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Create ResumeAn internship CV should prove three things quickly: you understand the role, you have relevant skills or evidence of potential, and you are worth interviewing despite limited experience. In the UK job market, recruiters are not expecting students or early career candidates to have a long employment history. What they are looking for is clarity, effort, commercial awareness, transferable skills, and signs that you can learn fast without needing constant hand holding. A strong internship CV is not about pretending you are already experienced. It is about presenting your education, projects, part time work, volunteering, societies, coursework, and personal achievements in a way that makes hiring managers think, “This person has something useful to bring.”
An internship CV is a focused, one page or two page document used by students, graduates, career changers, and early career candidates applying for internship roles. Its job is to show that you have the right potential, motivation, and transferable skills for a temporary professional opportunity.
That sounds simple, but this is where many internship CVs go wrong. Candidates often think the problem is lack of experience. In reality, the bigger problem is usually poor positioning.
I see plenty of CVs where the candidate has useful experience, but they have buried it under vague language like “hard working student” or “excellent communication skills”. That does not help a recruiter make a decision. It tells me what you want me to believe, not what you have actually done.
A good internship CV answers the recruiter’s quiet questions:
Can this person understand instructions and apply themselves?
Have they made an effort to understand this field?
Do they have evidence of responsibility, initiative, analysis, organisation, teamwork, customer awareness, or problem solving?
Will they be professional enough to put in front of a hiring manager?
Recruiters do not read internship CVs the way candidates write them. Candidates often write from the perspective of “Here is everything I have ever done.” Recruiters screen from the perspective of “Is there enough here to justify moving this person forward?”
That difference matters.
When I review an internship CV, I am not expecting perfection. I am looking for signals. Some are obvious, such as degree subject, grades, technical skills, work experience, and relevant projects. Others are more subtle, such as how clearly the CV is structured, whether the candidate understands the role, and whether their examples show maturity.
A recruiter’s first scan usually focuses on:
Your current education or most recent qualification
Whether your degree, course, modules, or projects connect to the internship
Any relevant work experience, even if informal or part time
Evidence of responsibility, results, or initiative
Technical skills, software, languages, or industry knowledge
Have they tailored this CV to the internship, or are they sending the same document everywhere and hoping for the best?
For UK internships, especially in competitive sectors such as finance, consulting, marketing, technology, law, engineering, public policy, media, and healthcare administration, your CV needs to show relevance fast. Recruiters are usually screening at speed. They are not lovingly decoding your life story with a cup of tea and unlimited patience. Annoying, but true.
Whether the CV is easy to read and professionally formatted
Whether you have tailored the CV to the role
Hiring managers tend to look slightly differently. They care less about perfect CV formatting and more about whether you can contribute to the team. They ask: “Can I imagine this person helping with real work?” That could mean research, data entry, content planning, client support, testing, reporting, admin, campaign work, analysis, lab assistance, coding, design, or operational support.
This is why a strong internship CV should not just list activities. It should translate them into workplace value.
For example, “worked in a café” may sound unrelated to a business internship until you explain the actual value: handling customers, managing pressure, using tills, resolving problems, working shifts, supporting team members, and staying accurate during busy periods. That is not “just café work”. That is evidence of reliability, communication, and commercial awareness.
For most UK internship applications, your CV should be either one page or two pages. One page is ideal if you are a student with limited experience. Two pages are acceptable if you have several relevant projects, work placements, volunteering roles, leadership activities, or technical skills.
Do not make it longer because you feel anxious. A longer CV does not make you look more qualified. It often makes you look less selective.
A strong internship CV usually follows this structure:
Name and contact details
Professional profile
Education
Relevant experience
Projects or coursework
Skills
Volunteering, societies, leadership, or achievements
Additional information if relevant
The order can change depending on your strongest evidence. If your education is your best selling point, place it near the top. If you have relevant internship, placement, freelance, or project experience, bring that forward. The goal is not to follow a template blindly. The goal is to make the recruiter see your strongest evidence first.
Keep this simple. Include:
Full name
Phone number
Professional email address
City or general location
LinkedIn profile if it is complete and professional
Portfolio, GitHub, personal website, or online work sample if relevant
You do not need to include your full address, date of birth, marital status, nationality, photo, or national insurance number on a UK internship CV. Those details either waste space or create unnecessary risk.
A recruiter does not need your entire postcode to decide whether you can support a marketing campaign, analyse data, assist in a lab, or help a finance team. Keep it professional.
