How to write a CV for work experience (with template!)💼 –
What we're covering..
Introduction 👋
Getting work experience can be one of the most valuable ways to develop your career.
A study by CBI found that after attitude (82%), having relevant work experience/industrial placements is the most important thing that employers look for when recruiting graduates (58%).
This means that your work experience is so important, some employers might even value your work experience over your qualification results!
Sometimes, when applying to work experience you might be asked to provide a CV to help them decide if they’d like to take you on.
Here’s our ultimate guide to writing a CV for work experience.
(Skip ahead to the CV template here! ⏩)
Sections to include 📝✨
The first step to writing an amazing CV to get work experience, is to know what to include. ✅
Here are the main sections for a CV/resume:
- Contact Details 📱
- Personal Profile 👋
- Knowledge and Skills 🧠🛠️
- Employment/Work Experience 💼
- Education and Qualifications 🎓
- Achievements 🏆
- Interests (optional)🎨
1. Contact Details 📱
Make sure to include:
- Your full name 👋
- Address 🏡
- Email address ✉️
- Phone number 📱
For example:
Laura Abraham
11 Example Road, Cardiff CF10 XYZ
077 0090 0077
laura.abraham@email.com
Other than these details, there’s not much more you could add unless you want to include some links to your professional profiles 🔗👔
Tips! 📝
- Use a sensible email address with your name in it! e.g. hot-dogs-are-great@gmail.com wouldn’t be taken seriously! 🌭 ✉️✅
2. Personal Profile 👋
This should be a brief summary of who you are/your best qualities and what you’re looking for! 👋
This might be the only section the person hiring reads – so it’s important to make it as appealing as you can! 🍰
For example:
Personal Profile
A reliable, confident, and results-oriented individual, with previous customer service experience. I take pride in supporting customers, increasing sales, and developing customer relationships. I’m passionate about delivering excellent service quality and am keen to develop my career in customer services further.
- Keep this section quite short and easy to read – maximum 4 sentences!📏✅
- Use the job description to inspire what you write in this section – you want to impress the recruiter straight away! 😁✅
3. Knowledge and Skills 🧠🛠️
This should be a brief summary of your most useful/impressive knowledge and skills. 🙋♀️
For example:
Knowledge and Skills
Customer Care: As part of my various sales roles at charity fundraising events, I regularly serve and support a diverse range of customers.
My excellent customer care skills resulted in a 50% increase in sales during my second charity bake sale.
Numeracy: Handled cash and sales transactions for charity bake sales, generating £300 profit for charity donation.
Software: Proficient in Microsoft Office (Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, Excel), learns new software quickly.
Tips! 📝
- It’s good to keep this section near the top, because it ticks the job description boxes straight away 👍✅
- Use this section to show you have knowledge, where you might be missing experience 🤔✅
- Tailor this section to fit the job you’re looking for! 🪡✅
- Think about what skills are most important to highlight – check the job description! 🕵️♀️✅
- Use this section to show you know what they’re looking for 👀🤩✅
- Try and sneak some accomplishments in here, with numbers! – Using numbers can make your achievements sound more impressive and memorable. 🔢✅
4. Employment and work experience💼
This could include things like volunteering jobs if you don’t have much experience yet! 🙂🤝
For example:
Employment and Work Experience
Volunteer Charity Bake Sale Co-ordinator – June 2022 – Present
Responsible for:
- Oversight of 4 bake sale events across multiple locations.
- Display, promotion, and sale of baked products as part of charity fundraising for The Dogs Trust.
- Transaction handling and customer support during fundraising events.
- Inventory management, volunteer co-ordination, and costing for each event.
- Maintained allergy guidance, food preparation standards, and health and safety compliance, as outlined in charity fundraiser guidance.
Volunteer Dog Walker at The Dogs Trust – August 2020 – Present
Responsible for:
- Canine care for 30+ dogs during regular walking sessions.
- Compliance with rescue centre health and safety policies.
Tips! 📝
- Put your most recent work experience at the top ⬆️✅
- Include and jobs, work experience, volunteering, and charity work you’ve done! 💖✅
- Make sure to explain any gaps longer than 1 month between jobs e.g. travelling ✈️✅
- Include your responsibilities, and anything you achieved in your work experience 🤩🏆
5. Education and Qualifications 🎓
Have you done any courses or qualifications? 🏅 Here you can show them off! 🎉
If you’re waiting on your exam results, you could also put your predicted grades here.
