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How to fill a graduate CV with no experience

Graduate Talent | 16th April 2025

Looking through your CV and feeling a little disappointed that you don’t have more to say about yourself? We’ve all been there, which is why at Graduate Talent we’ve put together the ways you can fill a CV with little or no graduate work experience.

Lead with your education

You worked hard to get your degree, so make that hard work worth it by giving extra details about your studies, such as:

Here’s an example of how to make the most of your degree in your CV:

University of Surrey (2021 - 2024)
2:1 in Bsc Environmental Science
- Specialised in pollution and environmental sciences

- Dissertation on the impact of green building certifications on energy efficiency and environmental performance in the UK

- Undertook field work in the UK and Europe, gained practical skills in using GIS, monitoring pollution levels, and testing water quality

Include any extracurricular activities

Just because you haven’t been paid to do a job, it doesn’t mean you have no graduate work experience. Experience can be gained through extracurricular activities, for example:

How you include these depends on how you’d like to layout your CV.

Any extracurriculars that you took on at school, college or university could be included in the education section of your CV. For example:

Heriot-Watt University (2020 - 2024)
2:1 in BA (Hons) Fashion.
- Modules included Garment Construction, Fashion Buying, and Promotion & Advertising
- Contributor to LOCH-IN, Heriot-Watt’s student-led magazine
- Treasurer for Eco Society

The other way is to have a specific section dedicated to your extracurricular activities. This might be a good option if you are really struggling to fill your CV due to a lack of graduate work experience. You could format this section as below:

English Tutor (2021 - present)
Working one-on-one with learners, assessing their learning and development, planning and delivering lessons, setting learning goals, and communicating with parents/guardians.

Treasurer for Heriot-Watt University’s Eco Society (2023 - 2024)
Collecting money, tracking society’s budget via Excel, and making payments.

Contributor to LOCH-IN, Heriot-Watt’s student-led magazine (2022 - 2024)
Pitching article ideas, conducting interviews, writing and proof-reading articles, sending articles to editor ahead of deadline.

Talk about your hobbies and interests

As we talked about in our previous article on adding hobbies to your CV, this is a great way for a graduate with no work experience to fill out their CV - but there is a trick to doing it so that it doesn’t read like filler content.

Include 2-3 hobbies and interests and make sure they relate back to the person specification for the job. Let’s say the role requires self-motivation, confidence in public speaking, and creativity, then your hobbies and interests section might look like this:

Hobbies & interests

Marathon running shows self-motivation, being in a comedy group is evidence of public speaking, and video creation demonstrates creativity.

Show the value of soft skills

We’ve covered soft skills on Graduate Talent before, but they’re such a vital part of securing a graduate job that it’s worth talking about them for a second time.

Lots of graduates have the specific skills needed for a job, so quite often employers will look at your soft skills to distinguish you from other applicants.

Use our article on soft skills to learn more about them and see which ones you can include in your CV.

Soft skills should be added to your CV in a simple bullet point list, for example:

Additional skills

Don’t say that you have a soft skill unless you have the evidence to back it up. Anything in your CV can be brought up in an interview, so be mindful that you may be asked to elaborate further. Pick a maximum of five skills and, if you are invited to interview for the position, make sure you have an example of when you’ve used this skill in the past as proof of what your CV says.

What to remember when writing a CV with no graduate work experience

1. Link everything back to skills

Everything on your CV needs to demonstrate your skills. Including a couple of lines about the skills each experience taught you helps fill out your CV even more.
 
Let’s say you were part of your university’s comedy society, you might link this back to your skills like this:
 
Comedy Society - Liverpool John Moores University (2022 - 2024).
Wrote and performed fortnightly stand-up routines. Developed skills in creative writing and proof-reading, written and verbal communication, public speaking, and giving and receiving constructive feedback.

2. Tailor to the job in question


While the general content of your CV won’t change much, making small tweaks so that your experience is more fitting with a specific role can be the difference between making it to the interview stage or not.
 
Read the person specification for the vacancy and compare it to your CV. Could you make some changes so that your experience is more aligned with the criteria for the job?
 
For example, if they’re looking for someone who can manage competing priorities - include a line about how you take part in extracurricular activities alongside your university work, as this shows your time management abilities.

3. No filler


Find yourself thinking, ‘It’s not really relevant, but I’ll just put this here to fill the blank space’? It’s easy to fall into that trap when you don’t have much graduate work experience - but graduate employers look through hundreds of CVs so they’re pros at spotting filler.
 
Be strict on yourself and only include things that showcase your aptitude for the role, even if that means a blank space or two.

4. Don't skimp on the proof reading


It’s the soft skill that every graduate recruiter is looking for: checking your work for accuracy. After you’ve been working on a document for a while, it’s easy to skim over any errors and not notice them - but if you submit a CV with errors, it’s unlikely you’re going to be invited to interview for the job.
 
Once you’re happy with your CV, take a break and come back to it later. Leave it for at least a couple of hours (we would actually recommend coming back to it the next day if you have the time), as reading it through with fresh eyes will help you to spot any mistakes. You could also get a friend or family member to read your graduate CV, as they’ll find it easier to proof read.
 
At Graduate Talent, we work with small-to-medium sized businesses (SMEs) to offer ambitious and innovative graduate job opportunities. Starting your career with an SME has many unique advantages, from developing valuable professional relationships, through to being in an environment where you can explore a variety of roles.


Ready to accelerate your career with us? Send your CV to enquiries@graduatetalent.com and our recruitment manager will get in touch with any opportunities that suit you.

Written by Graduate Talent