Your profile should be short, specific, and relevant to the internship. This is not the place for vague claims about being passionate, motivated, dynamic, and enthusiastic. Almost every student writes that. It blends into the wallpaper.
A good internship CV profile should mention:
What you are studying or your current career stage
The internship area you are targeting
Relevant strengths, skills, or evidence
The value you can bring
Weak Example
Motivated and hardworking student looking for an internship where I can develop my skills and gain experience in a professional environment.
Good Example
Second year Economics student with strong analytical coursework, Excel experience, and part time retail experience involving customer service, cash handling, and stock accuracy. Seeking a finance internship where I can apply numerical skills, commercial awareness, and a structured approach to problem solving.
The good example works because it gives evidence. It tells the recruiter what kind of candidate this is, what they have done, and why it connects to the internship.
For an internship CV, education usually matters more than it would on a senior CV. Recruiters may use your degree, modules, grades, academic projects, dissertation topic, or predicted classification to understand your direction and potential.
Include:
University name
Degree title
Dates or expected graduation year
Predicted or achieved grade if strong
Relevant modules
Academic projects, dissertation, or research if relevant
A levels or equivalent qualifications if useful
Do not list every module you have ever taken. Select the ones that support the internship.
For example, if you are applying for a data internship, modules such as statistics, econometrics, programming, research methods, machine learning, or quantitative analysis are useful. If you are applying for a marketing internship, modules such as consumer behaviour, digital marketing, market research, branding, analytics, or communications are more relevant.
The mistake I often see is candidates treating education as admin information. For internships, education is evidence. Use it properly.
Your work experience does not need to be perfectly aligned with the internship to be useful. Part time jobs, retail roles, hospitality work, tutoring, campus ambassador roles, volunteering, family business support, freelance projects, and student society positions can all help.
The key is to stop describing tasks like a job description and start showing impact, responsibility, and transferable skills.
Weak Example
Worked in a shop serving customers and helping with stock.
Good Example
Served up to 80 customers per shift in a busy retail environment, handling payments, resolving basic queries, supporting stock replenishment, and maintaining accuracy during peak trading periods.
The second example gives the recruiter something to work with. It shows customer service, pace, responsibility, accuracy, and reliability.
For each role, include:
Job title
Employer or organisation
Location
Dates
Three to five focused bullet points
Each bullet should ideally show an action, context, and result. Not every bullet needs a number, but numbers help when they are honest and useful.
Good internship CV bullet points often start with actions such as:
Analysed
Coordinated
Supported
Researched
Presented
Assisted
Improved
Managed
Created
Tracked
Use these naturally. Do not force dramatic language where it does not belong. Recruiters can smell inflated nonsense from three streets away.
If you have no formal work experience, your internship CV can still be strong. You need to widen your definition of experience.
Many candidates only count paid office work as experience. Recruiters do not think that narrowly. We look for evidence wherever it appears.
You can use:
University projects
Coursework
Dissertation research
Group presentations
Volunteering
Student societies
Sports teams
Part time jobs
Family responsibilities
Online courses
Personal projects
Competitions
Hackathons
Portfolio work
Freelance or unpaid projects
Campus ambassador activity
Tutoring or mentoring
The trick is not to dump these into the CV randomly. You need to connect them to the internship.
For example, if you are applying for a marketing internship and you have helped run a student society Instagram account, that is relevant. Do not hide it under “interests”. Present it as communications, content, or social media experience.
Good Example
Managed weekly Instagram content for a university society, creating event posts, writing captions, monitoring engagement, and helping increase event attendance through clearer promotion.
That is much stronger than “member of marketing society”. Membership alone does not show much. Contribution does.
If you are applying for a technology internship and you built a small app, website, dashboard, or automation project, that belongs on the CV even if nobody paid you. Hiring managers care about what you can do. A self initiated project can sometimes be more convincing than a vague internship where the candidate mostly shadowed meetings and made polite notes.
A strong internship CV should include the information that helps a recruiter assess your fit quickly. It should not include everything about you. Selective relevance is the whole game.
Keep it short and role focused. Mention your degree, target internship area, and strongest relevant evidence.
Include relevant modules, grades, projects, dissertation topics, and academic achievements. For UK students, include A levels or equivalent if they strengthen the application, especially for competitive schemes.
This can include formal work, part time jobs, volunteering, placements, insight days, freelance work, or society roles.
Projects are especially important for internships in technology, engineering, data, finance, design, marketing, research, and consulting. They show application, not just interest.
