FREE GRADUATE CV TEMPLATE FOR WORD
Finished university and wondering how much of your degree should still appear on your CV? This editable Word template shows how to balance your degree, projects, internships, placements and early work experience when applying for graduate and entry-level professional roles.
Microsoft Word (.docx) • One page • Editable • No account required
A Graduate CV Has to Make the Transition From Education to Work
A graduate CV sits between a student CV and an experienced professional CV. Your degree may still be one of your strongest qualifications, but an employer also wants to understand how you have applied what you learned and whether you can contribute outside university.
That evidence might come from a placement year, internship, dissertation, final-year project, part-time job, volunteering or another activity. You do not need to make every university experience sound like employment. The goal is to select the parts of your academic and practical background that support the role you want next.
If you are still studying and mainly applying for part-time jobs, internships or placements, our student CV template is a better starting point.
Graduate CV Template Preview
The preview below shows the same graduate CV layout included in the downloadable Word file.
Template Details
File: Microsoft Word (.docx)
Length: One page
Photo: No
Example: Business Management graduate
Best for: Graduate and entry-level professional roles
Account required: No
Why This Graduate Template Is Structured This Way
The example is written for Sophie Bennett, a Business Management graduate beginning her professional career. It does not try to imitate the CV of someone with ten years of employment history.
- Education remains prominent because the degree is recent and relevant to the type of work being targeted.
- Experience and projects are given space because employers need evidence of how academic and practical skills have been used.
- Earlier school qualifications are kept brief because the university degree is now the stronger academic credential.
- Skills support the application rather than replacing evidence from projects or experience.
- The document remains concise because there is no benefit in stretching limited early-career information simply to fill another page.
If you already have substantial relevant professional experience after graduating, you may need to move employment higher and reduce the amount of academic detail.
How Much Detail Should You Give About Your Degree?
Being a graduate does not mean copying your university transcript into your CV. The amount of academic detail should depend on what the vacancy needs.
Usually include
- degree title;
- university;
- study or graduation dates;
- degree classification when useful or requested.
UK undergraduate degrees commonly use classifications such as First, 2:1, 2:2 and Third. Use the classification actually awarded to you and do not convert or improve it yourself.
Add selectively
- relevant modules;
- dissertation or final-year project;
- academic awards;
- industry projects;
- technical tools used during the course.
A module is useful because it supports the application, not simply because you completed it. For example, Business Analytics may be relevant to an operations or analyst role, while listing every first-year module may add little value.
Should You Include Your Degree Classification?
There is no reason to hide a classification that an employer specifically asks for. Some graduate schemes and internships set academic requirements, and your application should answer those requirements accurately.
A clear format is:
BA (Hons) Business Management — 2:1
University of Leeds | 2023–2026
If you are still awaiting the final result, distinguish an expected or predicted result from an awarded classification rather than presenting it as completed.
Degree classification is still relevant in the UK graduate market. Prospects’ analysis of Graduate Outcomes data found differences in early-career employment outcomes across classifications, although a classification alone does not determine whether someone is suitable for a particular job. :contentReference[oaicite:6]{index=6}
Placement, Internship or Part-Time Job: Which Deserves More Space?
Do not automatically rank experience by whether it was full-time or part-time. Rank it by relevance to the role you are applying for.
Placement year
A degree placement can deserve substantial space when it gave you direct industry experience. In the UK, placements may form an assessed part of a degree and are often referred to as a sandwich year or year in industry. :contentReference[oaicite:7]{index=7}
Internship
An internship can be especially valuable when it demonstrates knowledge of the sector or practical skills directly requested in the graduate vacancy. Internships can range from short programmes to longer fixed-term experience. :contentReference[oaicite:8]{index=8}
Part-time job
Do not discard part-time work because it is unrelated to your degree. Retail, hospitality and customer service work can still provide evidence of communication, reliability, teamwork, problem solving and responsibility.
