No experience? Here's what actually counts
Sport, caring, volunteering, school projects and side hustles all count as experience. Here is how to describe them so an employer sees what you can do.
Here is the most frustrating loop in work: you need experience to get a job, and you need a job to get experience.
If that is where you are, you are not alone. In the 2025 Youth Voice Census, over half of young people said lack of work experience was their main barrier to getting work, and only about a quarter had done any work experience in the previous year. Competition is real too: large employers taking on school leavers received 89 applications per vacancy on average in the Institute of Student Employers' 2025 survey.
The good news is that "experience" means much more than a previous job. Employers hiring for first jobs are mostly trying to answer three questions:
- Will you turn up?
- Will you get on with people?
- Will you learn?
You can prove all three without ever having had a payslip.
Things that count (and what they show)
| What you have done | What it tells an employer |
|---|---|
| Playing in a sports team | Teamwork, commitment, turning up in the rain |
| Being captain or a vice-captain | Leadership, responsibility, encouraging others |
| Caring for a younger brother, sister or grandparent | Responsibility, patience, reliability |
| Volunteering (a food bank, a charity shop, a club) | Initiative, community spirit, customer contact |
| A side hustle (reselling trainers, making cakes, editing videos) | Customer service, handling money, self-motivation |
| A school project you led or built | Planning, problem solving, seeing something through |
| Clubs, bands, drama, cadets, scouts | Teamwork, confidence, communication |
| Duke of Edinburgh's Award | Resilience, planning, commitment |
| Helping out in a family business | Real workplace experience, often more than you think |
| Teaching yourself something (an instrument, coding, fixing bikes) | Curiosity, persistence, learning fast |
Caring for family deserves a special mention. It is often invisible on applications because young people do not think of it as "experience". Care employers in particular see it as exactly the right background.
How to describe it
Employers read a lot of applications, so make each line do one job: say what you did, then what it shows.
A simple formula: what you did + how often or how long + the skill it shows.
- Not "I play football." Instead: "Played every week for the under-18s for three years, and captained the team last season. Good at keeping people motivated when we are losing."
- Not "I help at home." Instead: "Look after my younger brother after school most days: getting him home safely, making tea and helping with homework."
- Not "I sell stuff online." Instead: "Run a small online resale business. I handle customer messages, take payments and post orders on time."
Keep it true. You do not need to make anything sound bigger than it is. Specific and honest beats impressive and vague every time.
Small things that make a big difference
- Availability. For many first jobs, especially in hospitality and retail, being free when the employer needs you matters more than anything else on your application. Be clear about it.
- Getting there. Show you have thought about travel. "Ten minutes by bus" is reassuring.
- Certificates you can get quickly. Some short courses, like food hygiene for kitchen and café work, can be done online and show you are serious. Do not pay for anything until you know an employer wants it.
- A reference. A coach, a teacher, a club leader or someone you volunteered for can all speak for you. Ask them first.
If you are 16 or 17, it helps to know your rights too: young workers have limits on daily and weekly hours and rights to breaks (Acas explains them). A good employer will already know this.
Before and after: one example
Here is how the same person might describe themselves, first in the way most of us start, then using the formula above.
Before: "I am a hard-working and reliable person. I like football and helping people. I am looking for a job in a café."
After:
- "Played for my local under-18s football team every week for three years and captained it last season."
- "Look after my younger sister after school four days a week, including getting her home and making tea."
- "Volunteered on Saturday mornings at a community café for six months: serving customers, using the till and cleaning down at close."
- "Available Saturdays and Sundays, and weekday evenings after 4pm. Twenty minutes from the city centre by tram."
The second version never uses the words "hard-working" or "reliable". It does not need to. It shows them. An employer reading it can picture this person turning up on time, getting on with the team and handling a busy Saturday.
What not to do
- Do not use a generic application for every job. Pick out what matters for this role.
- Do not invent experience. It is easy to spot in an interview, and you do not need to.
- Do not leave out the things you think "don't count". They usually do.
What Jobsee is doing about it
This is the problem Jobsee was built to solve. When you build your Jobsee application and tell us you have not had a paid job yet, it switches into an experience-light mode. It asks about sport, clubs, caring, volunteering, side hustles and projects, and helps you turn each one into a clear line an employer understands, like the examples above.
It never adds anything you did not do. You can edit or delete every word. And you only build it once: Jobsee sends the parts that matter for each job you apply for.
Try the application builder to see how it works, or join the waitlist to be first in when accounts open.
