How to build your CV with 'no experience'

Getting the first job becomes a challenging task for fresh graduates because most of the jobs have requirements of one to two years of experience. In such a situation, job experience or the lack of it becomes a big obstacle. Many graduates are suffering from this dilemma of building a CV whereas they don't have any professional work experience. They are often struggling with how to prepare their CV and wondering, "Will anyone hire me?" This is where the following suggestions will help.

The length of your CV: According to research, recruiters spend on average between five to ten seconds reading through a CV. So, your resume needs to catch recruiters' attention right away. Even for those with years of experience, creating the ideal CV can be intimidating, especially for those who are just beginners.

Use your words carefully because the CV should only contain concise and accurate information. You can reduce space and make the information easier for the recruiter to access by using a header function to include your name, address, and contact details (email address and phone number). Also, keep in mind that your Instagram story is not your resume. Don't mess with font sizes, styles or colours. Keep things classy and clean.

Prepare a fresh objective: Your career objective is one of the first things a recruiter will notice on your CV, so it's essential to make it concise and clear. Please be sure of what role you are applying for. For example, if you have graduated from the department of marketing, you can write something like: “Passionate about communication who have analytical skills about the market and play a significant role in meeting the company's aim”. Just like that, be careful about the aim and goal of the company. Focus on the keywords that have been mentioned in the job description, and write your objective in that way so that it aligns with the company's goal.

Explain your key research, academic projects and takeaways: As a fresh graduate without job experience, you can include the academic research and projects you completed during your university life. For example, if you prepared a documentary or a launched campaign for your academic projects, it is likely you wrote a script, developed characters, operated a camera for shooting, edited the videos and then finally you had to show to your audience that you had to reach your audience. Highlight these experiences in your CV, emphasising the skills you gained through your research or projects.

Articulate your values and passion: Highlight your passion or area of interest and your value. Showcase your value for the organisation in your CV so that HR can depict your image and your future role for the position. Describe how your values match with the organisation and why the organisation needs you. Then comes your interest. It doesn't always have to be professional, though. You can have an interest in music, movies, or literature. Describe why you have this interest. For example, if you have an interest in movies, you can try to present something interesting about it. Or suppose you like music, you can articulate about it by stating something like-- it connects people with each other and different genres of music have different types of identities and values.

Prioritising skills: A fresh graduate having any job experience is a rare thing. So you should highlight your soft skills and hard skills properly. You can mention your hard skills which include being adaptable with Windows 7, 10 or 11, web skills, social media skills, MS Office skills which means MS Word, MS PowerPoint, and MS Excel. Then comes spreadsheet, drive, graphics designing etc. Remember in this era of the digital age having hard skills like them is very necessary for a fresher. At first, try to build up your expertise on them.

Then comes some soft skills like communication with people which is related to public speaking, critical thinking, analysing data or topics, working with a team, or having the skill to lead a team. Besides, having time management skills to meet deadlines is necessary for any type of job. And having empathy to understand your teammates and colleagues is also a soft skill. So having that type of skill set is also required in a fresher. When recruiters review your CV, they assess your skills to understand the type of person you are and how well you would fit into their organisation. Those skill sets can describe how a person you are.

Extracurricular activities and networking: Extracurricular activities can also help you to boost your CV. For example, you have worked with the cultural club of your university. It is likely you had to be involved with organising events, communicating with the people, you had to do teamwork or sometimes you might give leadership to your team. So mention these things in your CV. Besides, make sure you are putting effort into networking as Bangladesh is full of competition and getting a job without standing out isn't easy.

It's all about your story: Remember your CV is about your story. Your recruiters can't see you in person while reviewing your CV. So this is the medium where you can express yourself how a person you are, your strengths, your values, your past academic or professional performance. Present yourself in a way that allows recruiters to form a positive image of you by simply reviewing your CV. You can talk about interesting things you did during your academic years. You can also include your presentation skills as you have to give presentations in front of the entire class. This can also help you to show your expertise that you don't have stage fear. Besides, your digital footprint matters to a recruiter. Create your digital presence wisely. For this, create a LinkedIn profile, professionally organise the profile, and showcase your work there.

Tahmina Rahman is working in a renowned IT firm as communication executive.

She can be reached at [email protected]