When you have no employment history yet
A first CV has to make evidence out of what you have: coursework, projects, part-time work, volunteering, societies. All of it counts, provided you describe what you actually did rather than what the role or module was called.
What to lead with
Education goes first, but not as a bare list — a dissertation, a final-year project or a module with a real output is often the strongest single item on the page. Part-time work demonstrates reliability and dealing with people, which employers care about more than graduates expect.
- Projects described by contribution, not by title
- Part-time and casual work included and framed properly
- One page, because more is padding at this stage
- No self-assessed skill ratings out of five
- A profile that matches, since it will be checked
Volume is not a strategy
Sending the same document to two hundred openings performs worse than sending a tailored one to twenty. If applications are stopping at the same stage repeatedly, the problem is usually locatable — change one element at a time so you can see what moved.
No promises about outcomes
We do not claim that any of this will get you hired. Hiring depends on the market, the role, the other applicants and timing — none of which we can see. What we can do is make sure your documents are not the reason you were passed over.