How to Write a Resume for Your First Job

The problem with a first resume is not that you have nothing to say. It is that the standard advice assumes a work history you do not have yet, so the format fights you.

The fix is to change what fills the page. School, coursework, volunteering, sport, side projects and part-time work all demonstrate the same things an employer is actually screening for at this level: that you turn up, that you can be taught, and that you finish what you start.

What goes on the page, in order

1. Contact details

Name, phone number, email address, and city. Nothing else — no full street address, no date of birth, no photo unless it is the norm where you are applying.

Use a plain email address. firstname.lastname@ is fine; an address you made when you were fourteen is not, and it is a genuinely common reason a good application reads badly.

2. A short summary

Two or three lines saying who you are and what you are looking for. Be specific about the role.

Final-year student seeking a part-time retail position. Two years of weekend volunteering at a charity shop, comfortable handling cash and dealing with customers. Available weekends and school holidays.

Skip it if you cannot make it concrete. A summary saying you are "a hardworking team player seeking an opportunity to grow" is filler, and it reads as filler.

3. Education

This is your main section, so give it room. School or college, dates, and your grades if they are good. Add relevant coursework, projects, or subjects that connect to the job.

4. Experience — broadly defined

Anything where you were responsible for something counts:

Volunteering
Babysitting, tutoring, dog walking, lawn mowing
A family business you helped in
School societies, committees, sports teams
A personal project — a website, a channel, a game, a repair business

Give each one a title, a rough date range, and two or three bullets on what you actually did.

5. Skills

Concrete and checkable. Software you can genuinely use, languages you speak and at what level, a driving licence, a food hygiene or first aid certificate. Leave out "Microsoft Word" unless the job is clerical, and leave out anything you would not want to be tested on.

Writing the bullets

This is where most first resumes lose their advantage. Compare:

Worked at a charity shop.
Served 40 to 60 customers on Saturdays, handled cash and card payments, and trained two new volunteers on the till.

Same job. The second one gives an employer something to picture. Three rules produce it:

Start with a verb — served, organised, built, trained, tracked, repaired.
Add a number wherever one exists. How many, how often, how much.
Say what changed because you did it, where you can.

Formatting

One page. Not a guideline at this stage — an expectation.
One standard font, 10 to 12 point, with clear headings.
Reverse chronological order within each section.
Consistent dates, in one format throughout.
Save as PDF unless the employer asks otherwise. A Word file reflows on someone else's machine and your layout is gone.
Name the file properly — Jane-Smith-Resume.pdf, not resume-final-v3.pdf.

Avoid the elaborate templates with sidebars, columns and graphics. Many employers run applications through software that reads the text, and multi-column layouts are read out of order or dropped. A plain single-column layout is safer and looks more professional anyway.

Tailoring, which takes five minutes and matters

Read the job advert and note the words it uses for the things it wants. If it says "customer service" and your resume says "dealing with the public", change yours to match. This is not gaming the system — it is answering the question that was asked, and it is the difference between a resume that gets read and one that does not.

Reorder your bullets so the most relevant sits first for each application. Keep one master copy and cut it down per job.

Mistakes that get a first resume binned

Spelling and grammar errors. At this level, where employers are screening on care and reliability, these are read as evidence about you. Have someone else read it.
Lying. Easily checked, and it ends the application permanently rather than just this one.
Listing references' details unasked. "References available on request" is unnecessary too — just leave it out.
A generic covering message. Two sentences naming the company and why this job beats none at all.
Social media you would not want read. Employers do look. Set old accounts to private.

If the page still looks empty

Fill it with something real rather than padding. In a week you can complete a free certificate in something relevant, volunteer once, or build a small project you can describe. Any of those is worth more than a paragraph of adjectives, and all three are things you can start today.

FAQs

How long should a first resume be?

One page. Always.

Should I include my GPA or grades?

If they are good, yes. If they are not, leave them off and let the rest speak.

Do I need a cover letter?

Send one if there is anywhere to put it. A short, specific note materially improves your chances when your resume looks like everyone else's.

Can I use a resume builder?

Yes, but choose the plainest template it offers, and check the exported PDF reads correctly as plain text.