Career advice with Julia Yates
"Hey Julia,
I am in the second year of my BA degree and I am looking for a part-time job to get my foot on the ladder.
I need to get a CV together and, although I have learnt a huge amount from my course, I have not had many work experience placements or any internships and I am worried that this will stop me from being hired.
Is there anything that I can do?"
Worried
That’s a tricky one isn’t it? You can often feel that you are in a bit of a catch-22 situation: Can’t get a job without experience and yet can’t get experience without a job.
Luckily, there are a number of things you can do.
The first one is to broaden your idea of what should go on your CV. As long as the experience shows something about your person, put it in.
Hobbies, holidays and even ways in which you have helped out can all look impressive on a CV, if you talk about the experience in the right way.
Change the way you see your CV
Secondly, you can make your CV a skillsbased CV rather than a chronological list.
If you have some strong personal qualities, you can put a large section on the first page that is led by your skills.
All you need to do is explain what you mean by each skill and then give an example of a situation where you have shown this attribute.
This way, by the time the employer reads your section on “work experience” lurking somewhere on page 2, it may not matter as much that it is brief as they will already have a positive image of you in their mind.
The third way to get around having a lack of work experience to write about is to centre your CV around a creative idea.
If the idea and execution of your CV are good then this will show that you are creative and professional, which is pivotal for somebody graduating from an arts university.
To give you some examples of what I mean, why not check out some of the winning CV’s from our annual CV competition?
Go to http://www.careers-creativeliving.co.uk/cv_gallery for more help, book in for a one-to-one CV check by calling 0207 514 6165.
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