How to Put SIWES Experience on CV: Achievement Bullets

If you are wondering how to put SIWES experience on CV, treat it as real work experience, because it is. Your Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme placement was months of supervised work in an actual organisation. The problem is that most graduates list it as one vague line ("Did my SIWES at XYZ Ltd") or copy logbook entries word for word.

This guide shows you where SIWES belongs on your CV, a format you can copy, and a method for turning daily logbook tasks into honest achievement bullets.

Where SIWES Goes on Your CV

If you have little or no paid work history, SIWES usually belongs in your Experience section, near the top of page one. Recruiters scanning a graduate CV want to see what you have done, not only what you studied.

You have two sensible options for the section heading:

• "Work Experience": use this if SIWES is your main experience. List it alongside any NYSC posting, part-time jobs or volunteering, newest first.
• "Industrial Training" or "Internships and Industrial Training": use this if you already have a full-time role and want SIWES to sit below it.

Avoid burying it inside your Education section as a single line. Once it is there, it reads like a course requirement rather than experience.

For a wider view of how a graduate CV fits together, see our guide to a CV for a fresh graduate in Nigeria with no experience.

How to Put SIWES Experience on CV: The Entry Format

Each SIWES entry needs four parts: a job title, the organisation, location and dates, and three to five bullets.

The job title

"SIWES Student" is accurate but tells the reader nothing about the work. Use a descriptive title and make clear it was industrial training:

• Industrial Trainee (SIWES), Electrical Maintenance
• Accounts Intern (SIWES)
• Laboratory Trainee, Quality Control (SIWES)

Only use a title that matches what you actually did. If your supervisor called you "IT student" and you spent most days filing, "Software Developer Intern" would be misleading.

A template you can copy

Industrial Trainee (SIWES), Network Support ABC Telecoms Ltd, Port Harcourt | June 2023 to November 2023 (6 months)

• Bullet 1: your most relevant task, with a tool and a result
• Bullet 2: a task showing a skill from the job ad
• Bullet 3: a process you improved, learned or supported
• Bullet 4 (optional): teamwork, safety or reporting

Writing the duration in brackets helps international readers who may not know how long SIWES placements typically run.

Turn Logbook Entries Into Achievement Bullets

Your SIWES logbook is your best raw material. It records what you did week by week, which means you can write specific bullets without relying on memory.

Step 1: Gather your evidence

Pull out your logbook, your SIWES report, and any photos, spreadsheets or emails you kept. Read through and highlight anything you did more than once, anything you were trusted to do alone, and anything you produced.

Step 2: Group tasks into themes

Logbooks are repetitive. Twenty days of "assisted in meter installation" become one theme. Aim for four to six themes, such as maintenance, documentation, customer contact, data entry, testing or safety.

Step 3: Apply the bullet formula

For each theme, write one bullet using this structure:

Action verb + what you did + tool or method + scale or result

Not every bullet needs a number. Scale can be a frequency ("daily"), a volume ("for a 40-staff branch") or a scope ("across three production lines"). Only include a figure you can explain in an interview. If you cannot remember whether it was 30 or 50 invoices, write "weekly batches of supplier invoices" instead.

Step 4: Check against the job ad

Read the job description and note the skills it asks for. If your SIWES genuinely involved one of them, make sure the bullet uses the same plain wording, for example "bank reconciliation" rather than "balancing accounts". Do not add a skill you did not use. A free check like our ATS CV checker can show which terms from a job ad appear in your CV; its score is QuickApplyPilot's own estimate, not the score any employer's system would give you.

