a certificate of completion when you've finished the course. I've done a few on there myself and am actually working on an AI course they have on there by Accenture. (they also have samsung courses too).

Another thing you could do is virtual work experience via Forage (Only takes a few hours and you get a free certificate for that too!) Unidays also offers free microsoft courses so that's also useful

I hope this helps! :smile: