Can I get a graduate job without a 2:1?

Yes — many employers have moved away from grade thresholds, especially in tech, marketing, design, and operations roles. If your degree is below the typical bar, lead with what you've built or done outside coursework: side projects, society leadership, freelance work. Make it impossible to dismiss the application on grades alone.

Should I include my A-level or GCSE results on my CV?

Only if you have very little else to put on the page (e.g. applying for your first job during sixth form). Once you have a degree, school grades become irrelevant — the degree supersedes them. Take the space back for projects or part-time experience.

How do I write about university projects on my CV?

Treat each project as if it were a small role. Two to three bullets per project: what it was, what you did specifically, and what the outcome was (a grade, a working artefact, an audience reached). Include a link to a GitHub repo, demo, or write-up where possible.

What should I write in a cover letter when I have no experience?

Lead with what transfers, not what's missing. Open by naming one specific thing from the job description you found compelling, then point at the closest equivalent thing you've done — even if it was a society role, a placement, or a side project. Don't apologise for the gap; the hiring manager already knows you're entry-level.

How long should a cover letter be for an entry-level role?

250 to 350 words. Senior cover letters can run longer because there's more to evidence; entry-level letters get rejected for padding. Three short paragraphs (specific opening, one strongest example, ask for the next step) is usually the right shape.

How to Write a CV and Cover Letter With No Experience (2026 Guide)

The hardest first version of any CV is the one for your first proper job. You have no work history to drop into a chronological list, the templates online assume you do, and "tell me about a time you led a team" feels rigged when the only team you've led was a group project. The good news: recruiters who hire entry-level know what they're getting. They want to see how you think, what you've done with what you had, and that you took the application seriously enough to write it for the role in front of them.

How to write a CV with no work experience: lead with what you have, not what you don't

How to write a CV with no work experience starts with reframing what counts as experience. University projects, dissertation work, hackathons, society leadership, part-time jobs, volunteering, freelancing, side projects — all of it counts when it shows skills the role needs. The standard chronological CV format breaks down because there's nothing to put on the chronology; the skills-based format absorbs all of it.

Open with a two-line professional summary that names the role you're targeting and one or two skills you can back up. "Recent computer-science graduate looking for a junior backend role; built and shipped a side project (food-allergy lookup, 800 weekly users) using the same stack the team uses." Specific, honest, and impossible to write without having read the job description.

What to put on a CV with no job experience

What to put on a CV with no job experience, in priority order:

A one-line header: name, location, email, phone, LinkedIn (or portfolio if you have one).
A two-line professional summary (the one above).
A skills section — actual demonstrable skills, grouped if there are many. Not "good with people"; "Python, Postgres, basic AWS, Git, conversational French".
Education — degree, university, year of graduation, dissertation topic if relevant, notable modules if relevant.
Projects — your single strongest section if you don't have jobs. Each project as if it were a role: what you built, what stack, what was the result (users, completion, recognition).
Activities and volunteering — society roles, sports captaincies, volunteering. Especially anything where you ran something.
Part-time work, if any — even unrelated retail or hospitality. Names a real employer who'd vouch for you.

What to leave off: school grades older than your degree, hobbies that say nothing ("reading", "travel"), a photograph, your date of birth, "References available on request".

Building a skills-based CV: the structure that works

The skills based CV puts what you can do at the top, before the chronological work history (which barely exists). Recruiters scan the skills section first to decide if you're a match; the rest is supporting evidence.

Group skills by category if you have many. For a developer:

Languages: Python (intermediate), TypeScript (intermediate), Go (basic). Tools: Postgres, Redis, Docker, Git, AWS (basic). Soft: Stakeholder communication (built and presented dissertation to industry panel), team leadership (society treasurer, 80 members).

For a marketing graduate:

Hard: Google Analytics, basic SQL, Figma, social-first content (TikTok and Instagram), copywriting. Soft: Project management (ran the university's freshers' fair, 4 weeks, £6k budget), stakeholder communication.