Before and after examples

Course	Weak logbook-style line	Achievement bullet
Electrical Engineering	Assisted in maintenance of transformers	Supported routine inspection of distribution transformers with senior technicians, recording oil levels and faults in the weekly maintenance log
Accounting	Worked in the accounts department	Prepared weekly bank reconciliations in Excel for two company accounts and flagged unmatched entries to the accounts officer
Computer Science	Did IT support	Resolved staff printer, email and network issues on a 30-user office network, logging each ticket and its fix in a shared spreadsheet
Microbiology	Worked in the lab	Prepared culture media and carried out microbial counts on water samples following the lab's standard operating procedures
Mass Communication	Helped the media team	Drafted short news items and social media captions, three of which were published on the organisation's page after editor review
Civil Engineering	Went to site	Took levelling readings and assisted with setting out on a two-storey building project, under the site engineer's supervision

Notice that each strong bullet still makes clear when you were supervised or supporting. That honesty does not weaken you. Employers know you were a student, and accurate wording makes your interview answers easier to defend.

Useful verbs for trainee work

When you were not in charge, these verbs describe your role truthfully:

• Supported, assisted with, contributed to: shared work under supervision
• Prepared, recorded, compiled, logged: documentation and data
• Tested, inspected, measured, calibrated: technical tasks
• Drafted, updated, organised: writing and admin
• Handled, resolved, responded to: customer or user contact

Save "led", "managed" and "designed" for work you genuinely owned.

Keep It Honest and Interview-Ready

Every SIWES bullet is a potential interview question. If you write that you "reduced downtime", expect to be asked how, by how much, and how you know. If you cannot answer, rewrite the bullet.

A quick honesty check for each line:

1. Could your industry-based supervisor confirm it?
2. Can you describe one specific day when you did this?
3. Is any number one you actually counted or were told?
4. Does the verb match your level of responsibility?

If all four answers are yes, keep it. These bullets also make good raw material for STAR answers; our interview preparation tool can help you practise turning one into a two-minute story.

How SIWES Reads in Different Countries

SIWES is well understood by Nigerian employers but unfamiliar elsewhere. Adjust the wording depending on where you apply.

Nigeria

Keep "SIWES" in the title. Nigerian recruiters, especially for graduate trainee schemes, recognise it and may expect to see it. You can list it with your NYSC posting if you have one. A two-page CV is common for graduates.

UK

UK employers will not know the acronym. Write "Industrial Placement (SIWES, Nigeria's mandatory student work experience scheme)" the first time, or simply "Industrial Placement". The UK term "placement" or "internship" maps closely. Keep the CV to around two pages and use British spelling.

US

Use "Internship" in the title, for example "Engineering Intern (Industrial Training Program)". US resumes for new graduates are often one page, so trim SIWES to three strong bullets. US readers usually respond well to concrete outcomes, but the same rule applies: only real numbers.

Canada

"Co-op" and "internship" are the familiar Canadian terms. A short note such as "Internship (required work placement, Nigerian degree)" gives context. Leave out photos and personal details like date of birth and state of origin.

Australia

"Work placement" or "internship" both work. Australian employers often appreciate a slightly fuller resume, so four bullets per placement is fine if each is relevant.

If you are adapting a whole Nigerian CV for abroad, our guide on how to convert a Nigerian CV to an international CV covers the other changes, from personal details to referees.

Common SIWES CV Mistakes: A Quick Checklist

Before you send your CV, check that you have not:

• Listed SIWES only under Education with no bullets
• Used "SIWES Student" as your entire job title
• Copied logbook phrases like "was taught how to" or "observed"
• Written duties without any tool, method or scale
• Included more than one bullet saying the same thing
• Claimed leadership of work you only assisted with
• Used numbers you cannot explain
• Left out dates or the length of the placement
• Kept the acronym unexplained on a CV for the UK, US, Canada or Australia
• Added skills from the job ad that you did not use during training

When observing is all you did

Some placements involve more watching than doing. That is still worth including. Focus on what you learned and produced: a report, a log, notes that a supervisor reviewed, or a procedure you can now carry out. For example: "Observed and documented the bottling line's quality control checks, producing a written summary of the process for my SIWES report." Accurate and modest beats impressive and fragile.

SIWES is often the only proof a fresh graduate has of working in a real organisation. Spend an hour with your logbook, write four honest bullets, and tailor them to each role you apply for.