Student CV for an Internship: What to Write When You Have No Work Experience

Internship recruiters do not expect a career. They expect evidence that you can learn quickly, finish what you start and work with people. A student CV that shows those three things on one page beats a padded two-page CV every time.

The right order for students

1. Contact details, LinkedIn or portfolio link.
2. Short profile: degree, year, what kind of internship you want.
3. Education first: degree, university, expected graduation, relevant modules, grade if strong.
4. Projects: university, personal or hackathon projects with a result.
5. Experience: part-time jobs, volunteering, societies, freelance work.
6. Skills, languages, certifications.

Sample profile: Second-year Business Analytics student at the University of Leeds seeking a 12-week summer internship in data or operations. Built three dashboards in Power BI for a student society and a local café.

What counts as experience

• Part-time jobs: retail, hospitality and call-centre work prove reliability and customer skills — write them as achievements.
• University projects: describe the problem, your role and the result, as you would a job.
• Societies and volunteering: organising an event for 200 people is project management.
• Competitions, hackathons, case challenges.
• Online courses with a project, not just a certificate.

Before and after

• Before: Worked at a café. After: Served up to 150 customers per shift and trained 3 new staff members.
• Before: Group project in marketing. After: Led a 4-person team to design a social media campaign for a local gym; reached 12,000 accounts in 3 weeks.
• Before: Member of the coding club. After: Built a timetable app used by 300 students in my department.

Mistakes that get students rejected

• Two pages of filler — one page is the standard.
• A generic objective: write which internship you want and why you fit.
• Listing every school certificate and hobby.
• Unprofessional email address and spelling mistakes.
• The same CV for every application — adapt keywords to each ad.