High School Student Resume Example
As a high school student, it might seem like you don’t have anything to put on your resume when it comes time to apply for your first job or internship. However, you can certainly create a compelling resume that highlights your education, skills, extracurricular activities, and any job experience (including volunteer and internship experience) that you do have. This article will outline how to write a resume as a high school student and which sections to include.
How To Write A High School Student Resume
The key to writing a successful resume as a high school student is to highlight your skills and education to show potential employers that you will benefit the company if they hire you.
Most employers who are hiring to fill entry level jobs know that you won’t have a significant amount of experience. They are going to be more impressed by your education, soft skills, and ability to learn new hard skills.
Soft skills, also sometimes called interpersonal skills, are universal across nearly all industries and include things like leadership, charisma, interpersonal skills, communication skills, and so forth. They are harder to define and measure than hard skills, which are more job-specific skills like knowing how to use Photoshop, accounting skills, or experience being a barista. Soft skills are much more difficult to teach than hard skills so employers place a lot of importance on strong soft skills, knowing, for example, that they can teach someone to make coffee drinks more easily than they can teach someone to be a leader.
Finally, the most important step you can take to strengthen your resume is to target it to each job that you apply for. Mention the company and position that you are applying for by name in your resume objective, and read the job posting carefully to identify keywords and phrases that the employer uses to describe what they are looking for in an applicant. Then mirror these words and phrases in your resume to make it clear that you are a good fit for the job. This will also help your resume pass applicant tracking system (ATS) scans and show employers that you took the time to customize your resume for the position.
Sections To Include
For a high school student resume, be sure to include the following sections:
Name and Contact Information
Write your full name at the top of your resume in large text and follow it with your contact information, which should include your phone number and a professional email address. You can also optionally include your address or your general location (such as your region or city and state).
Personal Details
Justin Edwards
justin.edwards@gmail.com
(111) 222-3333
Charlotte Area, North Carolina
Resume Objective
Beneath your name and contact information, include a resume objective. This should be a couple of sentences that mention the company and job title that you are applying to by name, and it should include a brief description of yourself and your professional goals.
Resume Objective
Friendly and dedicated high school senior, passionate about graphic design and video editing. Excited to leverage skills gained in school classes and summer design bootcamp to become a graphic design intern at Carlton Design Firm.
Education
Then add your education details to your resume. Include the name and location of your high school and your expected graduation date. You can also include your GPA if it’s above 3.5, relevant classes that you’ve taken, and awards or honors. Alternatively, you can include this information later in dedicated sections.
There’s no need to include your junior high or elementary school information on your resume, but you can include additional courses that you’ve taken recently, like a summer class, online courses, and so forth.
Education
August 2018 - Present Central High School, Charlotte, NC
Expected Graduation: 2022
Relevant Coursework:
- Graphic Design 1 & 2
- Art and Design Concepts
June 2021 - August 2021 Ace Design Co. Summer Design Bootcamp, Charlotte, NC
Intensive summer design school for aspiring high school students
- Conceptualized, designed, and completed capstone project
- Shadowed professional graphic designers
- Presented projects to teaching panels
- Learned new techniques and workflows
Experience
Next, include any professional experience that you do have, even informal work like babysitting or dog walking in your neighborhood. You can also include internships or volunteer work that you’ve done, or relevant non-paid positions you’ve held.
Work Experience
August 2020 - Present Graphic Designer for School Newspaper, Central High School
- Design and lay out each monthly newspaper
- Check over proofs carefully for errors
- Design and create special inserts, ads, announcements, etc.
Expert Tip
While your experience might not be directly relevant to the position or internship that you are applying for, you can use the bullet points to highlight transferable skills and abilities.
Skills
As mentioned above, be sure to highlight both your hard and soft skills on your resume. Read the job description carefully and select a few of the skills listed that apply to you to highlight, plus a few that aren’t listed. Try to work your skills naturally into your resume objective and mention them in the bullet points beneath your education and work experience as applicable.
You can also create a dedicated skills section on your resume, and break it down into subsections for hard skills and soft skills if you wish. This can be a comma-separated list, bulleted list, or you can add a proficiency indicator for each skill.
Hard Skills
Graphic Design - Very Good
Video Editing - Good
Coding - Good
Photo Editing - Very Good
Sketching - Good
Soft Skills
Interpersonal Skills
Leadership
Collaboration
Creativity
Attention to Detail
Optional Resume Sections
Finally, you can add optional resume sections such as extracurricular activities, achievements and awards, languages, hobbies and interests, and certifications.
Extracurricular Activities
Audio/Visual Club, August 2018 - Present
Central High School
- Have served as club president since 2020
- Handle all A/V needs for school assemblies, dances, pep rallies, etc.
- Learned to use professional-grade tools from teacher/mentor
Soccer Team Captain, August 2021 - Present
Central High School
- 4-year member of the team
- Captain duties include organizing practice schedule and team events
- Responsible for regularly scheduling team-building activities
Achievements
- Honor Roll every semester
- Two-time student of the month
- On track to be class valedictorian
Languages
Spanish - Conversational
Remember to include optional resume sections only if that information is relevant and useful to the position that you are applying for. Including extracurricular activities and hobbies can be especially valuable as a high school student, since you can highlight the skills and abilities that you have learned. Although you don’t have professional work experience, you do have life experience that has likely taught you a variety of skills.
High School Student Resume Layout Tips
There are three main resume formats: reverse chronological, functional, and combination. Reverse chronological is the most common resume format and the most effective for the majority of job seekers - all of your details are listed with the current or most recent entry first, working backward in time from there.
A functional resume focuses on skills over education and work experience, and a combination resume uses elements of both reverse chronological and functional resumes.
Your resume should be no more than one page in length, so only add optional sections if you have space left over. On the flip side, you don’t want your resume to look too blank, so add enough relevant information to fill the majority of the page if you can.
Use headings and bullet points to break up the text on the page. This makes it easy for potential employers to read your resume quickly and easily, and it looks less cluttered than one giant block of text.
Finally, choose a professional font like Arial, Helvetica, or Times New Roman. Use 10 to 12 point font for the body text and 14 to 16 point font for your headings. While you can add pops of color to your resume, be sure to keep the overall color scheme professional and easy to read. The body text should be a dark color like black, dark gray, or navy. If you choose to use a contrasting color for your headings or elsewhere on your resume, select a color that isn’t garish or too loud - no hot pink or neon yellow.
Key Takeaways
Writing a resume as a high school student can seem daunting since you likely don’t have very much experience to lean on. But, you can highlight your skills, education, and the experience that you do have to create a compelling resume and score your first job or internship. Be sure to include your name, contact information, a resume objective, your education details, your experience, your skills, and any optional resume sections that you can fit on the page. Browse our resume examples as well as templates to kick-start your career!
