5 tips for a strong resume if you have little work experience

You need a job to get work experience, but all jobs require work experience. We know the struggle. It’s hard to find work when you’re fresh out of school, and that could certainly be because you don’t have a strong resume yet. Fortunately, there are several tricks to make your resume as strong as possible, even if you have little experience.

This article shares five tips for a resume that shows that you are the person for the job.

1. Focus on relevant traits and skills

Believe it or not, an employer isn’t just interested in your work experience. He or she is mainly interested in whether you are up to the job.

Which of your qualities and skills would be most useful in this job? You may have taken online courses, learned a relevant hobby or skills in school that demonstrate your ability to do the job.

Tip: don’t just think of hard skills such as Photoshop or SPSS, but also soft skills such as independence and stress resistance.

2. Provide a professional resume

This is always important, but especially if you have little experience and still want to appear competent. Make your resume look professional! For example, take a look at the free templates on Canva to make your resume visually appealing.

But by professional, we also mean that you don’t make spelling or grammar mistakes. To prevent this, it is best to print your CV once. You often see errors that you would otherwise have overlooked. And do you have a girlfriend, mother, brother or teammate who is good at language? Have your resume checked by him or her.

3. Name side jobs

Even if they are not relevant to the job, they show that you are motivated and not averse to work. An employer will certainly appreciate this when it comes to side hustles or passion projects. You also show that you are ambitious. Volunteering always works well; we probably don’t need to explain why.

4. Name school projects

No rule says you should get paid for everything on your resume, so take advantage of that if you’re not experienced. When you have done projects for clients at school, you can put these on your resume very well. This shows that you have experience with working together in a team and following a briefing.

5. Customize your resume based on the vacancy

This tip will come in handy not only now but for the rest of your life: don’t send the same resume to every company, but tweak it every time to the vacancy you respond to. Show through your vacancy why they should hire you and not the other candidates.

Your resume will be a lot more compelling if you’ve researched the company and listed the skills listed in the job posting.