What a TY CV is actually for
Work experience is a core part of Transition Year. Most schools expect one or two weeks in a workplace, and most employers will ask for a CV before they agree to take you. Not because they want to compare you against other candidates. They want three things: to know who you are, to see that you will turn up on time for five days, and to have a piece of paper to show whoever signs off on placements.
That changes what the CV has to do. A grown-up CV sells a track record. A TY CV proves reliability and shows a bit of who you are. One page, no waffle, and every line either identifies you or gives the reader a reason to trust you in their shop, office or surgery for a week.
Popular placements go early. Hospitals, vets, primary schools, radio stations and the big employers with formal TY programmes often close applications months ahead, some as early as September or October for a spring placement. Have the CV ready before the school hands out the forms, not after.
What to include when you have never had a job
Read the sections below in order. That is also the order they should appear on the page.
Contact details and the placement line
Name, town (an Eircode is fine), a mobile number and an email address you check. Use a sensible address: firstname.surname works, the one you made when you were eleven does not. Directly under your name, put one line that says what you are: “Transition Year student at [school] seeking a work experience placement, [dates]”. Employers read that line first and it answers their first two questions.
Profile
Three sentences. Who you are and where you go to school, what kind of placement you are after, and one or two facts that show reliability. “Three years on the camogie panel without missing a Saturday session” says more than “hardworking and motivated”, because anyone can type the second one.
Education
Your school, the years you have been there, and that you are in Transition Year. Add your Junior Cycle results only where they help: a Distinction in Business Studies matters for a shop or an office, a Distinction in Science matters for a pharmacy or a lab. Listing every grade for every subject does not. TY modules count too, especially anything practical: First Aid, Enterprise, a coding or mini-company module.
Experience, broadly defined
You have more than you think. Anything you have done regularly for other people goes here, written up like a job with a title, where, when and two or three bullet points:
- Sport and clubs. Years on a team, training commitments, captaincy, refereeing or helping with younger groups.
- Volunteering. Tidy Towns, parish events, charity bag packs, a coaching role, Scouts or Foróige, school open nights.
- Responsibility at home. Regular babysitting, minding younger siblings after school, the family farm or shop. These are real work with real trust attached.
- School roles. Student council, prefect, a Junior Cycle mini-company, running the bake sale float, Gaisce Bronze.
Write a number into every entry if you can. Two evenings a week, 120 people signed in, 20 children on a Saturday morning. Numbers turn a hobby into evidence.
Skills
Six to eight, each with the proof beside it in brackets: “Cash handling (raffle float, bake sales)”, “Microsoft Word and Excel (school projects)”, “Gaeilge (conversational)”. Skip “good communication skills” unless you can say where you use them.
References
“References available on request” is enough. Line up two people who would actually answer the phone: a teacher or your TY coordinator, and a coach or the adult who runs the group you volunteer with. Ask them first.
A full TY CV example
Ella is fictional, and so are her school, phone number and Eircode. She is fifteen, in Tullamore, and has never been paid for a day’s work. Notice how much fits on the page anyway.
Once it opens, put your own name, school and activities over Ella’s. Keep the shape. Then download it as Word or PDF, or print it for the school folder.
A short cover note for the placement request
Most placements are agreed by email or by handing an envelope over a counter. A cover note does four things in under 150 words: says who you are and what you are asking for, gives the exact dates, gives one honest reason you picked them, and tells them the school covers the insurance. Here is one to adapt.
Address it to a named person if you possibly can. Ring the shop or check the website and ask who looks after work experience. “Dear Sir or Madam” is what everyone else sends.
Mistakes that get TY CVs binned
- No dates. The employer needs to know which week. If it is not on the CV or the note, they have to chase you, and most will not.
- A photo, date of birth or PPS number. None of them belong on an Irish CV at any age.
- Two pages. Nothing you have done at fifteen needs a second page. Cut until it fits on one.
- Inventing a job. The manager will ask about it on day one. Babysitting and Tidy Towns written up honestly beat a made-up summer in a shop.
- A joke email address. Make a plain one for this and keep it for college and job applications later.
- Spelling the employer’s name wrong. Check it against their sign or website, then check again.
- Copying a template word for word. Employers in a town see the same TY CVs every year. Swap in your own facts.
A note on age and hours
You do not need a work permit for TY placement, and you should not be paid for it: it is education, arranged through the school, with the school’s insurance behind it. The law on young workers still applies to the hours. Under-16s on an approved work experience programme can do up to 8 hours a day and 40 a week, and cannot start before 8am or finish after 8pm. If a placement wants you in for a 6am delivery, that is a no.
After the week
Send a two-line thank-you email to whoever looked after you. Ask whether they would act as a reference, and whether they take summer or Christmas staff. Then update the CV: the placement goes straight into Experience with the business name, the dates and two bullets about what you did. That entry is what turns this CV into a Leaving Cert student CV for a real part-time job in a year or two.
Related guides
- Leaving Cert student CV: Sixth years and recent Leaving Cert students applying for part-time, weekend or summer work.
- Healthcare assistant CV: Healthcare assistants applying to nursing homes, hospitals, home support and HSE panels.
- Retail assistant CV: Sales assistants in supermarkets, fashion, pharmacy and convenience stores, including a first move up to supervisor.
- CV with no experience: The first-job formula: what counts as experience when you have never been paid for work.
- CV examples by sector: Six finished CVs for people with a work history: retail, healthcare, construction, admin, hospitality and driving.
Frequently asked questions
Do TY students need a CV for work experience?
Most schools ask for one, and most employers expect one, even for a single week. Citizens Information lists a CV and a short cover letter as the standard way to approach a business about a Transition Year placement. It also gives the employer something to hand to a manager who has to say yes.
What do I put on a CV at 15 with no work experience?
Your school and year, the dates you are free, your Junior Cycle subjects (and results if they help), any sport, club, music or volunteering you do regularly, and jobs that were never called jobs: babysitting, the family farm, helping in a relative’s shop. Then a short skills list with proof beside each one.
Should a TY CV include a photo or date of birth?
No. Irish CVs do not carry a photo, and your date of birth is not needed either. Saying you are a Transition Year student already tells the employer roughly how old you are. Leave out your PPS number too.
How long should a Transition Year CV be?
One page. A TY CV that runs to two pages is padded, and the person reading it will notice. Short and honest beats long and vague every time.