Graduate CV Builder
No work experience? A placement, projects, part-time work and society roles can still win interviews. Resumere builds a clean, ATS-safe graduate CV on two sides of A4 — the format UK employers actually expect.
A graduate CV wins by turning your degree, placement year, projects and part-time work into evidence a recruiter can screen — not a list of modules. The UK format is two sides of A4: a short personal statement, education with your degree classification, experience in reverse-chronological order, and no photo, date of birth or marital status. Resumere builds that structure, surfaces the skills the advert asks for, and keeps everything ATS-safe.
Skills recruiters screen for
Highlight these prominently — Resumere surfaces them from the JD automatically.
Weak bullet → strong bullet
How Resumere rewrites duties into quantified impact.
Did a final-year project on machine learning.
Built a CNN image classifier (PyTorch) reaching 93% accuracy on 10k images; presented it to an academic panel as my final-year project.
Interned at a startup.
During a 12-week summer internship, automated a reporting task in Python, saving the team around 6 hours a week.
Did a placement year.
On a 12-month industrial placement, owned the weekly KPI pack for a 40-person operations team and cut its build time from 5 hours to 45 minutes.
Worked part-time in a shop.
Ran the Saturday shift with a team of six in a high-street store, cashing up a £4k daily till with no variances across 9 months.
Was in a society at university.
As treasurer of a 180-member university society, rebuilt the budget and grew sponsorship from £600 to £2,400 in one academic year.
Did a group project.
Led a 5-person group project to a first (72%), splitting the workstreams and presenting the findings to two academics and an industry guest.
What sets top graduate CVs apart
What UK recruiters look for
Your degree and classification, any placement year or internship, scoped projects, and part-time or voluntary work. Concrete evidence beats a long module list every time — and retail, hospitality or care work counts, because it evidences reliability, customer handling and working under pressure, which is exactly what graduate schemes assess for.
Two pages, not one
Two sides of A4 is the UK standard and it applies to graduates too. The one-page rule is a US convention, and copying it here forces you to cut the placement, project and part-time evidence UK employers are actually screening for. Use one side only if you genuinely have one side of relevant content — and never run to three.
How to structure it
Personal statement (3-4 lines) → education (degree, classification, A-levels or BTEC) → work experience and placements → projects → skills and certifications. Reverse-chronological within each block, single column, Month Year dates. If your projects are stronger than your work history, move Projects above Experience — the order is yours, the reverse-chronology is not.
What to leave off a UK CV
No photo, no date of birth, no marital status, no nationality, no full postal address. UK employers avoid these because of Equality Act 2010 discrimination risk, and student CV templates from other markets — Europass in particular — include them by default. Town and county are enough. Drop 'References available on request' too; it is assumed.
Where UK graduate roles are advertised
Milkround, Prospects, Bright Network, targetjobs and Gradcracker (engineering and technology) carry graduate schemes; Reed, TotalJobs, CV-Library, Indeed UK and Adzuna carry direct-entry roles; your university careers service usually runs its own board. Big schemes open in September-November for the following intake and close early when full, so apply in the first weeks rather than the last.
Grades, filters and how to handle them
Many UK graduate schemes filter on a 2:1 or above, and some still ask for A-level grades or UCAS points on the application form. Put your classification (or predicted classification) next to the degree and list A-levels, BTEC or Scottish Highers in one line. Below the threshold, target employers who have dropped it and lead with a placement, portfolio or strong project instead.
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ATS keywords for graduate roles
Mirror the keywords in the job description — Resumere does this automatically.
Frequently asked questions
- Is one page enough for a graduate CV?
- No — two sides of A4 is the UK standard and it applies to graduates too. The one-page rule is a US convention, and following it here forces you to cut the placement, project and part-time evidence UK recruiters screen for. Use one page only if you genuinely have one page of relevant content, and never run to three.
- How do I write a CV with no work experience?
- Lead with what you do have: a placement or internship, university projects framed by method and outcome, part-time jobs framed by responsibility, and society or volunteering roles. UK graduate employers screen for reliability, teamwork and initiative as much as technical skill — and a Saturday job evidences all three if you write it properly.
- Should a graduate CV have an objective?
- A short personal statement beats a generic objective. Three or four lines at the top: your degree and classification, what you can already do, and the kind of role you want. It is standard on a UK CV and it is the first thing a recruiter reads, so make it specific to the employer.
- Do I put my A-levels and degree classification on my CV?
- Yes. Put the classification (or predicted classification) next to the degree, then A-levels, BTEC or Scottish Highers in one line. Many employers also ask for GCSE Maths and English at grade 4/C or above, so a single summary line covering GCSEs is worth including while you are early career.
- When do UK graduate schemes open?
- Most open in September-November for an intake the following summer or autumn, and many close as soon as they are full rather than on the advertised deadline — so applying early genuinely matters. Expect an online application, aptitude or situational judgement tests, a recorded video interview and an assessment centre.
- Should I include a photo or my date of birth?
- No. UK CVs leave out photo, date of birth, marital status, nationality and gender, because employers avoid them to reduce Equality Act 2010 discrimination risk. Many student CV templates — Europass especially — include them by default, so check and delete before you send.
- Do I need to say I have the right to work in the UK?
- If you have unrestricted right to work, one line saves a recruiter a question. International students should state their position plainly — Graduate Route eligibility, or the need for Skilled Worker sponsorship — and check whether the employer holds a sponsor licence before investing in a long scheme application.
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