A student CV: internship, work-study or part-time job

A student CV is not a “no experience” CV: you are in the middle of a course, and that is precisely what the company is buying. What it wants to know is what your course has already taught you, what you have already produced, and when you are available. This guide is for people still studying; if you have never worked and wonder what to put in, start with the CV with no experience.

Three CVs, three readers

• For an internship, a supervisor is looking for someone to train who will give something back: your course, your projects and the tools you know come first. Details and the internship agreement in the CV for an internship.
• For a work-study contract, you are convincing a company and a school at the same time: the rhythm (days at work, days in class), the contract dates and your reliability matter as much as your skills. See the CV for a work-study contract.
• For a side job, a manager wants someone reliable, available at the right hours and quick to get up to speed: your availability, driving licence and hands-on experience move to the top.

What your course already gives you

A student's Education section is a content section, not an administrative line. For each qualification, completed or in progress:

• The exact title and specialism (“BUT in business management, accounting, tax and finance track”, a French university diploma), the institution, the years, and “in progress” with the expected end date.
• Two or three modules that matter for the role, named as skills: “management accounting”, “Python programming”, “employment law”.
• The projects: what you produced, for whom, with which tools, over how long, and your role in the team. A supervised project for a real company is presented like an assignment.
• The rest of student life: a semester abroad, a junior enterprise, the students' union, tutoring, competitions. These are experiences in their own right.

The sections, in order

1. Header: name, phone, email, town; driving licence and car if the job requires them; availability in one line.
2. Headline: the role or placement you want (“Marketing project assistant internship”, “Web development work-study placement”, “Weekend crew member”).
3. Profile: two lines, your course, one proven strength, what you are looking for and from when.
4. Education, then Experience (internships, jobs, work-study), then Projects. For a side job, swap Education and Experience.
5. Skills (software, tools, methods), Languages, Interests if they are specific (which ones to keep: interests on a CV).

Length, availability, driving licence, languages

• One page, always. A two-page student CV signals that you could not choose. What to cut to make it fit: the one-page CV.
• Availability is decisive, especially for a side job: “available Monday to Wednesday afternoons and Saturdays”, “six-month internship from January”, “work-study: three days in the company, two days at school”. Write it the way the employer searches for it.
• Your driving licence only appears if it serves the job (deliveries, field sales, a site with poor transport links). Add “own car” if you have one.
• Languages with an honest level and some proof: a stay abroad, a certificate, modules taught in the language. “French: fluent” with no proof is worth nothing; “French: an exchange semester in Lyon, lectures in French” is worth a lot.

A project line, before and after

The “[X]” are your real figures: if you don't know them, leave them out rather than guess.

Student CV traps

• Grades and honours everywhere: keep them for when they are asked for or genuinely remarkable.
• Secondary school in detail: your baccalauréat (the French school- leaving diploma) takes one line (specialist subjects or stream, honours if useful); options and the brevet (the lower-secondary exam) go.
• “Student” as the headline: that is your status, not the role you want.
• The same CV for all three targets: change at least the headline, the profile and the order of the sections.
• The joke email address from when you were fifteen and the party photo. Create a firstname.surname address; for the photo, see photos on a CV.
• Dates that don't add up between education and experience: the screening software works out your timeline from them, and so does the recruiter.

Tailoring your CV to each target

On Update your CV, “My structure” sorts your CV into sections: you move Education above Experience for an internship, or the other way round for a side job, add a project by telling it in your own words, and the site redraws the PDF in the original's look. Then the CV analysis checks the headline, dates and keywords against ATS robots. Once you graduate, the CV changes role again: that is what the CV for a first job is about.