A project entry can include:
Project title
Tools, methods, or subject area
Brief description
Outcome or what you produced
Skills demonstrated
Your skills section should be specific. Avoid empty soft skill lists.
Instead of writing:
Communication
Teamwork
Leadership
Problem solving
Give evidence through your experience bullets and reserve the skills section for concrete skills such as:
Microsoft Excel
PowerPoint
Python
SQL
Google Analytics
Canva
Figma
SPSS
RStudio
Salesforce
Soft skills matter, but listing them without proof does very little. Anyone can type “teamwork”. Recruiters want to see where you used it.
Include achievements that show drive, discipline, or responsibility. This could be academic awards, scholarships, sports leadership, committee roles, fundraising, competitions, debating, mentoring, or community work.
Be careful not to overfill this section with weak achievements. “Completed homework on time” is not the vibe.
Interests are optional. Include them only if they add personality, relevance, or conversation value. For example, a finance candidate who follows market news and manages a student investment society has a useful interest. A media candidate who runs a small YouTube channel or newsletter has relevant evidence. A generic list like “reading, travelling and socialising” adds almost nothing.
Use this structure as a practical starting point. Adapt it to the internship, sector, and your strongest evidence.
Name
Phone number | Email address | City, UK | LinkedIn | Portfolio or GitHub if relevant
Professional Profile
A short paragraph explaining your current study or career stage, target internship area, relevant skills, and strongest evidence.
Education
University name, location
Degree title, expected graduation year
Predicted grade if strong
Relevant modules: module one, module two, module three
Relevant project or dissertation: brief explanation of what you researched, built, analysed, or presented
A levels or equivalent if useful
Relevant Experience
Job title, organisation, location
Dates
Start each bullet with a strong action
Show what you did, who or what you supported, and what changed because of your work
Include numbers where accurate and useful
Connect your experience to the internship skills where possible
Projects
Project title
Tools or methods used
Explain the purpose of the project
Mention your role and contribution
Show the result, output, presentation, grade, user outcome, or insight
Skills
Technical tools
Languages
Research methods
Software
Sector specific skills
Leadership, Volunteering, or Societies
Role, organisation, dates
Additional Information
Availability, right to work in the UK if useful, driving licence if relevant, or portfolio link if not already listed.
This example is for a student applying for a business, marketing, or commercial internship in the UK. Do not copy it word for word. Use it to understand the level of specificity and evidence you should aim for.
Amelia Patel
London, UK | 07700 000000 | amelia.patel@email.com | LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ameliapatel
Professional Profile
Second year Business Management student with strong interest in marketing, consumer behaviour, and commercial strategy. Experienced in customer facing retail work, student society promotion, and university research projects involving competitor analysis and presentation delivery. Looking for a summer internship where I can support campaign planning, market research, and customer insight work with a practical, organised, and commercially aware approach.
Education
BSc Business Management, University of Birmingham, Birmingham
Expected graduation: 2027
Predicted grade: First class honours
Relevant modules: Marketing Principles, Consumer Behaviour, Business Analytics, Digital Business, Strategic Management
Relevant Academic Project
Completed a group market research project analysing the positioning of three UK fashion retailers among Gen Z customers. Contributed survey design, competitor research, customer persona development, and final presentation slides. Received a First for the project.
A Levels
Business Studies, Psychology, English Literature
Relevant Experience
Retail Sales Assistant, H&M, London
June 2024 to present
Serve customers in a fast paced retail environment, supporting product queries, fitting room coordination, payments, and returns with a calm and professional approach
Maintain stock presentation and assist with replenishment during peak trading periods, helping the team keep high demand areas organised and customer ready
Handle customer issues politely and escalate when needed, building confidence in communication, problem solving, and judgement
Developed a stronger understanding of customer behaviour, visual merchandising, and how store layout influences buying decisions
Marketing Committee Member, University Business Society, Birmingham
September 2024 to present
Create weekly social media posts promoting society events, guest speakers, and networking sessions across Instagram and LinkedIn
Helped improve event attendance by making promotional posts clearer, more consistent, and more focused on student benefits
Coordinated with committee members to gather event details, speaker information, and deadlines before publishing content
Supported basic engagement tracking by reviewing post performance and suggesting content ideas for future events
Projects
Consumer Behaviour Presentation: UK Coffee Chains
Researched how pricing, loyalty schemes, store environment, and brand identity influence student buying choices in the UK coffee market
Compared three major coffee chains and presented findings to a seminar group of 25 students
Built confidence in market research, structured analysis, presentation delivery, and commercial thinking
Digital Campaign Mock Brief
Created a mock campaign plan for a sustainable skincare brand targeting university students
Developed customer personas, key messages, content ideas, and channel recommendations across TikTok, Instagram, and email
Focused on realistic budget limits, student buying behaviour, and trust signals in sustainability messaging
Skills
Microsoft Excel
PowerPoint
Canva
Social media content planning
Market research
Competitor analysis
Customer service
Presentation delivery
Written communication
Volunteering and Leadership
Peer Mentor, University of Birmingham
October 2024 to present
Support first year students with settling into university, managing workload, and finding academic support services
Communicate regularly with mentees and escalate concerns sensitively when appropriate
Developed stronger listening, organisation, and mentoring skills
Additional Information
Available for a summer internship from June to September 2026. Open to hybrid roles in London, Birmingham, or remote UK based opportunities.
