Resume With No Experience Australia: Step-by-Step

Start with the basics

Put the simple stuff at the top so an employer can contact you in seconds:

• Full name and suburb (a full street address isn't needed)
• Mobile number that you actually answer, and a clean email address (something like firstname.lastname, not a nickname)
• Availability, such as which days and times you can work. Availability is often a key question in hospitality, so don't bury it.

Many applicants leave out a photo, date of birth and hobbies. That's a personal choice, not a legal requirement either way, and you don't need them here.

Add a short profile of two or three sentences under your name. Say who you are and what you're looking for, for example: a reliable Year 12 student seeking weekend work in a café, with customer service experience from a part-time retail job.

Turn school, sport and volunteering into experience

Employers know you haven't worked full-time. They want proof you can turn up, follow instructions and work with people. Your everyday activities already show this.

• Sport: team roles like captain or vice-captain, training commitments, travelling with a team, helping run a club event
• School: student leadership, peer support, school canteen or fundraising, representing your year group
• Volunteering: charity drives, community kitchens, sausage sizzles, animal shelters, Scouts or Girl Guides, Surf Life Saving, Meals on Wheels or similar

For each one, write a short line with a verb and a result. For example: "Helped run weekly canteen service for 100+ students" is better than "Canteen helper." (The numbers in these examples are illustrative only. Replace them with your own real figures.) Only use numbers you can actually back up. If you don't know the number, leave it out.

Count every bit of paid work

Any paid work counts, even if it was small or informal. This includes:

• Casual shifts at fast food, retail or a supermarket
• Babysitting, dog walking, lawn mowing or tutoring
• Helping out in a family business

List the business or client name, your role, the rough dates and two or three things you did. Mention anything that involved customers, cash handling, cleaning, stock, opening or closing, or working under pressure. Those are the skills hospitality owners look for.

Whether informal work counts as employment, and what tax or pay obligations apply to it, depends on your circumstances. For what applies to you, see the Fair Work Ombudsman (fairwork.gov.au) and the Australian Taxation Office (ato.gov.au).

If you've never had paid work, that's fine. Skip this section and put your strongest school, sport or volunteer items higher up.

What hospitality owners skim for

Owners and managers often read a stack of resumes quickly, so make the important things easy to spot. In kitchens, cafes, bars and restaurants they often look for:

• Reliability: any evidence you turn up on time and finish what you start, like sport training or a long-running volunteer role
• Availability: clear days and hours near the top
• Teamwork: team sport, group projects, working in a kitchen or canteen
• Customer focus: any role where you dealt with the public
• Attitude: a willingness to learn, take feedback and do the unglamorous jobs like washing up
• Certificates: if you hold a Responsible Service of Alcohol (RSA) certificate or a food safety or food handler course, list it. These rules are set by each state and territory, and course names and renewal rules differ. Check with your state or territory liquor and gaming regulator (for RSA) or food regulator (for food safety) for what applies where you live and how to get it. Don't list a course you haven't finished.

Use plain headings like Skills, Education, Experience and Volunteering. Hiring managers should find what they need without hunting.

Keep it to one page

A one-page resume is easier to read and shows you can edit. To fit it on one page:

• Use a simple, readable font and a size that's easy to read without squinting
• Keep margins reasonable and avoid heavy graphics, tables and columns that don't paste well into online forms
• Use three to five bullet points per role or activity, not paragraphs
• Cut anything older or less relevant. Your Year 7 award can go.
• Save it as a PDF unless the job ad asks for a Word file, and name it something like Jane-Smith-Resume.pdf

Before you send it, read it aloud or ask someone else to read it. Typos and wrong dates are the quickest way to get skipped.