what should i put on my resume as a first time job seeker?

A resume helps you to get an interview and showcases your experience, skills and qualifications to hiring managers, recruiters and employers.

Items to Include on a Resume:

1. Your Name – this will be written at the very top of the resume usually in large bold font.

2. Contact Details – at a minimum include your telephone number and email address. Other items to include are physical address and a link to a professional social media profile such as LinkedIn.

3. Resume Headline – this is the position or job that you are applying for.

4. Summary – this summarizes and captures the key information on your resume such as your top skills, important accomplishments and experience.

5. Work Experience – list jobs or internships held showing job title, start and end date, organization name/company, city and state of the company and your major achievements in the role.

6. Educational Qualifications – in this section list academic qualifications showing college attended, location of college (city & state), start and end year/graduation year and degree major. You can include your minor as an option.

7. Relevant Skills – this section is optional, you can list outstanding work-related skills that you possess.

For more detailed information on writing a resume, please see this article:

35 Terrific Tips on How to Write a Resume

>> Simply jump to section 28 on the article which discusses “Resume Tips for Recent College Graduates” – which is specific to help someone preparing a resume with little to no prior work experience.

I wish you the very best wishes as you start your career. Thank you.

resume resume-writing

Hi Annalisa,

Great question! I know it can be daunting to write a resume for the first time, but it's exciting you're thinking about this important job search step. :-)

I'd suggest that you first brainstorm a list of the following areas, as relevant for you: jobs (babysitting? retail? any jobs you've held!); volunteer activities (short- and long-term), school activities/clubs, and classes or school projects that you think might be most relevant to a job, or are particularly proud of. For example, when I was in high school I had volunteered on some political campaigns, babysat in my neighborhood, participated in several school clubs, and taken classes in computer programming and Spanish (two areas of particular interest to me at the time). You can then think about ways to group these items, depending on what they are. For example, you might have a section called "Job and Volunteer Experience." You can have a section called "Relevant Coursework" that focuses on classes in whatever areas are most related to the type of job you're seeking. If you've done a large project in school that can show your skills and/or understanding of a particular topic, you might include a few sentences about that. (That type of project could go under your education section or in a separate section, if you have a few projects that you want to describe.) A summary (bulleted list, typically) at the top of your resume can be a great way to pull out the top skills you've gained from diverse experiences in class, after school, and in the community. Try googling "resume format example" (maybe under image search) to see some possible layouts you might use.

As you apply to specific jobs, look at the qualifications they're seeking, and think about how to showcase those areas on your resume. You can change what you include on different versions of a resume, depending on the job. If you don't have much to list yet, you might want to always include all of your key content for now, and just focus on editing your summary at the top to highlight your most relevant skills and your interest in the particular position/field.

A few other notes:

• Be sure to keep your resume to one page or less.
• You do not have to have every single skill listed on a job description to apply for that job. Just be ready to describe how you'd learn the necessary skills and do the job well.
• Be sure to ask someone to review or at least proofread your resume. You might consider asking a relative, teacher, or other mentor. It's important not to have any typos.

Good luck!

Kate