No experience? No problem!
Cover letters can be quite daunting to write anyway, and if you’ve not worked a job before, are you wondering ‘what do I write about?!’.
Not to worry, there are still many things to include in your cover letter if you have no work experience…
Talk about what you do want to achieve
Speak about your career aspirations. Let them know how the job will help you to gain the skills and experience you’re looking for.
For example, if you’re applying for a job in retail, you can talk about how you’re looking to gain experience in customer service.
Talk about your qualifications
Do you have any qualifications that would help you in the role you’re applying for? For example, if you have good grades in maths and statistics these would be skills you’d need to work in the financial sector.
If you feel you don’t currently have the skillset to apply for the type of job you want, you can also look into completing free online courses to gain skills that would help towards your career path.
You can also include any first aid qualifications you have, especially if you’re looking to work in healthcare, social care, childcare etc.
Many jobs require some form of computer use, so being IT savvy and having knowledge of using Microsoft Office is often sought after in a candidate.
Include volunteer work
If you have done any volunteer work this is a great thing to talk about in your covering letter, you can include any transferable skills you’ve gained that would aid you in the role you’re applying for, such as:
- Working as part of a team
- Communicating with others
- Multi-tasking
What about your hobbies
Include any hobbies that are relevant to the job you are applying for.
For example if you knit/crochet/paint etc. in your spare time and wanted to apply for a job with a crafting company – then your knowledge in these crafts would enable you to be able to recommend the right products and give the correct advice to their customers and would be an advantage in your application.
Or do you do any DIY in your spare time? This is great for roles where you need experience of using hand tools.
Talk about your other qualities
There are many transferable skills and qualities about people that employers look for in a person, if you can show evidence of any of the below skills this can help your application:
- Being punctual
- Having attention to detail
- Organisational skills
- Working to your own initative
- Remember that cover letters are your first opportunity to make a good impression and sell yourself
- Cover letters need to be tailored to the specific job you are applying for – don’t send a generic cover letter
- Do your research about the company
- Search for keywords in the application like skills or experience they are looking for
- Remember that most employers will skim read through applications so you need to make the information stand out
- A cover letter should be no than one page or a few paragraphs long
- Always keep a professional tone
- You want to grab the reader’s attention in the first line
- Remember to sign off your cover letter in a polite way
- Remember to proof read your cover letter
Looking for a no experience or trainee role?
