Transcript: What to Include in Your Resume if You Don’t Have Work Experience
What experiences should you include on your resume? The best approach depends on both your experience and your audience. Let’s look at the different options you have for writing about work experience.
How much work experience should you include? For some, you might not have a lot of experience and it makes sense to include everything. For others, you might have several experiences and projects to list, and it would take three pages to list everything. If you are in the latter category, how do you know what to include?
Let’s take a look.
You will likely not have enough space to cover all your work experience on a one-page resume. You do not need to include every job you have ever had. Focus on the jobs that are the most relevant to your audience. More recent experience also tends to be more applicable. Your LinkedIn profile can contain as much work experience as you want to include, so do not worry about only sharing a few jobs on your resume. For the experiences you do decide to include, record your position title, the organization name, dates worked there, and the location.
Rather than using paragraphs to describe your experience, use bullet points because they are easier to read and can be quickly scanned for essential information. Then, focus on accomplishments rather than a list of work duties you had. There is no need to include every aspect of the experience; focus instead on the most relevant highlights. Around 2 to 5 bullet points per experience that are 1 to 2 lines long is typically best. Start each bullet point with a powerful verb. Be specific but concise. Use numbers whenever you can! Lastly, make sure to address not only results, but what you were doing and how you were doing it. You can learn more about writing powerful bullet points in our “Writing and Frontloading Bullet Points” video.
Sometimes, you may feel that it is beneficial to give a job scope or brief description of the company before the bullet points. This can be helpful when you feel your role or contributions are unclear based on the bullet points alone.
The most powerful way to ensure that you have written about your work experience effectively is to have someone in the field you want to work in review your resume. You can learn more about connecting with professionals by viewing our informational interview resources.
Good luck on your resume!