5 Things To Include On Your Graduate CV

5 Things To Include On Your Graduate CV When it comes to putting together a graduate CV, it can be hard to know where to start. Unlike later in your career when youve got a professional job and experience under your belt, at this point youre pretty much starting from scratch and as such, some of the CV rules and advice you might get later down the line doesnt really apply. With that in mind; Ive come up with five key things you should always include on your graduate CV (not including the obvious things like telephone number and email address), regardless of what type of role youre applying for. 1. Address: Dont want to stick your address down because you think it might affect your chances of getting a job? Well, that might be true in some cases but its worth remembering that things like CV databases place a lot of importance on the locations mentioned on a CV so One option is to include your address but then openly state on your CV that youre actively looking to relocate to another location such as London. This gets around the no address quandry and also helps to give a hiring manager a bit more information about you as a candidate and why youve applied for that particular role. 2. Online Profile Links: Even if youre not applying for jobs in the digital sector, its still worth including links to your online profiles and any examples of work or projects youve worked on online. Why? Because an employer is probably going to end up searching for them anyway so you might as well make their life easier. Similarly, if theyre not likely to look otherwise, Dont forget; if you are including links to your online profiles, be sure to give your digital footprint a quick clean to ensure a dodgy tweet doesnt come back to bite you on the bum. Not sure where to start? You can check out our top tips here. 3. Relevant Experience: Pretty sure you dont have any relevant experience for the role youre applying for? You might want to think again! You see, as Scarlett mentioned in another blog, if youve had a part-time job at uni, its highly likely that youll have picked up some key skills and experience that are relevant in some way to the role youre applying for. For example, if you worked in a busy SU bar, youll have had to work as part of a team in a high pressure environment and at the end of the day, youll have had to complete a set number of tasks to a tight deadline three elements any employer wants to see in a potential employee. When you list your relevant experience, its important to include a few notes as to how this experience is relevant to the role the clearer you can make it that youre a good, relevant candidate, the more seriously your application will be taken. Of course, if youve got super-relevant work experience eg. youve done a placement in a digital agency, its definitely worth including this on your CV and explaining what kind of tasks you had to carry out during this time and what you learnt from the experience. 4. Degree And Explain How Its Relevant: When it comes to your graduate CV, you only really have your degree and work experience to go off so you need to put a bit of work into explaining how these are relevant to the role youre applying for. Again, just like your work experience, if its not immediately obvious how your degree is relevant, you need to think outside the box. For example, if youre applying for an SEO Executive job and youve done a Science degree you could mention that youre used to looking at data and writing reports which outline your conclusions two essential elements of any SEO role. When youre writing this section, think about the skills youve acquired as part of your degree eg. proficiency with the Microsoft Office suite, and how these could be relevant to the role youre applying for. Similarly, think about the experiences youve had on your course and how these might help you out in this role eg. dealing with conflict. 5. Achievements: The last thing its worth including on your graduate CV is any achievements youve accomplished in your lifetime. Whether its just being made a Team Leader in your part-time job at uni or achieving your Duke of Edinburgh Award, achievements like this can help to demonstrate to an employer that youre committed to reaching your goals and youre rewarded for your hard work again, these are traits any employer would want to see in a prospective candidate.