For example:
Education and Qualifications
The Grown-Up School – Qualification Name 2022
- Maths: A
- English: A
- Chemistry: B
- Art: B
- Physics: C
- Biology: C
Tips! 📝
- Put your most recent qualifications/studying at the top, then put your best grades first ⬆️✅
- If it takes up too many lines to write down all your qualifications, you can summarize them e.g. “8 grades achieved between A and C”. 🎯✅
- Even free online courses could help you to stand out in this section 💃✅
6. Achievements 🏆
What are the most impressive things you’ve achieved that an employer will be interested in? 🏅
For example:
Achievements
- Received student attendance award due to achieving within top 5% of student attendance for 2022. – The Grown-Up School, Feb 2022
- Following the success of my first charity bake sale, I was able to improve sales by 50% for subsequent events.
Tips! 📝
- Tailor this section to include accomplishments relating to the job you’re looking for! 🪡✅
- Try and use some numbers! – Using numbers can make your achievements sound more impressive and memorable. 🔢✅
7. Interests (Optional)🎨
Include this section if you’ve got any hobbies or interests that relate to the job that you’re applying for 📚
For example:
Interests
Reading, hiking, watching TED talks.
Tips! 📝
- Tailor this section to include interests that sound professional, and will be interesting to the people hiring! 🪡✅
CV/Resume dos ✅✨
Document appearance
- Avoid using photos – you want them to be impressed by your work, rather than your appearance 📸💃
- Create small bits of space around text so it is easy to read 🧐
- Keep simple colours and fonts – nothing too crazy or difficult to read (light colours like yellows and oranges are difficult to read)🎨🤪
- Ideally save the document as a .pdf to look professional ✨
- Keep it less than 5 pages, ideally around 2! 📄📃
- Use your name + “CV” for the file name e.g. LauraAbrahamCV.pdf 👍
- Use modern fonts like Calibri, Helvetica, or Verdana ✍️
- Use bold text to make lines easier to read 📖👀
What you write
- Research the job advert, and use it to help write your CV/resume 🕵️♀️
- Create different CVs/resumes for different jobs that you’re applying for 📄📜📃
- Highlight your most valuable knowledge, skills, and experience 🔦
- Tailor different CVs/resumes depending on the company job description 🏢
- Use good spelling and grammar ✍️
- Be polite 💖
- Give examples 🧾
- Use numbers – these can make your CV sound more impressive, and memorable! 🔢
- Get straight to the point 🎯- don’t waffle or make it too long! 🧇📏
- Use positive language ☀️ – no swearing 🤬
- Be honest 😇 – don’t lie about your experience! 🤐
- Try not to overshare personal information – keep it professional 🤫
- Talk about your impact/results 🏅 – talking about your responsibilities is good, but talking about your results are even better 💯👍
- Get someone else to check your CV 👀👀
Work experience CV example 📨
Laura Abraham
11 Example Road, Cardiff CF10 XYZ
077 0090 0077
laura.abraham@email.com
Personal Profile
A reliable, confident, and results-oriented individual, with previous customer service experience. I take pride in supporting customers, increasing sales, and developing customer relationships. I’m passionate about delivering excellent service quality and am keen to develop my career in customer services further.
Knowledge and Skills
Customer Care: As part of my various sales roles at charity fundraising events, I regularly serve and support a diverse range of customers.
My excellent customer care skills resulted in a 50% increase in sales during my second charity bake sale.
Numeracy: Handled cash and sales transactions for charity bake sales, generating £300 profit for charity donation.
Software: Proficient in Microsoft Office (Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, Excel), learns new software quickly.
Employment and Work Experience
Volunteer Charity Bake Sale Co-ordinator – June 2022 – Present
Responsible for:
- Oversight of 4 bake sale events across multiple locations.
- Display, promotion, and sale of baked products as part of charity fundraising for The Dogs Trust.
- Transaction handling and customer support during fundraising events.
- Inventory management, volunteer co-ordination, and costing for each event.
- Maintained allergy guidance, food preparation standards, and health and safety compliance, as outlined in charity fundraiser guidance.
Volunteer Dog Walker at The Dogs Trust – August 2020 – Present
Responsible for:
- Canine care for 30+ dogs during regular walking sessions.
- Compliance with rescue centre health and safety policies.
Education and Qualifications
The Grown-Up School – Qualification Name 2022
- Maths: A
- English: A
- Chemistry: B
- Art: B
- Physics: C
- Biology: C
Achievements
- Received student attendance award due to achieving within top 5% of student attendance for 2022. – The Grown-Up School, Feb 2022
- Following the success of my first charity bake sale, I was able to improve sales by 50% for subsequent events.
Interests
Reading, hiking, watching TED talks.
Conclusion 👍
So that’s it!
Hopefully you’re feeling more confident about writing an amazing CV/resume to apply for work experience opportunities.
If you know any friends or family members who might benefit from learning about how to write a CV/resume for work experience, share this post with them!
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