Cover letter guide

Cover letter with no experience.

When you don't have formal work experience, the cover letter is where you make your case. But most no-experience cover letters waste the space on the wrong things — enthusiasm instead of evidence, personality instead of capability. This guide shows what to write instead.

By Advoke CV Editorial Team Published: January 2025 Reading time: ~4 minutes

1. The common problem

A typical no-experience cover letter opens like this:

I am a highly motivated and hardworking graduate with excellent communication skills and a passion for [field]. I am eager to learn and grow within a dynamic organisation and believe I would be a great addition to your team.

That paragraph could be copy-pasted onto any cover letter for any role in any industry, and it would be equally meaningless everywhere. It contains zero specific information about the writer. That's the core problem: the letter is being used to assert claims rather than to show evidence.

2. Where does evidence come from?

Even without a job, you have evidence. The sources for entry-level cover letters are usually:

  • Coursework — a specific project, essay, or piece of work you completed for a course.
  • Self-directed projects — side projects, creative work, anything you built for yourself.
  • Volunteer work — even one-off events or informal involvement.
  • Academic achievements — scholarships, competitions, honours.
  • Teaching or mentoring — tutoring siblings, helping classmates, running study groups.
  • Personal initiative — reading, learning, or building something in the field you want to enter.

Pick the one or two pieces of evidence most relevant to the job you're applying for, and lead with those.

3. A structure that works

  1. Opening: what role, where you saw it, who you are.
  2. Evidence: one specific thing you built, wrote, learned, or did that's relevant.
  3. Evidence 2: a second specific thing, if you have one.
  4. Interest: why this role, and what you want to learn.
  5. Closing: brief and professional.

Two evidence paragraphs are better than one if both are concrete. If you only have one strong piece of evidence, use one — a strong single example beats two weak ones.

4. Example

I'm applying for the Junior Content Writer role posted on your careers page. I graduated last year with a degree in English Literature from the University of Karachi.

Over the last eight months I've been writing for a small food-and-travel blog I started on Substack. The blog has about 400 subscribers now, and three of my pieces have been republished by larger outlets. The writing is mostly long-form narrative journalism, but I've also written shorter list-style pieces that performed well and taught me more about structuring copy for readers than most of my university essays did.

I'm interested in the role because your content strategy seems to focus on longer, research-led pieces rather than listicles, and I'd like to write in that style while learning from editors who've been doing it longer than I have. I've attached my resume and a link to the Substack is on it.

Total length: about 180 words. The letter has three distinct pieces of concrete evidence (the blog, the subscriber count, the republication) and a specific reason for the interest. No "passionate", no "eager to learn", no "team player".

5. What to avoid

  • "Fast learner" and "quick learner" — can't be verified, claimed by everyone.
  • "Passionate about [field]" — usually followed by no evidence of the passion.
  • "I'm a team player" — implies it, doesn't demonstrate it.
  • "I would be a great fit" — this is the conclusion the reader should draw, not a claim you assert.
  • "Although I lack experience in..." — opens with a weakness that the rest of the letter has to overcome.
  • Long lists of personality traits — no evidence value.
  • Describing the company back to them ("Your company is a leader in...") — the reader knows.

6. Be honest about the level

Don't overclaim. If you've written for a blog for eight months, say that — don't say "professional writer with extensive experience". If your project is small, say it's small. Honest, modest evidence is more persuasive than inflated claims, because the reader can verify what you've written.

When you have no experience, the temptation is to compensate with confidence. But confidence without substance reads as bluffing. Evidence — even modest evidence — reads as real.

7. Final checklist

  • Does the letter include at least one specific thing you've done, built, or written?
  • Is the evidence described in concrete terms, not abstract terms?
  • Have you removed every cliché from the "avoid" list?
  • Does the closing sound professional, not desperate?
  • Is the letter 200–300 words?
  • Have you proofread it?