How To Make A Resume For College Students

College Student Resume For Internship

Use this template

Why this resume works

• Getting that first internship while you’re a college student can be instrumental in helping you get a full-time job once you graduate. Before that internship, however, you likely don’t have relevant work experience for your resume.
• That’s okay! What’s important is that you demonstrate to the hiring manager that you have the right resume skills and attitude necessary to succeed in the internship. You can do that through your projects and by referencing relevant classes you have taken while in school.

Write A Career Objective Or Professional Summary

A resume summary or career object is a brief statement of two to three lines that summarises your career objectives and professional goals. Your career objective tells a potential employer the reason for seeking employment. Your summary provides the latest information and skills you developed in your college. A summary helps show your passion for a field and your desire to progress in a selected career path.

Example:Recent computer science engineering graduate with coding knowledge in different programming languages. Professional with advanced knowledge of designing and building computer networks and systems. A motivated and dedicated individual seeking a position that involves regular use of these skills.

Turn A Boring Resume Into One That Is Super

An action-packed resume is still better than a boring one. Instead of thinking of it as informative trash where you put whatever experience and education qualification youve, think of it as a professional portfolio or professional resume that showcase your:

• What have you done in college?
• What actions did you have to take at previous jobs? It can be a summer camp or an internship.
• What skills do you know how to do that will set you apart from the crowd? You can mention the essential skills that youve used during the time you worked with the company.

Instead of saying, I worked at Pearl Agency as Public Relations Intern. Focus on what you did there:

At Pearl Agency, I communicated with the clients and managed events. Along with it, I created and curated engaging content to support the companys PR strategy.

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Use The Right Resume Format

As a college freshman, its important that you communicate your most notable qualities as quickly as possible. Thats why formatting your resume properly is essential.

You should start by using a chronological resume format, with your education placed towards the top of your resume, followed by your experience section. Your experience should list your most recently held position at the top, with your least recent position at the bottom.

Heres an example of what that looks like in action:

This format is ideal for freshmen because it puts your most marketable quality right at the top of your resume, and then provides an easy-to-read overview of your relevant experience.

Tailor Your Resume To The Job Description

Tweaking your resume so that it aligns with the position is vital. Start by carefully reading the job description to identify keywords and key phrases. Next, insert these terms throughout your resume wherever applicable. Most hiring managers will search for keywords related to critical skills, even if the resume is processed through an applicant tracking system.

If you’re having trouble finding keywords, you can run the job description through a word cloud generator, which should help you identify prominent words and phrases. Once you’ve finished crafting your resume, run it through that same generator to see whether its keywords align with those in the job description.

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Key Takeaways For A College Student Resume

High School Student Resume With No Work Experienceobjective

Obviously

You wont be able to put a lot of professional experience in your high school resume objective.

But dont let this discourage you.

Theres always something youre great at.

Identify it, think how it can help you in the role youre applying for, and boast about it in your high school resume objective.

Expert Hint: Your student resume should start with the objective, but theres nothing wrong with writing it at the very end. Once your entire student resume is ready, go through it, select the best parts, and arrange them in a snappy intro.

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How To Write A Student Resume

Employers generally look at a large number of applications for each job opportunity, spending only a short amount of time looking at each resume. The easier your resume is to scan, the better you can hold someone’s attention and encourage them to seriously consider your application. Follow these steps to write your student resume:

Highlight Several Hard And Soft Skills

Wrap up your internship resume with a balanced resume skills section. During your time as a student , youve likely built up a range of relevant hard and soft skills that make you a stronger intern candidate.

Hard skills are usually learned in the classroom, whereas soft skills are more related to your personality. Here are two lists to give you some ideas of what you can include in your own skills section:

Good internship resume hard skills

• Writing

• Leadership
• Problem-solving

If you dont have many technical skills, dont worry. Placing emphasis on your soft skills helps you fill this section out even if youre lacking in the hard skills department, and employers in most industries dont expect their interns to have a huge range of technical skills anyways.

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Always Submit A Custom Cover Letter

Did you know around 250 resumes are submitted for each corporate job listing and only about five candidates will be called for an interview? According to Pongo, without a cover letter, you’re relying solely on your resume to make a big enough impact that the hiring manager will call you back for an interview. As an applicant just starting out in the job market, youll need a good cover letter to make up for the lack of experience on your resume.

