An internship CV is judged on a different standard than a professional one, and knowing that changes what you put first. Nobody expects you to have shipped production work or led a team. They want to see that you can learn quickly, follow through, and be useful in a few months. Your job is to arrange the evidence you do have so that potential is the first thing they read.
Lead with what proves capability
Since your work history is short or empty, do not open with it. Put your strongest evidence at the top: a course project, a hackathon, a society you helped run, or a personal build. Each one shows initiative and a skill in use, which is exactly what an internship panel is scanning for.
Match the CV to the specific programme
Internships are competitive and often filtered before a human reads them, so tailor rather than send one generic version. Read the posting, note the tools and qualities it names, and make sure they appear in your CV where they are genuinely true.
- Relevant coursework: name the modules that map to the role, not your whole degree.
- Projects with an outcome: state what you built and what changed, even in small numbers like users, downloads, or hours saved.
- Skills the posting asks for: list the ones you can actually demonstrate, and drop the padding.
- Availability: make your dates and location clear, because programmes have fixed windows.
Keep it to one page and easy to scan
At this stage a single page is plenty, and trying to fill two usually adds filler that weakens the strong parts. Use standard headings, reverse chronological order within each section, and skip the photo. A clean layout also survives the applicant tracking systems that large internship schemes rely on.
When you are building yours, our CV guide walks the full structure, the one-page templates keep it tight, and the ATS checker confirms an automated filter can read it. The student page has layouts made for exactly this stage.