Student CV Example & Writing Guide

The full CV example

Education sits above experience here, and availability is stated in the extras block. Both are deliberate and both are explained below.

Fictional example. Use your own name, city, email, phone and your university email if you have one.

Why this CV works

Five things this example does that a student CV usually does not:

• Availability is on the page, not in the covering email

  "Full time 1 June to 31 August; Thursday to Sunday during term" answers the first question a part-time employer has. A manager filling a weekend shift will pick the applicant whose availability they can already see over the one they would have to ask.

• The unrelated job is treated as real work

  The cafe is not an engineering job and it is not hidden. It carries a customer count, a key-holding responsibility, four people trained and one small improvement that came from looking at the data. That is a four-semester record of turning up on time, which is exactly what an employer of students is buying.

• Coursework earns its place by being specific

  Not "studying environmental engineering" but a named second-year project with a length, a subject and a grade. A project described with the same detail as a job reads as a job, and for a placement application it often is the closest thing you have.

• The society role is a budget, not a hobby

  Treasurer of a society with 60 members and a 2,400 EUR budget is financial responsibility with a number attached. Listing society membership on its own says you paid a subscription; naming the role and what you were accountable for says something else.

• The volunteer work produced something that outlived it

  The monthly report is still being sent, unedited. An outcome that continues after you left is the strongest form of evidence available to someone with a short work history, and it usually costs one clause to say.

Professional summary examples

Entry level

With no paid job yet, the summary should carry one responsibility you actually held and your exact availability. Volunteering counts, as long as you describe what you were accountable for rather than that you attended.

Mid level

By the middle of a degree, lead with the thing you have kept doing. Longevity in a small job is worth more to an employer than a list of one-week experiences.

Senior

In the final year the CV starts to look like a graduate CV: the placement leads, the dissertation gets a submission date, and you name the start date you can actually offer.

Experience bullet examples

Twelve bullets in weak and strong form, drawn from the places a student's evidence actually lives: a part-time job, a society, a project, a volunteer role. The figures belong to the fictional example, so count your own before you write them. A number you cannot explain in an interview is worse than no number.

Weak

Worked part time in a cafe.

Stronger

Served around 180 customers on a weekend shift and held the opening key three mornings a week, including the cash float and daily stock count.

Why

Volume plus the responsibility nobody gives casually. Key holding is a trust statement, and most students forget to mention it.

Weak

Helped train new staff.

Stronger

Trained four new starters on the till and the drinks specification, and wrote the one-page prompt sheet still used at induction.

Why

A count of people and something you left behind. Both are available to a student job and neither requires a job title.

Weak

Was a member of the engineering society.

Stronger

Elected treasurer of a 60-member society, managing a 2,400 EUR budget across eight events and closing the year with a 180 EUR surplus.

Why

Membership is attendance. A role with a budget is the closest thing to financial responsibility most students can show.

Weak

Did a group project at university.

Stronger

Ran the sampling schedule for a 12-week group project on car park run-off, coordinating four students across three sites and writing the results section of a 30-page report.

Why

Say which part was yours. Group projects are worth writing about only when the reader can tell what you would have to answer for.

Weak

Volunteered at a local charity.

Stronger

Cleaned 3,400 rows of collection data for a recycling charity, resolving duplicate site names that had made two years of totals unusable.

Why

Unpaid work is still work. The problem you fixed is what makes it evidence rather than good character.

Weak

Have good Excel skills.

Stronger

Built the charity's monthly report as one chart and three figures in Excel, using pivot tables over a 3,400-row source sheet; it is sent to their council contact unedited.

Why

A skill claim becomes a fact when it has a file, a size and a user attached. Say which functions, not just the software.

Weak

Helped out at university open days.

Stronger

Led nine campus tours for groups of up to 25 prospective students and handled parents' questions on course structure and accommodation.

Why

Public speaking to a stranger's parents is the part an employer recognises. Give the number of tours and the group size.

Weak

Reduced waste at work.

Stronger

Cut end-of-day pastry waste by moving the afternoon markdown an hour earlier, after tracking two weeks of sales by hour.

Why

The method is the whole bullet. A student who measured something for two weeks before suggesting a change is describing an aptitude, not a chore.

Weak

Learning Python.

Stronger

Used Python and pandas to process 18 months of campus rainfall readings for a statistics assignment, producing the three charts that went into the submission.

Why

"Learning" invites doubt. Name the data, the size and what came out of it, and the level is clear without a self-rating.

Weak

Balanced work and study.

Stronger

Held a 15-hour weekly job through four semesters while carrying a full course load, with no missed shifts and no resits.

Why

This is the most under-used bullet available to a student. Two facts make it checkable: the hours and the number of semesters.

Weak

Have laboratory experience.

Stronger

Completed 40 hours of laboratory work in water quality testing, including turbidity, pH and dissolved oxygen sampling across three field sites.

Why

Hours and methods. A lab module described by name tells an employer which equipment they would not have to introduce you to.

Weak

Organised society events.

Stronger

Organised a careers evening with four visiting engineers and 70 attendees, handling the room booking, the budget and the follow-up email.

Why

Attendance and speaker count make it a real event. The follow-up email is the detail that says you finished things.

Skills that belong on this CV

Education and certifications

While you are studying, education goes above experience, because it is the reason you are applying and it explains your availability. Give the expected completion year rather than leaving the end date open, and name three or four modules only when they match the work you want. Include your upper secondary qualification until you are into the second half of a degree, then drop it to a single line. Grades belong on the page if they help you and nowhere if they do not, which is a judgment call nobody else can make for you.

Certifications

• Food hygiene or responsible service certificate - Cheap, quick and genuinely useful for hospitality and retail work. It moves you ahead of applicants a manager would have to train first.
• First aid, lifeguard or coaching qualifications - Worth a line for campus jobs, summer camps and sports centres, where the certificate is the requirement rather than a bonus.
• A short course in the software your target job names - Only if it is finished and you could answer a question about it. An unfinished course listed as in progress is fine; listed as a qualification it is not.

Nobody expects certifications from a student. One that directly qualifies you to do the job you are applying for is worth more than five general ones.

How an ATS reads this CV

Appliora's ATS Checker runs 14 checks against an uploaded file and shows you the text its parser extracted. Four of them are where student CVs usually lose marks.

• Recognised sections

  Putting education first is fine, and the check is not looking for a fixed order. It is looking for recognisable headings. "About Me", "My Journey" and "What I Bring" in place of Summary, Experience and Education give a parser nothing to anchor on.

• Format traps

  Free student templates from design sites are the worst offenders in the whole estate: skill rating bars, contact icons with no text behind them, columns that read across instead of down. The checker shows the extracted text, which is the fastest way to find out whether your phone number exists as far as the machine is concerned.

• Length against experience

  One page, and the check measures length against the experience you have declared. A student CV padded to two pages with hobbies and a personal statement reads worse than a tight single page, and the padding is always the first thing an experienced reader skips.

• Contact details

  Use one email address and check it works. A university address is fine while you have it, but add a personal one if the account closes at graduation, and make sure your voicemail greeting is one you would be happy for an employer to hear.

Templates that suit this role

• Student / První práce

  Designed for a CV where education leads and the work history is short: education sits at the top without the layout looking unbalanced.

• ATS Clean

  Single column and conventional headings, for internship and placement schemes at larger employers where the file goes through a portal first.

• Swiss One Page

  Keeps you honestly on one page, which is the right length while you are still studying.

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