One of the most common mistakes first-time job seekers make is assuming that “experience” only counts if it came from a formal, paid, contracted job. It doesn’t. Employers hiring for entry-level roles are looking for evidence that you can show up reliably, follow through on responsibilities, and deal with people — and volunteering, informal part-time work, and side hustles can all demonstrate exactly that, provided you describe them properly on your CV.
This page covers where to find this kind of experience if you don’t have any yet, and how to present it credibly once you do. For the full CV structure this experience slots into, see How to Write a CV With No Work Experience.
Why This Matters More Than It Seems To
A CV with a genuinely empty experience section is harder to shortlist than one with even a few lines of informal, unpaid work — not because unpaid work is equivalent to a job, but because it gives a hiring manager something concrete to picture: you showing up somewhere, doing something, on a repeated basis. That’s the core thing an entry-level employer is trying to establish before they’ll take a chance on someone with no formal history.
Where to Find This Kind of Experience
Community and Church Volunteering
Local churches, community centres, and NGOs are almost always looking for help — food distribution, event organising, admin support, tutoring younger kids, and similar. These are usually easy to start with no application process beyond simply asking, and they build genuinely transferable skills: coordination, reliability, dealing with people under pressure.
School or College-Based Roles
If you’re still in, or recently out of, school or college, look back at any responsibilities you held — being a prefect, running a society or club, organising a school event, tutoring classmates, coaching a junior sports team. These count as real experience and are worth listing specifically, with what you actually did and, where possible, a rough scale (how many people, how often, over what period).
Informal and Family-Business Work
Helping out at a family shop, doing weekend babysitting, tutoring, gardening, or car washing for neighbours, or assisting a relative’s small business — all of this is legitimate work experience, even though it was never formalised with a contract or payslip. Describe it honestly: what the work was, roughly how long you did it, and what it involved.
NGO and Non-Profit Placements
Some NGOs run structured volunteer programmes with a defined role, schedule, and sometimes even a reference letter at the end — these are particularly strong CV material because they come with more formal structure than ad hoc volunteering. Search locally for NGOs working in areas that interest you (education, food security, environmental work) and ask directly about volunteer opportunities; many don’t advertise formally and rely on people reaching out.
Freelance or Gig Work
Informal freelance work — graphic design for a local business’s social media, basic photography for events, selling goods online, doing odd jobs through word of mouth — all counts as experience, particularly if you can point to specific outcomes (how many events photographed, how many items sold, what the work involved).
How to Describe It Properly on Your CV
The key to making informal experience read credibly is specificity and honesty — don’t inflate it, and don’t undersell it either. A useful format:
- What the role or activity was — a clear, simple title (e.g. “Volunteer Tutor,” “Weekend Assistant,” not an invented job title that overstates it)
- Where and roughly when — organisation or context, and a rough date range
- What you actually did — one or two specific lines, ideally with a rough scale (how many people, how often, what tasks)
For example: “Weekend Tutor, self-organised — 2023 to 2024. Tutored two primary school learners in maths and English twice a week, coordinating directly with parents on scheduling and progress.” This is honest, specific, and reads as real work, without pretending it was a formal job.
What Not to Do
- Don’t invent a formal-sounding job title for informal work. Calling casual babysitting “Childcare Coordinator” reads as an exaggeration the moment it’s questioned in an interview.
- Don’t list something you only did once or briefly as if it were ongoing. Be accurate about the actual duration and frequency.
- Don’t undersell genuinely substantial informal work either. If you ran a school society for a year with real responsibilities, describe it with the same seriousness you’d give a formal role.
If You’re Starting From Nothing Right Now
If you don’t currently have any of this kind of experience, it’s worth deliberately picking up one or two of the options above in the weeks before your next serious application round, rather than waiting for a formal job to materialise first. Even a few weeks of consistent volunteering gives you something real and specific to put on your CV, and it’s usually far more accessible to start than a formal job is — most volunteer opportunities don’t have a competitive application process standing in the way.
Once You Have This Experience Down
With even a small amount of this kind of material, you’ll also have concrete examples ready for interview questions that ask you to demonstrate reliability or a specific skill — including the question almost every entry-level interview includes in some form. See How to Answer “Why Should We Hire You?” With No Experience for how to use this material directly in that answer.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does unpaid volunteering really count as “experience” to employers?
Yes, particularly for entry-level roles, where the employer already knows you won’t have formal paid history. What matters to them is evidence of reliability and relevant skills, and volunteering demonstrates both when described specifically and honestly.
How much volunteering or part-time work is “enough” to list on a CV?
There’s no fixed minimum — even a few weeks of consistent, real involvement is worth including. Quality and specificity of description matter more than the raw duration.
Should I get a reference letter from volunteer work?
If it’s easy to arrange, yes — a short reference letter or even just permission to list the organisation’s contact person as a reference adds real credibility to informal experience on your CV.
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