Tailoring does not mean rewriting your entire CV every time. It means adjusting the emphasis so the recruiter sees the right evidence first.
Start by reading the internship advert properly. Not skimming. Actually reading. Most candidates miss the clues because they jump straight into “apply now” mode and then wonder why nothing happens.
Look for:
Repeated skills
Required tools or software
Main responsibilities
Type of team
Industry language
Desired degree subjects
Behavioural qualities
Commercial priorities
Client, customer, product, research, technical, or operational focus
Then mirror the role honestly.
If the internship advert mentions data analysis, reporting, Excel, and stakeholder communication, your CV should highlight analytical coursework, Excel projects, reporting tasks, presentations, customer service, or society coordination.
If the advert focuses on content, campaigns, social media, and brand awareness, your CV should highlight writing, content planning, audience understanding, creative projects, and measurable engagement where possible.
If the advert mentions teamwork, deadlines, attention to detail, and admin support, your CV should show organisation, accuracy, reliability, and examples of managing tasks under pressure.
This is where many candidates misunderstand ATS systems. An applicant tracking system may help store, sort, or search applications, but the bigger issue is not “beating the ATS”. The bigger issue is whether your CV makes sense to the human reader after it gets opened. Keywords help, but only when they are backed by evidence.
A CV stuffed with keywords and no substance is like a shop window full of labels and no products. Technically visible. Still disappointing.
Most internship CV mistakes are not dramatic. They are small issues that make the recruiter less confident.
Generic internship CVs usually sound like this:
“I am a motivated individual seeking an opportunity to develop my skills in a professional environment.”
That sentence has appeared in so many CVs that it has basically retired from meaning anything.
Be specific. Say what you are studying, what type of internship you want, and what evidence supports your application.
Some candidates put strong projects, society roles, or part time work at the bottom because they assume only office work counts. That is a mistake.
If the experience proves relevant skills, bring it forward. Recruiters are not checking whether your experience came with a fancy title. They are checking whether it shows useful behaviour.
A duty tells me what the role involved. A strong bullet tells me what you contributed.
Weak Example
Responsible for social media.
Good Example
Created weekly Instagram posts for a student society, promoting events to over 300 members and improving consistency of event communication.
The good example gives context, scale, and contribution.
This is common in internship CVs. Candidates feel inexperienced, so they compensate with inflated language.
Be careful with phrases like:
Expert in
Proven leader
Strategic consultant
Managed business transformation
Delivered high level commercial strategy
If you are applying for an internship, you do not need to sound like a board adviser. You need to sound capable, self aware, and ready to learn. Confidence is good. Fantasy is not.
Recruiters should not have to fight your CV. Avoid tiny fonts, huge blocks of text, inconsistent spacing, decorative graphics, unnecessary icons, and complicated columns.
A clean, simple CV usually performs better than a heavily designed one, especially for corporate, finance, law, engineering, public sector, operations, HR, and consulting internships.
Creative sectors can allow more design, but even then, clarity comes first. A beautiful CV that hides the evidence is still a weak CV.
If you are applying in the UK, use UK terminology and formatting. Keep the CV professional, concise, and relevant. Do not include unnecessary personal details. Avoid overly dramatic personal branding. British hiring culture usually prefers confidence with evidence, not loud self promotion without substance.
That does not mean you should undersell yourself. It means your claims need to be grounded.
Hiring managers know interns are still learning. They are not expecting you to arrive as a finished professional. What they want is someone who can add value without creating avoidable chaos.
In practice, hiring managers often value:
Reliability
Curiosity
Communication
Basic judgement
Willingness to learn
Ability to follow instructions
Attention to detail
Professional attitude
Evidence of effort
Some relevant technical or subject knowledge
Here is the part candidates often miss: hiring managers are not only asking “Can this person do the work?” They are also asking “Will this person be easy to manage?”
