At this early stage in your career, it’s likely that your academic studies will be your main selling point. Therefore, unless you have significant experience in your target field, it’s advisable to keep the qualifications section above the professional experience section. Below, we explain how to approach adding summer work to your CV.
Basic details
For each role, you’ll need to include your job title (even if it’s Volunteer or Intern), plus the name of the company you worked for and the months / year you worked there. You’ll then need to explain your responsibilities. The detail you add here will depend on the type of work you did.
If the work relates to your desired career
Great! Some relevant experience, no matter how short term, will strengthen your CV considerably. Briefly explain your responsibilities and the general remit of the role. Grab a few adverts for similar jobs, to ensure you’re including the right role-specific keywords. Quantify as much as you can. For example, it may be that you led a team of four, controlled a budget of £500,000, managed three customer accounts, worked across two sites and so on. This enables a recruiter to understand the scope of your role.
A maximum of six bullet points should be enough to explain your responsibilities, but do add an achievements section as well with a further two-four points. This needs to focus on what you did for the company, not what they did for you. Maybe you gained the trust of management and were therefore able to take on more important tasks. Maybe you found a more efficient way of doing something or increased revenue somehow. Whatever you achieved, make sure you shout about it so that potential employers can see that you’re going to do more than just turn up and do the bare minimum.
If the work is purely for financial reasons
This type of work should still be added to your CV, even if it’s not the kind of role you’re aiming for long-term. An employer will prefer someone with some work experience over none, even if it’s not directly relevant. The trick here is to focus on the transferable skills you gained and the contributions you made.
There are some skills that will be looked upon favourably by any employer, including teamwork, communication, leadership, attention to detail and so on. Explain, in around four bullet points, how you used each of these skills. For example, ‘contributing to a team of five staff and sharing information efficiently to ensure that every customer received excellent service’.
You’ll also need to think about how you excelled in the job. When the experience itself isn’t very relevant to your dream role, it’s even more important that you can demonstrate your commitment to getting results and exceeding expectations.
If you worked as a waiter, for example, you might have increased customer loyalty by delivering excellent service. Alternatively, you may have increased revenue by up-selling products, or enhanced the reputation of the restaurant by making recommendations for improvement. Think about everything you’ve done well and make sure it’s documented as an achievement on your CV.
If you have more extensive professional experience
If you already have plenty of professional experience behind you, you’ll need to decide whether to include the summer work on your CV at all. To decide whether to include it, ask yourself the following questions:
- Does it relate to the job I’m trying to get now?
- Did I gain any skills that will strengthen my CV?
- Is it adding anything to the experience already on there?
If you decide to include your summer work, you have the option of including it as part of your chronological career history, or putting part-time / seasonal / voluntary work in a separate section. It really depends how much prominence you need to give it based on your responses to the questions above.
Key points to remember
Our top tips for making summer work shine on your CV are:
- Focus on the relevance of the role and position it accordingly
- Emphasise the skills you gained, whether transferable soft skills or industry-specific
- Demonstrate knowledge and experience specific to your target role wherever possible
- Explain what you achieved and how you contributed
Summer work can considerably strengthen your CV if you have minimal work experience. So, use the opportunity to make it as relevant as possible to your future career direction.
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About the Author: Jen David has been a CV Consultant since 2010 and currently works for CV Knowhow, the UK’s leading career and CV writing consultancy. She has written CVs for thousands of job seekers from all industries and at all stages in their career, from students to senior executives. Jen aims to add value to CVs, enabling her customers to increase their chances of securing an interview and progress in their chosen career.