Honest self-rating helps. "Basic" / "intermediate" / "advanced" beats listing fifteen skills the recruiter assumes you can't really back up.

Skills based CV template you can adapt

A barebones skills based CV template, ready to paste into a one-column document:

[Your Name] [Email] · [Phone] · [LinkedIn or portfolio URL] · [City]

Summary [Two lines: what role you're targeting + one or two relevant skills with brief proof.]

Skills [Grouped by category: Hard / Tools / Soft.]

Education [Degree, university, year. Dissertation topic if relevant. Notable modules if relevant.]

Projects [3 projects, each: what it does, what stack, what happened, link if any.]

Activities and volunteering [Roles you held, what you ran or contributed.]

Part-time work [Even unrelated. Employer, role, dates.]

Replace the placeholders, keep it to one page, export to PDF, check the text is selectable (so an ATS can read it).

Graduate CV format 2026: what stays, what goes

Graduate CV format 2026 looks the same as a senior CV format with the order of sections reshuffled. Skills first (because that's the strongest part), then education (because that's the longest part of your story), then projects, then anything else.

What stays from older advice: one page, reverse-chronological inside each section, system fonts (Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, Georgia), select-all-able text, real bullet points.

What goes from older advice: an "Objective" statement (replaced by the summary), the "References available on request" line (assumed), school exam results (your degree supersedes them unless you literally have nothing else to say), generic phrases like "team player", "hard worker", "fast learner" — they're claims with no evidence.

Student cover letter: how to write yours when nothing on paper proves you can do the job

A student cover letter does the same job as any cover letter — explain why you're right for this specific role — but with the lever shifted. You can't argue from track record; you argue from fit, evidence-by-proxy, and seriousness.

The structure:

Opening: name the role, name something specific from the JD that drew you, name the closest equivalent thing you've done.
Middle: two paragraphs. One on the strongest project, society role, or part-time job that demonstrates a key requirement from the JD. One on why this company specifically (research the team, the recent product, the public values — show you opened more than the careers page).
Closing: a clear ask for the next step.

Length: 250-350 words. Anything longer is a tell that you're padding. (For the underlying cover-letter mechanics, see how to write a cover letter for a job application.)

Entry level cover letter examples UK

Entry level cover letter examples UK, two openings drawn from real patterns. Names invented, structure real.

For a marketing assistant role: Dear Priya,

I'm applying for the Junior Marketing Executive role at Greysmith. Two things in the brief stood out: the focus on social-first campaigns, and the fact that the team is hiring its first content lead in eighteen months. During my placement at Linnet last summer I planned and shipped three TikTok activations for a similar B2C brand, and the third hit 140k organic views in two weeks. I'd love to bring the same approach to your team.

...

For a junior software engineering role: Dear Hiring Team,

I'm writing about the Junior Backend Engineer role at Ardent. The job description mentions you're rebuilding the search infrastructure this year — I built a small full-text search side project using Postgres FTS during my dissertation, so the problem space is one I've already enjoyed. The codebase you've open-sourced uses the same Python and FastAPI stack I've been working in for the last twelve months.

...

The pattern in both: name the role, point at one specific JD detail, give one piece of concrete evidence in your favour.

Common entry-level CV mistakes

Common entry level CV mistakes that hurt applications:

Padding the page. A one-page CV with strong content beats a two-page CV with filler. If you're stretching, you're hiding strength.
Listing modules you didn't do well in. Modules belong on the CV only if they're genuinely relevant or above-average.
A photograph or date of birth. UK convention; not asked for, adds bias risk for the reader, takes up space.
Generic skills lists ("communication, teamwork, leadership"). Replace each with a one-line example or cut.
Mismatched application-to-application copy. The CV doesn't need to change every time, but the cover letter does. Identical cover letters across ten applications is the single biggest tell that you didn't read the brief.

If writing the cover letter is the slow part — especially when you're applying to ten or fifteen entry-level roles in a week — that's exactly the loop AI Job Answers compresses. Paste your CV once, paste any job description, get a tailored cover letter in twenty seconds. Free, no signup.