What to Put on a CV When You Have No Experience: 10 Sources

If you are wondering what to put on a CV when you have no experience, the first step is to stop thinking of experience as just paid, full-time jobs. Employers hiring at entry level usually want evidence that you can turn up, learn, communicate and finish things. That evidence can come from many places you may already have.

Below are 10 legitimate sources of experience, a bullet template you can copy, a recommended section order and notes on how expectations differ in Nigeria, the UK, the US, Canada and Australia. Everything here assumes you only describe what you actually did. No inflating titles, no invented results.

First, redefine what counts as experience

Experience on a CV is anything where you did real work, had some responsibility and can describe an outcome. It does not need a salary, a contract or a job title.

A useful test: could you talk about it for two minutes in an interview, answering "What did you do, how, and what happened?" If yes, it can probably go on your CV, either under Experience or under a section such as Projects, Volunteering or Leadership.

You can head the section "Relevant Experience" or simply "Experience" rather than "Work Experience", so unpaid and project work sits there honestly without implying it was employment.

10 legitimate sources of experience

1. Academic projects, dissertations and group work

Final-year projects, lab work, case studies and group assignments show research, analysis, deadlines and teamwork. Name the project, the method or tools, and what you produced.

Example: "Analysed survey data from 120 respondents in Excel for final-year dissertation on mobile banking adoption; presented findings to a panel of three lecturers." Only include numbers you can verify.

2. Internships, placements and industrial training

This includes sandwich-year placements in the UK, co-op terms in Canada, summer internships in the US and SIWES or IT placements in Nigeria. Even short placements count if you describe tasks and outcomes rather than just listing the company name. If you did SIWES, see our guide on how to put SIWES experience on a CV for achievement-style bullets.

3. Part-time and casual jobs

Retail, hospitality, tutoring, delivery and call-centre work are genuine experience. They show reliability, customer handling, cash responsibility and working under pressure, all of which transfer to office roles.

Don't hide these because they seem unrelated. Instead, pick the bullets that match the job you are applying for, such as handling complaints for a customer service role or stock counts for an operations role.

4. Volunteering

Charity shops, church or mosque events, food banks, NGO outreach, school mentoring and community clean-ups all count. Volunteering is widely recognised in Canada, the UK and Australia, and many Nigerian employers value community involvement too.

Give it the same structure as a job: role, organisation, dates, two or three bullets.

5. Student societies and leadership roles

Treasurer, events lead, class representative, editor of a student magazine, sports captain. These show budgeting, organising people and communicating. Be specific about scale if you know it: how many members, what budget, how many events.

6. National service and structured programmes

In Nigeria, NYSC primary assignment is real work experience and should be listed with your role and duties, not just the certificate. Our post on the NYSC certificate on a CV covers how to show completed, ongoing or exempted status.

Outside Nigeria, this could be a graduate scheme, apprenticeship, youth programme, cadet scheme or a structured gap-year placement.

7. Freelance, gig and small paid jobs

Designing a logo for a local business, managing social media for a relative's shop, transcription, data entry or tutoring through a platform. If you were paid, even informally, it is freelance work. List it as "Freelance Graphic Designer" with dates and a short list of clients or project types, and only describe clients you are comfortable being contacted about.

8. Personal projects and portfolios

A website you built, a YouTube channel, a small app, a blog, a data analysis you published on GitHub, a podcast. Personal projects are especially useful for tech, marketing, design and writing roles because the employer can see the work.

Include a link and one line on what it demonstrates. A live link that works is more convincing than a long description.

9. Courses and certifications with real output

Online courses and certificates belong under Training or Certifications, not Experience. But if the course involved a capstone project, case study or assessed assignment, you can describe that output under Projects.

Weak: "Completed Google Data Analytics Certificate."

Stronger: "Capstone project: cleaned and visualised a public bike-share dataset in R; identified usage patterns by user type."

10. Family business, caring and community responsibilities

Running the till in a family shop, keeping records for a parent's business, organising a community savings group or caring for a relative while studying all involve responsibility. Describe the transferable parts honestly, for example bookkeeping, scheduling or customer contact. You decide how much personal detail to share; a short, factual line is enough.

A bullet template you can use today

For every entry, aim for two to four bullets using this pattern:

Action verb + what you did + how or with what + result or scale (if known)

Examples:

• Organised a three-day careers fair for the Economics Society, coordinating 8 volunteers and liaising with local employers.
• Answered customer queries in person and by phone during weekend shifts, resolving common issues without escalation.
• Built a personal budgeting web app in JavaScript; deployed it on GitHub Pages with a short user guide.

If you don't have a number, leave it out. "Handled customer queries during busy weekend shifts" is honest and fine. Never estimate figures you cannot defend in an interview.

What to put on a CV when you have no experience: section order

When your strongest material is education and projects, lead with it. A practical order for most entry-level CVs:

1. Name and contact details (phone, email, city, LinkedIn or portfolio link)
2. Profile or summary: 2-4 lines on what you are studying or have studied, your strongest relevant skills and the role you want. See our resume summary examples with no experience for wording without fluff.
3. Education: degree, institution, dates, grade if strong or requested, relevant modules
4. Projects: 2-3 best academic or personal projects
5. Experience: internships, part-time jobs, volunteering, freelance, NYSC
6. Leadership and activities: societies, sports, community roles
7. Skills: specific tools and languages you can genuinely use, not generic traits
8. Certifications and training

Move Experience above Projects once you have something directly relevant to the role.

Quick checklist before you send it

• Every bullet starts with a verb and describes something you actually did
• Dates are accurate and consistent in format
• Skills listed are ones you could be tested on
• Links work and point to finished work
• You have adjusted the profile and top bullets for this specific job ad
• File name is clear, such as "Firstname-Lastname-CV.pdf"

To see how closely your wording lines up with a particular job ad, you can run it through the QuickApplyPilot ATS CV checker. The score is our own estimate of keyword and skills match, not the score any employer's applicant tracking system will produce. Only add a keyword it flags if it truthfully describes your experience.

How expectations differ by country

Conventions vary, and individual employers vary too, so always read the job ad first.

Country	Common term	Typical entry-level length	Notes
UK	CV	1-2 pages	No photo, date of birth or marital status. A short personal statement is common. Part-time jobs and volunteering are widely accepted as experience.
US	Resume	Often 1 page	No photo. Projects and campus involvement are commonly listed. Use US spelling when applying to US employers.
Canada	Resume	1-2 pages	No photo. Volunteer work is commonly listed and often valued. Co-op terms go under Experience.
Australia	Resume or CV	Often 2-3 pages	Referees are frequently listed at the end. Part-time and casual work is normal to include.
Nigeria	CV	1-2 pages	NYSC status is often expected. SIWES/IT counts as experience. CGPA or class of degree is commonly requested for graduate trainee roles.

If you are applying internationally, follow the norms of the country where the job is based, not where you live.

What not to do

• Don't upgrade titles. "Volunteer" should not become "Project Manager". Recruiters may check references, and interviews will expose gaps.
• Don't pad with soft-skill clichés. "Hardworking team player" adds little. Show teamwork through a bullet instead.
• Don't copy a job ad wholesale into your CV. Reuse its language only where it matches what you did.
• Don't leave out relevant unpaid work out of embarrassment. Unpaid does not mean unimportant, as long as it is labelled honestly.
• Don't send one generic version everywhere. Swap the profile and reorder bullets for each role; it takes minutes, not hours.

A CV with no formal experience is not an empty CV. Pick the three or four strongest items from the list above, describe them precisely and truthfully, and let the evidence do the work.