How to Craft a Resume Without Experience
Whether you're looking for your first job or don't have a variety of experience, a well-rounded resume is key to your job search success.
Resume writing can be intimidating when you aren’t sure what to include or how to best showcase your skills, which is why we’ve come up with a list of tips to help you demonstrate to employers you'd be a great fit.
Use a Summary Statement
A summary statement is used to summarize who you are professionally and give the reader a great first impression. It should be two to four sentences at most and include keywords to describe your work ethic, educational background, relevant skills, and professional goals.
Formatting Matters
With little to no experience, it’s important your resume is visually appealing - you want it to grab the reader’s attention and stand out among other candidates. Your resume format may vary depending on the industry and position you’re interested in. Look up current resume examples to see how they're organized and what elements are being used to make them stand out.
Remember the Technical Details
Grammar can make or break your resume. Look your resume over several times and have others look it over as well. Make sure it's organized, makes sense, and is free of grammatical errors or typos.
Highlight Your Education and Skills
Education and skills are extremely important pieces of your resume to highlight when looking for a job without much experience.
If you have a high school diploma or are currently enrolled in college, we recommend including your high school information. However, once you earn a degree or certification, your high school information can be removed. Relevant coursework may be beneficial to include in your resume.
Recruiters look for applicants demonstrating both hard and soft skills as they are equally important. Hard skills are teachable technical abilities such as: speaking a foreign language, Microsoft Office, computer programming, and more. On the other hand, soft skills like: communication, leadership and teamwork are much more difficult to teach. When applying for jobs, be sure to include a good mix of both, especially if they're relevant to the industry you want to work in.
Include Any Relevant Experience
You may not have much in terms of job experience, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have relevant experience. Look at the job description and think about tasks you’ve completed that may align with it. For instance, maybe you’ve organized an event for a family member, helped your local community develop marketing materials, completed a training course online, volunteered for a non-profit, or created a website on your own time.
Just because you weren’t employed when doing these things doesn’t mean it isn’t experience.
If you haven’t done anything relevant to the job you’re applying for, consider any job experiences such as dog walking, mowing lawns, babysitting, etc... including these still shows effort and responsibility.
Write a Cover letter
Even with little to no experience, including a cover letter is always recommended. Cover letters are a great way to make a good impression and to show a possible employer why you’re a strong candidate. Cover letters allow you to showcase your personality and explain how you'd be the right fit for the job position.
Don’t let the amount of experience you may or may not have ruin your chances at creating a great resume to help with your goal of landing an interview. Following these tips will better ensure you have a complete resume with a much higher chance of success.
For more helpful information on creating a resume, visit our free resume resources page full of tips guaranteed to answer all of your questions. If you’ve tried everything and are still struggling to get interviews, it might be time to try utilizing our resume writing services.