{"id":154,"date":"2016-08-10T15:27:52","date_gmt":"2016-08-10T15:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.co.uk\/career-tips\/?p=154"},"modified":"2022-11-16T17:32:10","modified_gmt":"2022-11-16T17:32:10","slug":"tips-for-writing-a-graduate-cv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.co.uk\/blog\/tips-for-writing-a-graduate-cv\/","title":{"rendered":"Tips for writing a graduate CV"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019ve just graduated, congratulations!\u00a0 Those letters after your name look pretty neat, don\u2019t they? Perhaps the only cloud on these sunny uplands is that your CV might look a little\u2026 well, empty.<\/p>\n<p>After three years in higher education you have the qualifications on paper, but applying for jobs can be hard if\u00a0you don\u2019t have much hands-on experience. Don\u2019t despair just yet. If you don&#8217;t have internships and work experience to show off, follow our top tips and you could turn that sparse CV into a real showstopper\u2026<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Think about how you phrase things \u2013 <\/strong>A lack of work experience isn\u2019t necessarily a barrier. Stress the practical elements of your course and the skills it equipped you with \u2013 even if you need to be a bit creative in how you frame them.\u00a0 If you did an English Literature degree, don\u2019t say you spent three years reading novels. Those essays on Keats \u2018demonstrate your self-motivation and strengthened your communication skills\u2019, didn\u2019t they?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ditch the personal statement<\/strong> \u2013 If you don\u2019t have a career to summarise, say nothing. Instead of writing a personal statement, use the space to tell employers why you want this specific job. It \u2018will allow you to put your skills and knowledge to good use\u2019, for example, or it \u2018will allow you to further build on your expertise in this field\u2019.\u00a0 Let them know what skills you have, but make them relevant to the job you\u2019re applying for.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Don\u2019t waffle <\/strong>\u2013 There\u2019s nothing worse than over-compensating for a lack of experience by filling a CV with fluff. They don\u2019t want a pile of adjectives describing how \u2018hard-working, intelligent, creative, dynamic\u2019 you are.\u00a0 Everyone else has written exactly the same thing.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sell your other achievements<\/strong> \u2013 If a module you took seems particularly relevant to the job you\u2019re applying for, stress how well you did in that field. If you did voluntary work or captained a team or society at university, throw that in there too.\u00a0 It\u2019s not \u2018work\u2019 as such, but it does show you have leadership skills and some get up and go.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Make it keyword<\/strong>&#8211;<strong>friendly<\/strong> \u2013 Most recruiters run CVs through computer software which picks up on keywords. Things like \u2018social media marketing\u2019 and \u2018campaign management\u2019 tick boxes, flowery descriptions and corporate doublespeak do not.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You might be applying from a standing start compared to some more experienced candidates, but that doesn\u2019t have to count against you. As a graduate you still have valuable and relevant skills \u2013 check how much they\u2019re worth by popping your CV in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adzuna.co.uk\/jobs\/value-my-cv\/upload?utm_source=career-tips&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_campaign=writing-graduate-cv\">ValueMyCV<\/a> tool, then emphasise the ones which count the most.<\/p>\n<p>What you lack in experience you make up for in promise \u2013 upsell your skills and knowledge and you\u2019re on the right track.<\/p>\n<p>Having trouble getting started? Check out or Graduate CV Template.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019ve just graduated, congratulations!\u00a0 Those letters after your name look pretty neat, don\u2019t they? Perhaps the only cloud on these sunny uplands is that your CV might look a little\u2026 well, empty. After three years in higher education you have the qualifications on paper, but applying for jobs can be hard if\u00a0you don\u2019t have<a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.adzuna.co.uk\/blog\/tips-for-writing-a-graduate-cv\/\"> Continued \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1110,841],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cvs-cover-letters","category-graduates"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adzuna.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}