If a placement directly matches the target role, it will usually need more detail than an unrelated weekend job. If the graduate role is customer-facing, your part-time customer service experience may suddenly become much more relevant.
Can Your Dissertation or Final-Year Project Go on Your CV?
Yes, when the subject or the skills involved help support the application. The title alone is often less useful than explaining what you actually did.
Too academic
Dissertation: The Impact of Digital Transformation on Customer Service.
More useful for an application
Final-year research project examining how digital process changes affect customer service efficiency; analysed survey data in Excel and presented recommendations in a 9,000-word report.
The second version tells an employer about research, analysis, software use and written communication rather than relying on the dissertation title to do all the work.
For an unrelated role, the project may need only one line or may not need to appear at all.
How the Graduate CV Example Works
The downloadable Word template uses Sophie Bennett, a Business Management graduate, to demonstrate the transition from education into an entry-level professional application.
Graduate Profile
Business Management graduate with practical experience developed through university projects and early workplace experience. Confident using Microsoft Office, preparing presentations and working with business information, with strong organisation and communication skills. Seeking an entry-level business support or operations role.
The profile does not simply say “recent graduate seeking opportunities”. It identifies the degree, useful evidence and the type of role being targeted.
Education
The degree remains visible because Sophie is at the beginning of her career. Earlier school qualifications receive less detail because they are no longer the strongest academic evidence on the page.
Experience & Projects
Relevant experience and project work show how Sophie has used skills beyond simply attending university. This is more useful than filling half the page with a list of modules.
Do Graduate CVs Need a Personal Profile?
A short profile can help when your CV needs to connect your degree, experience and career direction quickly. It is not an excuse to fill the top of the page with generic claims.
Indeed UK recommends keeping a graduate personal statement brief and adapting it to the individual job application rather than using exactly the same statement everywhere. :contentReference[oaicite:9]{index=9}
A useful graduate profile usually answers:
- What have you recently studied?
- Which experience or strengths are most relevant?
- What type of position are you targeting?
If the answer is already obvious from a strong, well-targeted CV and space is tight, the profile does not have to become the most important section simply because you are a graduate.
Graduate Scheme Application or Ordinary Entry-Level Job?
These terms are sometimes used as though they mean the same thing, but the application context can be different.
Graduate Scheme
A structured graduate programme may set specific eligibility criteria, academic requirements, application stages and competencies. Check these before deciding which details deserve space on your CV.
Entry-Level Job
An entry-level vacancy may be open to graduates and non-graduates and may place greater weight on practical skills or existing experience than on degree details.
Do not assume that having a degree means the Education section must always dominate. The vacancy decides what evidence is most important.
Tailor Academic Evidence to the Graduate Role
The same graduate can legitimately emphasise different parts of the same degree for different jobs.
Business Analyst Graduate Role
- Business Analytics module
- Excel data analysis
- research project
- presentation of findings
- quantitative coursework
Graduate Operations Role
- Operations Management
- project coordination
- placement or internship
- process improvement project
- teamwork and organisation evidence
Graduate Marketing Role
- Marketing Strategy
- campaign or research project
- presentation skills
- customer-facing part-time work
- relevant digital tools
Do not add a module simply because its title contains a keyword from the job advert. Include academic information when you can explain how it supports the role.
Do Not Waste Your Part-Time Experience
A common graduate CV mistake is removing retail, hospitality or customer service work because it does not match the degree title. Relevance is more nuanced than that.
For example:
Weak: Worked in a shop while at university.
More useful: Handled customer enquiries and transactions during busy weekend periods while balancing regular shifts with full-time university study.
The second version can provide evidence of customer communication, reliability and workload management. Whether those abilities matter depends on the graduate job.
How Long Should a Graduate CV Be?
Do not add a second page simply because you have graduated, and do not force everything onto one page if that requires cutting strong evidence.
