What to write in the resume if there is no work experience

I want to tell young guys how they can increase their chances of being hired for their first job.



I conducted more than a hundred interviews and sifted out thousands of resumes. Each time I was looking for technical specialists (engineers, programmers, testers, physicists, mathematicians). More than half of all interviews were with yesterday's students or with students in recent years. Alas, almost always their resume was completely not informative.



Why am I writing about this? My interest is simple - to make cool guys easier than it is now :)



At 20 years old, a person has already had 20 years of life experience behind him. And the employer who takes the student to work is important not only professional skills (which are not) and knowledge (which you can’t check on the resume). By the way, it is useful to understand how knowledge differs from skills and never confuse them in a resume.



Next, I give a lot of advice on filling out the resume of a young specialist.

Contact information and place of residence

Save time for yourself and recruiters. Be sure to indicate the place of residence (not an exact address, it's over, but a metro station or settlement). If you live very far from a potential workplace, then indicate that you are ready to rent an apartment nearby. A couple of times people came to me for an interview who were ready to spend 2 hours on the road one way to the office. Those. They were ready to spend 4 hours a day on the road. Maybe the candidate thinks this is normal. But it never seems like that to a normal employer. For me, these interviews were a waste of time, I’m not ready to hire a person who in a couple of months will be either squeezed lemon or some other vegetable.



Remember, creativity is good. But creativity should be appropriate. Get yourself a representative view of the e-mail address for the resume instead of antoshka_ne@pochta.ru. Leave other contact details.



UPD 1: In the comments, I met with disagreement with a restriction of 2 hours on the road to the office. Either I didn’t write explicitly enough that this was one way, or I give bad advice. Often, yesterday’s student does not have time to choose a job. It is necessary to fill the workbook with the notorious experience. But I still advise you to indicate the place of residence. Why spend time on interviews that are refused on this basis? Whoever is not interested, he will not figure out time on the road.



And be prepared for the fact that you will be found in social networks and look through public posts.

Education

Describe the education received / received in as much detail as possible: not only the name of the university, but also the faculty, and the department, and the name of specialization. This will help the employer very quickly understand that you had the opportunity to get the profile knowledge.



Pointing out a supervisor is also helpful. For example, many of my colleagues are familiar with the teachers of many specialized departments. For 5 years, under my supervision, two students have already worked, graduating from my native department (and they came to me not by pull, but through hh.ru).



Tell us about completed training projects that are relevant to the desired vacancy. For example, if you graduated from the Department of Internal Combustion Engines, and are working on the Junior C ++ developer, you can indicate that as part of the thesis you have created a program using Qt to calculate gas-dynamic processes in the exhaust pipe.



Be sure to write about the topic of your scientific work. Be sure to note the presence of honors or high average points. Of course, in some cases this does not mean anything, but there are another number of cases.



Be sure to indicate completed online / offline courses, attach diplomas. Even if the courses taken and diplomas received cannot be of any interest to the employer (for example, a second-class turner or cross-stitching in zero gravity conditions), the fact of their presence already speaks in favor of the candidate. This is a very positive sign when the candidate learns something himself and, probably, can be trained. Of course, if there are many courses and they are not at all specialized, you should not list everything. A couple of examples are enough. The profile is worth listing everything. Courses and schools completed before university are not interesting to the employer in 90% of cases, because they are usually imposed to one degree or another by their parents. But, for example, if you graduated from a school with a physical education chair, were fond of radio modeling and went to the appropriate circle, then this information may be interesting for an employer in the electrical industry.

Additional Information

In additional information about oneself, it makes no sense to mention the banal "perseverance, learning ability, initiative." These are just words, they are empty and are found in 99% of the resumes, and, often, do not correspond to the truth. It is better to talk about your qualities with life examples that positively characterize you from the point of view of the employer. How to talk about self-learning, I already wrote above. Around the same situation with other qualities.