By submitting a custom cover letter specific to the company and role for which youre applying, you can let employers know why they should hire you over a candidate with more experience. This is your chance to tell them that youre a fast learner, hard worker, or willing to go the extra mile to gain experience and to help their company succeed. Dont count on your resume to get you through the competition. By including a cover letter, youll get noticed quickly, show youve put in extra effort, and demonstrate how much you want the job. You only have 7.4 seconds to make an impression, so make it good!

Projects Can Be Anything

If you don’t have much relevant work experience to draw upon for your resume, don’t fret. You can still create a highly effective resume by showcasing your projects.

As a college student, you likely have had to do a lot of projects for classes relevant to the job or internship you’re looking to get. This is the place to talk about those projects.

Talk about your goals, the methods and skills you used, and the outcome of the project. These can also be things you worked on outside of class!

Anything that will convince the hiring manager you have the drive, skills, and ability to translate your academic knowledge to the real-world and contribute in the roles you’re applying for.

Here are some potential projects you can work on for different majors:

Project ideas for college students

With these examples I just want to highlight that the projects you include on your resume can really be anything. They just have to demonstrate you know what is required of the kind of role you’re applying to and you have the ability to meet those requirements.

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Put Your Judgment To Use

Try looking at your resume from a neutral perspective. Consider you are an HR representative in the company that you are applying to. Ask yourself questions like: Is this resume outstanding? Does it awaken my curiosity to meet this person? Would you hire you? Try updating your CV until the point where you have answered yes to all of these questions.

Promote Your Work Ethic

In addition to detailing your skills and education, you can impress a potential employer by noting your work ethic in your resume. Mention achievements like perfect school attendance, making the deans list, leadership positions, extracurricular activities, a high GPA and any duties that superiors may have entrusted you with.

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What To Include In Your Resume

Here’s information on what to include when you’re writing your resume as a college student or recent graduate.

• Focus on education. Emphasize your academic history. Along with the name of your school and degree, include any achievements, such as a high GPA or any academic awards. If you have taken courses related to the job youre applying for, list those as well.
• Include relevant jobs. Think about the skills and experiences required for the job you want. Include any internships or jobs where you developed these qualities. Even if your work experiences arent directly related, think of ways to highlight experiences you had that are relevant to the job you want. For example, you might include a former job as a cashier if it helped you develop customer service or leadership skills.
• Include extracurricular activities. Because you likely have limited work experience, emphasize any non-work activities. These might include clubs, sports, babysitting, volunteer work, or community service. All of these activities can show your skills and abilities.
• Include leadership experience. Have you held a position in a club, or been a captain on a sports team? Have you had any leadership responsibilities at your previous jobs? Be sure to list these experiences, as they show your ability to lead a team.

Include Professional Contact Information

The first thing potential employers should see is a section at the top of your resume with your name, contact information and a link to your professional profile or website if you have one. In this section, you should include:

• First and last name

• Current phone number

• Current and professional email address

Preferably, your initial contact information should fill one to two lines of the page just under your name at the top. Your name should be the largest heading on the page with 16 to 18 point font. Use the City, State format to list your locationtheres no need to include your physical address on your resume. Remember, your resume is not a legal document, which means you can select whichever name represents you best and what youd like to be called during the hiring process and eventually at work.

Heres an example of what your contact information section might look like:

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Include A Skills Or Strengths Section

Including a skills, key strengths, or competencies section on a resume is a great way to let employers know what hard skills and soft skills you bring to the table. Indeed defines hardskills as abilities specific to the job and softskills as abilities that can be applied in any job .

So how do you know which of your many talents to list on your resume? According to The Balance Careers, Some skills are in high demand for employers hiring college graduates, and there are other skills that specifically relate to the job for which you’re applying. Try reviewing several job descriptions specific to the industry or role youre applying. Be sure to focus on the key desires and requirements employers emphasize for candidates. Jot down a list of the ones that stand out, then review how their desired skills match your core competencies. From there, you can decide which key strengths to include on your resume.

