How to Write a Resume With No Experience (Guide & Free Samples)

Writing a resume without experience can be challenging, but you can still prove you’re a good fit even if you’ve never held a similar role before.

The guide and resume examples below will help you build hard evidence of your skills and motivation even if you haven’t held similar jobs in the past.

How to write a resume with no work experience

The key to writing a good resume this early in your career is to focus on any hands-on evidence of your skills and enthusiasm for a role.

You should include the standard resume sections that employers expect, though you’ll need to tweak the details to sell yourself effectively.

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Our Expert:

Chloe Chioy

1. Fill in your header

Your resume’s header should make it easy for the employer to contact you. You can also use it to build trust in your application by linking to external resources, like your professional networking profiles or portfolio.

Include the following details:

• First and last name
• Phone number
• Professional email address (e.g., firstname.lastname@gmail.com)
• City and state
• LinkedIn profile (optional)
• Website (optional)
• Portfolio (optional)

2. Summarize your skills and strengths

Your resume summary is a 2–4 sentence paragraph at the top of your resume. It states your key skills and relevant career goals.

This paragraph functions as your opening pitch. It should sound confident and align your skills with the employer’s needs.

Aim to address the 2–3 main requirements set out in the job description. These can be specific technical skills (e.g., a coding language) or they can be core responsibilities of the job (e.g., greeting and welcoming customers).

Summarize your ability to handle these needs by describing relevant skills, qualifications, or experiences that you can defend in an interview.

3. Outline any relevant experience you have

Don’t worry if you’re a first-time applicant. At the entry level, many employers don’t care a great deal about your job history. What they care about is your hands-on experience.

That’s why 65% of recruiters say they will consider hiring candidates with relevant skills even if they lack work experience.

Include any experiences that reflect your ability to handle the responsibilities set out in the job description. Internships, volunteer work, and freelance projects all count — and so do extracurricular activities, academic projects, and awards.

For each entry, include:

• Your role or title
• The organization or project name
• Start and end dates
• 2–5 bullet points describing what you did and what you achieved

Write your bullets in reverse chronological order, starting with your most recent experience.

And here are a few detailed guides for writing about specific types of unpaid experience:

4. Emphasize your education

As a job seeker without professional experience, your educational background is your primary qualification.

Expand your education section beyond basic degree information by including relevant achievements, involvement, and academic performance. Include student organizations you joined, scholarships or awards you earned, and your GPA.

Here’s one way to format an expanded education section:

5. Highlight your transferable skills

A targeted skills section can make a big difference in your job search, setting you apart from other applicants and increasing your chances of landing an interview.

Even if you don’t have work experience, you’ve likely developed valuable transferable skills throughout your life.

Here are some common transferable skills to consider including on your resume:

Sample resumes from candidates with no experience

Here are nine resume examples from people with no experience to help you structure your own resume:

First-job resume

This example shows how to highlight relevant skills when writing a resume for your first job. The applicant focuses on their volunteering experience and the transferable skills that they can carry forward into the role:

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High school student resume

This applicant highlights their GPA and extracurricular activities to demonstrate your qualifications for an entry-level position:

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College student resume

Here’s an example of what a college student resume should look like when you don’t have formal work experience yet:

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Career change resume

If you’re building a career change resume, here’s an example showing how to reframe unrelated work experience and highlight transferable skills to prove you’re ready for a new field:

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Internship resume

If you’re applying for an internship, this example can give you some ideas for ways to show your relevant skills:

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Volunteer resume

If you’re looking to transition from volunteer work to a paid position, here’s an example showing how to emphasize your community impact and organizational skills:

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Customer service resume

This resume example shows how to highlight your transferable skills and show that you can succeed in an entry-level customer service role:

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Freelancer resume

If you’ve built your skills independently through freelance work, here’s an example demonstrating how self-taught expertise and client projects translate into qualifications for a full-time position:

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Resume templates for applicants with no experience

Writing a resume for your first job can be daunting, but we’ve got you covered. These three resume templates are specifically designed for candidates with no experience, helping you make a good first impression on employers:

Use this template

Timeless

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Supreme

Use this template

Classic

No experience application checklist

Use this checklist to ensure every element of your application works in your favor: