Writing a resume as a fresh graduate with little experience

A graduate role is designed for people without years of experience. Recruiters aren’t looking for a long job history; they are looking for evidence that you can learn quickly, finish things and work with others. Your job is to show that evidence clearly.

While your degree is your strongest credential, list it right after your summary: degree, university, graduation date and, if strong, your grade. Add a line of relevant modules or a final-year project if they relate to the job.

University projects, personal projects, hackathons and open-source contributions all count. Give each one a name, the tools you used and what it achieved — exactly like a job entry. A project that real people used is especially strong.

• “Timetable planner — Next.js, PostgreSQL. Built a web app that 150 classmates used to plan their semester; handled login, data import and mobile layout.”
• “Final-year project — Python, scikit-learn. Trained a model to classify support tickets, reaching 87% accuracy on a held-out test set.”

A café or retail job shows reliability, customer handling and working under pressure. Volunteering and student societies show initiative and leadership. Describe them with results, briefly, and keep the focus on skills an employer can use.

One well-organised page is ideal for a graduate. Use a clean template, a short summary, and cut anything that doesn’t support the role you are applying for. Then tailor it to each posting — graduates who adjust their resume for each role stand out from the many who send the same file everywhere.