How To Write a CV With No Qualifications

You might be starting to enter the workforce, or at least trying to, and when you’re applying for a job, you need a CV.

The problem comes in when you’ve got no qualifications. How do you write a CV with no qualifications?

It’s not as difficult as you might think. It just requires a focus on other aspects of your life that help to showcase who you are as an individual while highlighting your skills, passions, and experiences.

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Let’s take a look at all the ways you can write a CV with no qualifications.

The 8 Steps To Write a CV With No Qualifications

Let’s take a look at the eight things you need to do when you write a CV with no qualifications:

Include The Basics

The first, most obvious step is just getting all the basics in your CV. While the focus when you write a CV with no qualifications is punching yourself up, you want to avoid forgetting what is detrimental to a CV. These are your name, contact number, email address, where you live, etc.

These won’t be something you spend a lot of time on in the CV, but it’s essential to have them available in the event they want to discuss the job with you further.

Make Extra Mention Of Your Education

Your education is the biggest thing you will want to focus on when you write a CV with no qualifications. Discussing your education gives your prospective employer an idea of your strengths, background, and interests.

Consider the following when discussing your education:

• Grades and Honours: This is a given. If you’ve done well in school, you want to showcase this achievement. This helps promote the idea of you as a hard worker, committed, intelligent, and an aptitude for your chosen field.

• Coursework: You want to look at any coursework you’ve done that’s relevant to your potential job and mention it. This helps emphasise your skills. You might have done courses focused on technical skills like math, economics, computer science, etc. Even courses that don’t seem as important, like English and writing, can show you have competency in communication and human skills.

• Projects: If you were part of a research project while studying, then you can use these if they have relevance to the job you’re applying for.

Include Any Experience That’s Relevant

While you might not have work experience, there are tons of other experiences you’ve likely got that can still be useful to an application. We’re talking about part-time jobs, volunteer work, and extracurricular activities.

These all help provide context to you as an employee, and in some cases, you can give references to let them find out for themselves. Here’s what experiences you want to focus on:

• Part-time Jobs: A part-time job comes in many forms. It can be babysitting, tutoring, or helping out at a small business. It doesn’t really matter what the part-time job was; if you were getting paid, it counts. Including part-time work experience helps an employer see that you’ve got at least basic experience with customer service.
  
• Volunteer Work: What volunteer work does is showcases an ability to get involved with the community, work with others, and more.
  
• Extracurricular activities: It might surprise you that we’re advocating for the mention of extracurricular activities, but there’s value in these past activities you engaged in while studying. Things like being part of sports, cultural, or student organisations can show an ability to take on challenges, develop new skills, and work with a team. These are important skills and qualities of any great employee, so while you’re building a resume, this is something you can mention.

Focus On Your Abilities and Skills

We all have skills, and unless you tell the person reviewing CVs what your skills are, they will be none the wiser. So, mentioning your skills is essential, especially if they’re relevant to the job you’re applying for. Here are some relevant skills you could mention when you write a CV with no qualifications:

• Leadership
• Research
• Communication
• Customer Service
• Public Speaking
• Social Media
• Microsoft Office Proficiency
• Computer Programming
• Foreign Language (specify the language)

Any skill that you have that can help you in the field should be mentioned.

Highlight Any Awards Or Achievements

Any achievement or award is worth mentioning on a CV, especially academic ones. Choose the awards and achievements that make you look the best, and ignore the ones that might appear silly or unimportant.

The point is to highlight achievements that make a great case for why you should be selected for the job.

Consider Discussing Some Of Your Hobbies and Interests

This isn’t necessarily required, but if you feel your CV just isn’t looking good enough in terms of length, maybe talk about some of your hobbies and interests.

Be careful which hobbies and interests you highlight. Focus on ones that can aid the job you're applying for.

Summarise

Don’t forget to provide a summary when you write a CV with no qualifications. You want to make it brief, accessible, and direct, stating who you are, what you do, what you’ve done, and your assets as an employee.

Use the guideline of one to three simple sentences. Don’t over-explain. It’s a summary, after all! You can even use the summary as a means to introduce yourself in one or two sentences and express what kind of job you’re looking for in the final sentence.

Make Sure To Use a Template

This is a step that stumps many people when formulating their own CVs. Here’s a tip: templates are available that make it very easy to set up a professional-looking CV.

Don’t stress yourself out trying your hardest to make your CV look professional when there’s a shortcut that’s not frowned upon! You can find templates online, in word processing programs like Word or Google Docs, on platforms like Canva, etc.

It’s easy, most options are free, and it’s better than wasting time and stressing out.

Conclusion

So there you have it. See, it’s not impossible. You can easily write a CV with no qualifications and get that job you’re after. It’s by no means an easy undertaking, but it’s far from impossible.

Write your CV, refine it, and with every job, you’ll add more to it, making it look even better.