For example, if you write about running a rubber duck community on the Internet for 4 years, and 10 moderators and 2 graduate evangelists have volunteered for free under your supervision, then your employer will suggest that you may be proactive, purposeful, communicative and may be keen on business. Yes, rubber ducks have nothing to do with, for example, software development ( actually they have ), but the employer is very interested in what soft skills you have or which ones can be quickly developed. Therefore, think about what your hobbies, social activities, personal challenges can show you as a diversified and proactive young man.



Another example from the same opera: “I love computer games. Most of all in them I am interested in interacting with other players. More than once I became the leader of the clan, with joint efforts we achieved leading positions. It seems to me that I can quickly and harmoniously join any team and help the team achieve the goal. ”



On the one hand, what could be more frivolous and repulsive than computer games? And on the other hand, the employer will be interested in such a text and want to talk with a person.



Do you read a lot? Be sure to talk about it.



You can also tell which subject at the university turned out to be the most interesting for you, and for which you have achieved some success (performed an interesting scientific work with a teacher).



But do not turn the resume into War and Peace (although I consider the advice about the fact that the resume should fit on A4 sheet).



Well, if someone has a portfolio (freelance account, personal project on github, site layout for a neighbor, etc.), then it’s just not a sin to write about it. Even if everything is not very there, the employer sees that the person is not sitting exactly on the chair and wants something, learns something.

work experience

For beginners, it’s absolutely not shameful to indicate such work experience as McDonald’s. This is a significant line in the resume of a novice specialist. She can talk about different things, for example, that a person is proactive - prefers to live not at the expense of parents. Maybe it was not the matter of the parents, but life made them, but the man did not give up and looked for options, did not disdain hard work. And most importantly, the person has already worked for his uncle and he has at least some idea of ​​what work is. It would be strange to see in the resume of a thirty-year-old specialist the whole career: from a car wash to a chief engineer in nuclear energy. But the student should not be shy of any work experience.



On the other hand, this is my personal view on this issue. Someone might think: “why did he write about this? What difference does it make to me where he washed the floors. What a rogue? ” I don’t know, I would probably like for such an employer to pass me by.

More important than resume: cover letter

Ideally, for each vacancy, you should do your resume, looking for all the matches in your skills and knowledge with the requirements in the vacancy. But sometimes it is too long and complicated. There is a way out: a cover letter.



Any HR specialist receives hundreds of job postings. And in many companies there is no separate position for working with personnel. Therefore, if the competition for the vacancy is large, then resumes without cover letters may not even be open.



The cover letter must answer the question: what are the main requirements of the vacancy you meet. If you write that you really want to work in this particular company, then write why. Otherwise, limit yourself to relevant knowledge.

During the interview

Do not lie. If you do not know the answer for sure - do not pull the rubber and do not bump. A simple phrase: “unfortunately, I don’t know this,” I personally respect. Not many can admit it. A certain level of maturity is needed.



Remember, this is not an exam at a university where you can try to weave all kinds of nonsense. If you are asked: “did you work with template functions”, remember that the following question may be clarifying.



If you need time to answer - ask to think for a couple of minutes, take a pencil and a piece of paper if this helps (by the way, come with an armed pen and paper, make an impression). And be sure to THINK out loud. This is the most interesting part of the interview.



If you are asked stupid questions, do not think what the catch is, this will not help. Just answer or ask clarifying questions. By the way, feel free to ask them.



At the end of the interview, demonstrate your interest in the work: ask about the company, what the first working month will look like, what will be expected of you during the probationary period or internship, who will be the immediate supervisor. Think for yourself what would interest you.

Useful articles on Habré

On Habré the whole darkness of articles about the resume. Mostly they talk about gross errors. But there are more interesting materials. Here are some useful links, in my opinion:

• Good general article about writing a resume
• Another article in terms of IT recruiter
• Useful article, although not indisputable in my subjective opinion
• Why is there only 10 seconds to evaluate your resume and what to do about it
• Material similar in meaning to my article

I wish the young guys good luck and cool mentors, and I urge the community to reflect on the fact that it’s still green you can indicate useful in the resume, so that they do not choke on the recruiter :)