One page can work well when:
- your professional history is still short;
- you have one or two relevant projects;
- your degree information is concise;
- the strongest evidence fits comfortably without tiny text.
More space may be useful when:
- you completed a substantial placement year;
- you have several relevant internships;
- you have significant employment alongside study;
- the role requires technical projects or professional qualifications that genuinely need explanation.
The downloadable example on this page is one page because the example candidate is at the beginning of her career. For a longer format, see the two-page CV template for Word.
Common Graduate CV Mistakes
- Listing every module. Keep modules that help explain suitability for the target role.
- Treating the dissertation title as self-explanatory. Explain the methods, tools or skills when they matter.
- Removing all unrelated part-time work. It may still provide relevant evidence.
- Writing “graduate” as though it were a skill. Employers still need evidence of what you can do.
- Using the same profile for every graduate application. Different roles value different parts of your background.
- Giving old school qualifications more space than your degree. Earlier education usually becomes less detailed as stronger qualifications are gained.
- Inventing professional language for ordinary university activities. Describe academic work accurately.
- Sending a CV focused entirely on education. Show how your knowledge or transferable skills have been applied where possible.
- Assuming the degree alone meets every requirement. Read the graduate vacancy carefully and respond to the actual selection criteria.
Graduate CV vs Student CV vs No Experience CV
Use this graduate CV template when you have completed, or are very close to completing, a degree and are moving towards graduate or entry-level professional employment.
If you are still studying and applying mainly for part-time work, internships or placements, use the student CV template.
If your main difficulty is having virtually no formal employment history, regardless of your education stage, see the no experience CV template.
How to Edit This Graduate CV in Word
- Download the DOCX file below and open it in Microsoft Word.
- Replace Sophie Bennett’s contact information with your own.
- Rewrite the profile around your degree, evidence and target graduate role.
- Add your degree title, university, dates and accurate classification.
- Add only the modules, projects or dissertation information that supports the application.
- Replace the example experience and projects with your own placements, internships, employment or academic work.
- Reduce older school qualifications when your degree is now more important.
- Replace generic skills with skills relevant to the vacancy and supported elsewhere in the CV.
- Remove every piece of example information that does not belong to you.
- Check the final page layout and save a PDF copy if the employer requests PDF.
For help with the Word file itself, see our guide to editing a CV template in Microsoft Word.
Download the Graduate CV Template for Word
Download the editable Word CV shown above and replace the example education, experience, projects and skills with your own graduate information.
Microsoft Word (.docx) • One page • Editable • No account required
Graduate CV FAQs
Should I include my degree classification on my CV?
Include it when it helps the application or when the employer asks for a particular academic result. Present the classification accurately and distinguish a predicted result from one that has already been awarded.
Should I list all of my university modules?
Usually not. Select modules that help demonstrate knowledge relevant to the vacancy. A short targeted list is generally more useful than reproducing your course catalogue.
Can I put my dissertation on my graduate CV?
Yes, when the topic, research methods, tools or skills are relevant to the job. Explain what you actually did rather than relying only on the dissertation title.
Should I include unrelated part-time work?
It can still be valuable when it demonstrates relevant skills such as customer communication, reliability, teamwork, handling responsibility or balancing work with university. Give less detail when more relevant experience is available.
Should education come before experience?
It depends on which section provides stronger evidence for the vacancy. A recent relevant degree may belong near the top, while a substantial placement or relevant internship may deserve equal or greater prominence.
Is a graduate CV different from an academic CV?
Yes. A standard graduate CV is used for general graduate and entry-level employment. Academic CVs used for research or lecturing applications can include sections such as research, publications, teaching and conferences and may be much longer. :contentReference[oaicite:10]{index=10}
Related Word CV Templates
Student CV Template
For candidates who are still studying and applying for part-time jobs, internships or placements.
No Experience CV Template
For applicants whose main challenge is having little or no formal employment history.
One-Page CV Template
A concise Word format when your strongest graduate information fits comfortably on one page.