That does not mean being silent, passive, or overly agreeable. It means being organised, responsive, honest when stuck, and sensible with feedback.
Your CV can show this through examples. A part time job where you handled customers under pressure can show maturity. A group project where you coordinated deadlines can show organisation. A coding project where you tested and improved your work can show persistence. A volunteering role where you supported people can show empathy and responsibility.
The internship CV should make the hiring manager feel that you are a low risk, high potential candidate. That is the real positioning.
For most UK internship applications, one page is enough if you are a student or early career applicant with limited experience. Two pages are acceptable if you have enough relevant evidence to justify the space.
Do not stretch a CV to two pages with filler. Empty length does not impress recruiters. It simply creates more scanning work.
A one page internship CV is usually best when:
You are a first year or second year student
You have limited work experience
You are applying for general internships
Your strongest evidence is education, projects, and part time work
A two page internship CV may work better when:
You have several relevant projects
You have completed placements or insight schemes
You have strong volunteering or leadership experience
You are applying for technical, research, engineering, data, design, or portfolio based internships
You are a career changer with previous work experience
The rule is simple: use the space if it earns its place. Do not add content because the page looks lonely.
Strong CV bullet points are specific, evidence based, and relevant. They do not need to be dramatic. They need to be useful.
A practical formula is:
Action plus context plus value.
For example:
Analysed survey responses from 120 students to identify key factors influencing attendance at university careers events
Supported customer enquiries in a busy retail store, handling payments, returns, and product questions while maintaining accuracy during peak periods
Created weekly LinkedIn and Instagram content for a student society, improving consistency of event promotion and helping increase attendance
Built a basic Excel tracker to monitor project deadlines, task ownership, and progress during a group consultancy assignment
Researched competitor pricing and customer reviews for a university marketing project, presenting recommendations to a seminar group
Assisted with charity fundraising events by coordinating volunteer rotas, preparing materials, and communicating updates to team members
Developed a Python script for a coursework project to clean and analyse a small data set, improving speed and reducing manual errors
Tutored GCSE students in English, adapting explanations to different confidence levels and tracking weekly progress
Notice that these bullets do not pretend the candidate is more senior than they are. They simply show useful workplace behaviours.
That is what good internship CV writing does. It makes ordinary experience look relevant without making it sound fake.
Standing out does not mean using louder language. It means making the recruiter’s decision easier.
The best internship CVs are usually strong because they are clear, tailored, and evidence led. They show the candidate understands the role and has made a proper effort.
To stand out, focus on:
Specific examples instead of generic claims
Relevant projects instead of vague interests
Measurable details where possible
Clear connection between your experience and the internship
Strong formatting and easy scanning
A profile that actually says something useful
Skills that match the role
Evidence of initiative outside required coursework
One of the strongest signals on an internship CV is self initiated effort. That could be completing a relevant course, building a small project, attending industry events, creating a portfolio, volunteering in a relevant area, writing about the industry, joining a society, or learning a tool used in the field.
Employers like this because it suggests you are not waiting for permission to develop. You are already moving.
But keep it honest. Do not turn a weekend course into a “specialist qualification”. Do not describe a class project as if you advised a major client. Recruiters appreciate ambition. They do not appreciate theatre.
Before sending your internship CV, check it against this list.
Is the CV clearly aimed at the internship type you are applying for?
Does the first half of the CV show your strongest relevant evidence?
Is your professional profile specific rather than generic?
Have you included relevant modules, projects, coursework, or dissertation work?
Have you translated part time work into transferable skills?
Do your bullet points show action, context, and value?
Have you removed irrelevant personal details?
Is the formatting clean, consistent, and easy to scan?
Have you included technical skills, tools, or languages where relevant?
Have you avoided exaggerated claims?
Have you checked spelling, grammar, dates, and contact details?
Does the CV make you look useful, reliable, and ready to learn?
The final question is the most important one. A good internship CV should make the recruiter feel confident that you are worth a conversation. It does not need to prove you can do the job perfectly already. It needs to prove there is enough evidence of potential, effort, and fit to bring you into the interview process.
Written by Simar Malhi, a recruiter and headhunter with international recruitment experience. I write about CVs, job applications, hiring decisions, and the reality behind recruitment processes. My goal is to help candidates understand more honestly how employers, recruiters, and hiring managers actually select candidates.
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