"I don't have any experience" is the most common reason people give for not knowing what to put on a resume. It's also, in most cases, not actually true. You have more than you think — it's just in places most people don't think to look.

This guide is for anyone writing their first professional resume: recent graduates, career starters, school leavers, or people re-entering the workforce. We'll cover exactly what to put on a resume when you have no formal work history, how to structure it, what recruiters actually look for at entry level, and how to get past ATS with zero job titles to your name.

What entry-level recruiters are screening for

The mistake most first-time resume writers make is treating missing job experience as a blank page. It isn't. Academic projects, internships, part-time work, volunteering, sports captaincies, community involvement, freelance work, side projects, and even relevant coursework all count as evidence of skill — once you describe them the right way.

Where entry-level experience actually comes from

How to structure an entry-level resume

The key structural difference for entry-level candidates: education moves up. When you have limited work history, your degree, grades, relevant modules, and academic projects are your strongest evidence — so they sit near the top, not at the bottom. Here's the recommended order:

1. Contact information

   Name, phone, professional email address, city, and LinkedIn URL. If you have a portfolio, GitHub, or personal website relevant to the role — include it here. At entry level, a GitHub profile or portfolio can carry significant weight for technical and creative roles.

2. Professional summary (3–4 lines)

   A targeted statement of what you're studying or have studied, what you're good at, and what you're looking for. Don't write "looking for an opportunity to grow" — every candidate says that. State your strongest skill or academic credential, name the type of role you're targeting, and include one specific signal of capability. Write it in implied first-person (no "I").

   Entry-level summary rewrites

   Recent graduate seeking an entry-level position where I can apply my skills and grow professionally in a dynamic environment.

   Recent marketing graduate (First Class, University of Manchester) with hands-on experience running paid social campaigns for two student society events, achieving 3× ticket sales targets. Targeting a junior digital marketing role in e-commerce or DTC brands.

   Hard-working computer science student looking for an internship or graduate role in software development.

   Final-year Computer Science student (University of Edinburgh, GPA 3.8) with two internships in Python backend development. Built and deployed a real-time bus tracking app as a final year project; 400+ active users. Targeting graduate software engineering roles in fintech or developer tooling.

3. Education

   Degree title, institution, expected or actual graduation year, and grade/GPA where strong. Below the core degree line, add a "Relevant Modules" or "Key Projects" sub-section — this is where you surface the specific skills and subject areas that make you relevant to the role. Don't just list your degree title and move on: the detail underneath it is where you make your case.

   Education section — adding detail

   BSc Marketing, University of Leeds, 2024

   BSc Marketing (2:1), University of Leeds, June 2024
   
   Relevant modules: Consumer Behaviour · Digital Marketing Strategy · Marketing Analytics · Brand Management
   
   Final year project: Developed a content strategy and social media audit for a local SME; implemented recommendations that increased Instagram engagement by 62% over 8 weeks.

4. Skills

   A keyword-matched skills section directly below education. Include tools, platforms, and technical skills you've used in any context — coursework, personal projects, internships, or self-study. Named tools (Excel, Python, Figma, HubSpot, Canva, SQL) carry more ATS weight than abstract competencies ("communication skills," "team player").

   Skills section — specific vs vague

   Communication · Teamwork · Microsoft Office · Problem solving · Attention to detail

   Python · SQL · Excel (pivot tables, VLOOKUP) · Tableau · Google Analytics · Meta Ads Manager · Canva · Figma (basic) · HubSpot (CRM) · Agile / Scrum

5. Experience (work, volunteering, and projects)

   Use a single "Experience" section that combines part-time work, internships, volunteering, and significant projects. Each entry should have a title, organisation or context, dates, and 2–3 bullet points that describe what you did and — wherever possible — what resulted. The key shift: describe the impact, not the activity.

   Experience bullet rewrites

   Worked as a barista at Costa Coffee, serving customers and making drinks.

   Served 100+ customers daily during peak shifts; trained 3 new team members on product knowledge and service standards; maintained upsell conversion rate consistently above store average.

   Volunteered at a local charity helping with social media.

   Managed Instagram and Facebook accounts for a 300-member local charity; grew combined following by 45% in 4 months through weekly content scheduling and engagement campaigns.

6. Certifications and additional training

   Any short courses, online certifications, or professional development relevant to the target role. Google Analytics, HubSpot certifications, LinkedIn Learning courses, Coursera specialisations, coding bootcamps — these all belong here. Include the issuing platform and completion year, and only include certifications that are actually relevant to the role you're targeting.

Getting past ATS with no job titles

Entry-level candidates face a specific ATS challenge: most keyword-matching systems are tuned to match job titles and years of experience. Without either, you need to front-load your skills section and education detail with the exact terminology that appears in the job description.

High-value entry-level keywords by field:

The most important rule: use the exact phrasing from the job description, not synonyms. If the job says "data analysis" and you write "analysing data," that's a keyword miss. Mirror their language precisely.

What kills entry-level resume performance

• ⚠️

  A generic objective statement. "I am a motivated individual seeking an opportunity to develop my skills in a fast-paced environment" appears on hundreds of thousands of entry-level resumes. It adds no information and takes up prime real estate. Replace it with a targeted 3–4 line summary.

• ⚠️

  Describing activities instead of outcomes. "Helped with social media" is an activity. "Grew the account's reach by 45% in four months" is an outcome. Even at entry level, every bullet should aim for a result — or at least a scale indicator.

• ⚠️

  Soft skills as the primary content. "Hard-working, reliable, and a great communicator" tells a recruiter nothing measurable. These claims need evidence behind them — if you're a great communicator, show it by describing a situation where communication produced a result.

• ⚠️

  Leaving out non-traditional experience. Part-time retail work, sports captaincy, charity volunteering, and personal projects are all valid resume entries at entry level. Leaving these off because they "don't count" creates a blank page when those same entries could demonstrate leadership, work ethic, or technical skill.

• ⚠️

  Sending a generic resume to every application. The quickest win on an entry-level job search is tailoring your resume — specifically the summary and skills section — to each job description. Even 15 minutes of tailoring per application meaningfully improves ATS match rates.

Entry-level resume checklist