A first-job CV can use academic projects, volunteering and part-time work as evidence. Label each honestly. Lead with your degree and strongest relevant project rather than an empty employment section or a claim to professional experience.
The example below is fictional and instructional. Replace every placeholder with your facts and remove any experience or skill you do not have. Its tasks are not a real customer's results.
Example to copy and adapt
[Name] | Business administration graduate
[Current city] | [Phone] | [Email]
PROFILE
Recent business graduate interested in junior purchasing work. Compared supplier options in a course assignment and organised source information in a shared spreadsheet.
EDUCATION
[Degree and institution], [graduation date]
ACADEMIC PROJECT — Supplier comparison, [date]
Compared three fictional suppliers against delivery time, cost and minimum order requirements.
Built a comparison sheet and explained the trade-offs in the group's final presentation.
VOLUNTEERING — Campus event support, [dates]
Maintained the participant list and checked duplicate registrations before the event.
SKILLS
Excel: tables and sorting; research: source recording; presentations: concise recommendation slides.
LANGUAGES
[Language and level]
Connect each introduction claim to a CV entry
| Claim in the sample above | Supporting entry | Question to practise answering |
|---|---|---|
| Interest in a purchasing assistant role | The supplier comparison labelled as coursework | Why did you prefer one quotation? What information was missing? |
| Sources organised in a table | The comparison-table project entry | Which columns did you use? How did you distinguish prices from assumptions? |
| Checking registrations | The event-volunteering entry | How did you identify a duplicate? What happened next? |
If you cannot answer, revise or remove the claim. These are self-review prompts, not promised interview questions. Use the career-objective tool to draft your introduction, then return to this sample to place its supporting evidence.
What counts as experience on a graduate CV?
No paid employment does not mean there is nothing to describe. Start by listing completed assignments, a final-year project, volunteering, society responsibilities, part-time work and practical training. Then ask which entry contains a task similar to the vacancy. Keep the label honest: a course project belongs under Projects, not under employment at the company whose public data you studied.
| You have | Evidence to extract | Accurate label |
|---|---|---|
| A group assignment | Your individual contribution, method and output | University project |
| A student event | Registration process, scheduling or supplier communication you handled | Student activity / volunteering |
| A course certificate | A completed exercise you can explain | Training; include the actual issuer |
| A family-business task | The work you really performed and when | Part-time or informal work, as applicable |
| A self-directed exercise | The question, input, process and limitations | Personal project |
Build the first page before choosing a design
Write a plain-text draft first. Add your name and contact details, a short targeted profile, your degree and dates, then the strongest one or two projects. Include tools and languages at levels you can defend. If your degree is in progress, use an expected graduation date. An empty Employment heading draws attention to missing information; omit it when it has no entries and give the relevant project space instead.
A single page is often practical for this amount of material, but do not shrink readable text to force it. Remove a full list of modules when only one assignment matters to the role. A recruiter learning that you built a reconciliation sheet gains more useful information than from a list of every introductory business course.
Write a graduate project that can survive an interview
Expanded project entry: fictional example
Supplier comparison — university purchasing assignment | [Month year]
Question: compare supplier options for a sample office-equipment order.
My contribution: recorded quotation details and highlighted missing delivery information.
Method: separated quoted prices from assumptions, then compared options in a spreadsheet.
Output: comparison sheet and a short recommendation explaining the trade-off.
Limit: classroom exercise; no actual purchase was placed.
Turn that working note into two CV bullets: “Compared supplier quotations for a university assignment, separating stated prices from delivery assumptions” and “Prepared a comparison sheet and explained the recommendation to the project team.” If you did not lead the group, neither bullet says you did. If no purchasing savings were measured, neither invents a saving.
Tailor a no-experience CV to two different roles
| Vacancy asks for | Evidence to emphasize | What to avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Operations support | Records, checking procedures and a repeatable handover | Calling a class exercise commercial operations experience |
| Customer service | Listening, accurate notes and explaining a next step | A list of personality traits without a situation |
| Junior accounting | Reconciliation practice, supporting schedules and spreadsheet methods | Claiming independent responsibility for accounts you never handled |
| Junior software development | A working feature, tests and your contribution | Listing frameworks copied from the advertisement |
Use the skills examples for wording and the objective examples for your opening. Keep one factual master record, then select relevant entries for each application. Tailoring changes emphasis; it should not change the facts.
When a graduate portfolio helps
A portfolio is useful when it lets the employer inspect something that the CV only mentions. For the supplier exercise, publish an anonymized sample of the comparison table and a short explanation of your reasoning. State that it is a university assignment. Remove private data and use material you are allowed to share. A screenshot without context does not tell a reader which part you made or what the task was.
ArcPixel can fill portfolio fields from a resume upload. That can give you a starting structure, but a resume rarely contains the full project story. Add your role, method, output and limitations yourself. Follow the resume-to-portfolio walkthrough to review imported fields and prepare the public version.
Graduate CV questions
- What if I have no projects or volunteering either?
- Start with a genuine piece of coursework or complete a small relevant exercise now. Describe its actual scope and date. Do not invent a past internship. Until you have a completed example, keep the CV brief and focus on the qualification and abilities you can demonstrate.
- Should I include my GPA?
- Include it when the employer or programme requests it, with the original scale. Otherwise decide whether it adds useful evidence. Do not hide a required field or convert a grade using an unsupported calculation.
- Can I use the same CV in Dubai and Riyadh?
- You can reuse the same facts. Check the language, eligibility, attachments and role requirements for each vacancy. The UAE guide and Saudi guide explain those application decisions.
Replace missing employment with relevant evidence
- Choose one vacancy first: a purchasing assistant and a marketing assistant need different project details. For a Jeddah purchasing role, highlight the supplier comparison; for a Dubai events role, put event support first.
- Describe your own contribution in a team assignment. Keep the academic label and do not turn a simulated supplier exercise into a real procurement contract.
- If you have no project yet, complete a small original exercise relevant to the role and clearly label it as practice. Finishing a task creates evidence; adding skill names does not.
- Remove invented metrics. Explain what you produced and how you checked it when there is no measured business result.
Why the example is written this way
The comparison criteria make the project concrete without pretending the student managed a purchasing budget. The volunteer entry shows a specific checking task that can be discussed in an interview.
Next step
If you are applying for a placement rather than a job, see the internship cover letter example. Use the UAE guide or Saudi guide for your application, or return to the guides hub. Use the resume builder to organise your information. Building and previewing are free; PDF export requires a paid plan. See pricing.