Cv Skills Example: The Tools For The Job

The skills section of a college student CV should be defined by the job you’re looking to attain. Even at this early stage of life, job seekers often have more relevant skills and professional qualities than they give themselves credit for. The trick is to choose and describe them correctly on your CV.

Step 1: Create a master list

The master list is a free-form document electronic or or even a piece of paper where you write down every skill and quality you can think of. Keep your master list handy for reference whenever a new job opportunity arises. Grab it for easy cherry-picking to tailor each new version of your specific resumeto the job application.

Step 2: Use industry knowledge

This depends heavily on what job you’re seeking and for what purpose. As a college student there are typically two possibilities. One is a temp job to pay the bills and acquire experience. The other is more farsighted an internship or entry-level position in a job related to your degree or education focus.

Make sure to understand the difference between hard skillsand soft skillsand how to assess their relative importance to specific jobs and employers. Hard skills are pragmatic tools used in daily duties while soft skills relate to social interactions, self-management, teamwork and so on.

Step 3: Analyze the job description

Check out a college student resume sample for the skills section below.

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Add In Work Experiences

You don’t have to limit your experience section to paid jobs. If you’re new to the job market and don’t have many professional roles to share, include volunteer positions, internships and extracurricular activities These experiences can show you have the required skills to succeed in the position you’re applying for. For example, including your role as captain of a sports team demonstrates leadership abilities, while your experience as chair of a student club exhibits organizational skills.

If you do have paid job experience or relevant internships, list those first with the name of the company, its location and the year you interned. Then provide 23 bullet points highlighting your achievements with action verbs during your time in those positions. Include any measurable successes you had with numbers where possible. For example, your experience section might look something like this:

Appleton Editing Services | May Aug. 2018Press Release Editing Intern

• Spearheaded a team to edit incoming press releases with short turnaround times

• Developed processes for AP style guide approach to deliverables

• Coordinated with team to implement editing guidelines, which reduced time to publish by 20%

Example Of Student Resumelanguages

• French
• Spanish

Expert Hint: You can easily double the impact of your student resume by writing a student resume cover letter. Did you know? More than half of the recruiters expect a cover letter to be part of your job application, but less than half of the candidates write them.

Double your impact with a matching resume and cover letter combo. Use our cover letter builder and make your application documents pop out.

Want to try a different look? Theres 18 more. A single click will give your document a total makeover. Pick a cover letter template here.

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Hobbies And Extracurricular Activities

Though an extracurricular activities section should normally be fairly sparse , as a college freshman you have probably gained a fair amount of experience and valuable skills from activities outside of work and school. You could list teams, ensembles and organizations that you were a member of. Make sure to note any achievements that were made during your time as well as the position that you held.

You can add hobbies and interests to your resume if you are short on information. However, you should omit it if the information is irrelevant to the company or position you are applying for. If possible, try to align these items to the company’s culture or values so that you can solidify that you would be a good fit for their team.

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What Should Go On A College Resume

Any of the sections below could appear on your resume for college applications. Pick an assortment that works for you!

• Heading with your name, address, and e-mail
• High school information with your graduation date, GPA , class rank, and SAT/ACT scores
• Academic awards, publications, honors, and other achievements
• Coursework

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Drafting The Perfect Internship Resume For College

What’s the difference between an internship resume and a college resume?

Before you get down to the nitty-gritty of it, let’s clear a few things:

• Don’t compare your intern resume with a professional who has had years of experience. A simple Google search will give you thousands of resume sample and layouts, and assigning that as a benchmark for yourself will give you nothing but anxiety.

You are still in college. Your experience in the real world is, in all probability, limited. The objective is to showcase that in the best possible way and not instead get drowned out by other internship resumes and give up altogether.

• Recruiters won’t be expecting you to have an extensive professional experience. That’s the major difference between an internship resume and a regular college resume.

Your end goal is the college resume which you’ll finish after graduation. The objective of the internship resume is to pack your final college resume with enough relevant experience that gives you an edge over others.

But even if the internship resume is just a means to an end, it doesn’t mean that you can compromise on the quality of the same.

You can check out our guide to Resume Layouts to get an idea on how to proceed. Our advice: stick to a traditional reverse-chronological format for your college resume.

The Basics

Contact Information

We wouldn’t have included a section on Contact Information for your Internship Resume if we didn’t think it was important.

Education