How to Write a High School Resume: Examples and First-Job Guide

A high school resume has a different job from an experienced professional's resume. You are not trying to hide the fact that you are early in your career. You are trying to make the experience you already have easy to evaluate.

That experience might come from school, volunteering, tutoring, clubs, sports, family responsibilities, projects, seasonal work, or a first part-time job. The challenge is turning those activities into evidence of reliability, communication, teamwork, problem solving, and follow-through without exaggerating them.

What a High School Resume Actually Needs to Show

For a first job or internship, a useful resume should help an employer answer a few basic questions: What is this student applying for? What have they actually done? Can they communicate clearly, show up consistently, learn, work with others, and take responsibility for a task? Are any relevant tools, coursework, languages, certifications, or activities worth knowing about?

NACE's career-readiness framework is a useful way to think about this. It includes communication, critical thinking, professionalism, teamwork, technology, leadership, career development, and equity and inclusion as broad competencies that can be demonstrated in different settings. See NACE's career-readiness competencies.

First Decide What the Resume Is For

A resume for a part-time retail job is not the same document as a resume for a summer internship, scholarship, or college application. The underlying history may be the same, but the emphasis changes.

For a job, prioritize evidence related to reliability, customer or visitor interaction, teamwork, scheduling, organization, safety, tools, and responsibilities. For a college-oriented resume, academic achievements, extracurricular depth, leadership, service, and long-term commitments may matter more. BigFuture's guidance for high school resumes, for example, emphasizes school information, academic highlights, extracurricular activities, work or community service, and other meaningful commitments. Review BigFuture's high school resume overview.

A Complete Weak High School Resume

Maya Thompson is a fictional high school junior applying for a first part-time retail or customer service job. She has no formal paid employment. She does, however, volunteer at a library, tutor other students, participate in robotics and soccer, maintain solid grades, and use basic digital tools.

Why the Weak Version Underperforms

• The objective is generic and focuses on what Maya wants rather than what she already brings.

• The skills section is mostly unsupported adjectives such as hardworking, leadership, and fast learner.

• Volunteer, tutoring, and club bullets describe participation but not the tasks, people, tools, or responsibilities involved.

• The coursework list is broad rather than selected for relevance.

• References available upon request adds little value and takes space that could support stronger evidence.

The problem is not that Maya has no experience. The problem is that the resume does not explain the experience she already has.

The Same Student, Rewritten Around Evidence

The improved version uses the same school, volunteering, tutoring, club, and sports history. It does not invent a first job, a management title, or dramatic metrics.

What Changed Between the Two Versions?

• Maya now has a clear target: part-time retail and customer service.

• Her library volunteering shows visitor assistance, organization, recurring shifts, and work with staff.

• Peer tutoring demonstrates communication and problem solving through specific actions rather than claiming those skills.

• Robotics shows Google Sheets, Canva, teamwork, event preparation, and task completion in context.

• Soccer is not presented as a fake job. It supports a narrower point about balancing recurring commitments.

What Counts as Experience When You Have Never Had a Job?

Paid employment is useful, but it is not the only source of relevant evidence. Volunteering, tutoring, babysitting, pet care, helping with a family business, club responsibilities, school publications, fundraising, sports, theater, student government, community programs, competitions, personal projects, and substantial class projects can all be relevant when they demonstrate something useful for the target role.

Do not force every activity into an Experience section. Use section names that describe the material honestly, such as Experience and Community Involvement, Projects and Activities, Leadership, or Volunteer Experience.

Write Bullets That Explain What You Actually Did

A practical bullet can combine an action, the task or situation, and useful context or evidence. A number is optional, not mandatory.

Weak: “Helped at the library.”

Stronger: “Support front-desk and shelving tasks during weekly volunteer shifts, helping visitors locate materials and directing questions to library staff when needed.”

Useful evidence can be scope, frequency, responsibility, tools, people served, quality checks, deadlines, coordination, a concrete output, or a real outcome. Do not invent transaction counts, test-score gains, follower growth, money raised, or accuracy percentages because they sound impressive.

Use Education as an Asset, Not a Transcript

For a current high school student, Education usually belongs near the top because it explains where you are in your timeline. Include the school, location if useful, and expected graduation date. Add academic achievements, relevant coursework, or GPA when they genuinely strengthen the application.

There is no universal GPA threshold that suddenly makes a number resume-worthy. Consider the context: the strength of the GPA, whether the employer or program asks for it, and whether academic performance is relevant to the opportunity. Relevant coursework should also be selective rather than a copy of your schedule.

Choose Skills You Can Support

A short skills section can help, especially for languages, software, certifications, equipment, or job-relevant tools. Generic traits such as hardworking, responsible, leadership, communication, or teamwork are stronger when the resume demonstrates them elsewhere.

This is where NACE's competency framework is useful: communication, teamwork, critical thinking, professionalism, leadership, and technology are not just words to paste into a resume. They are categories of behavior you can prove through what you did. Explore the framework.

Tailor the Resume Without Keyword Stuffing

Read the job description and identify what the employer actually needs. A retail role may emphasize customer assistance, stocking, availability, cash handling, and teamwork. A summer office internship may care more about spreadsheets, writing, organization, research, or scheduling.

Use the employer's language when it accurately describes your experience. Bring the most relevant evidence higher in the document. Remove details that do not help this application. There is no magic number of keywords to insert.

ATS, Layout, Length, and File Format

Applicant tracking systems differ. Some parse resume data, some support recruiter searches, and employers can configure different screening workflows. Avoid writing for a mythical universal ATS score. The safer goal is a document with clear headings, readable text, logical order, and content that actually matches the role.

For most high school students applying to a first job, one page is usually enough because there is rarely a reason to stretch the document. That is a useful default, not a law. BigFuture also describes a high school resume as a one-page document, particularly in the college-planning context. See BigFuture's guidance.

Follow the employer's requested file format. PDF can preserve layout well, while some application systems accept or request DOCX. Before submitting, open the final file and confirm that names, dates, headings, and links are readable.

Contact Information and Privacy

Use a name, reliable phone number, professional email, and a broad location such as city and state when useful. A full home address is rarely necessary for an ordinary first-job resume. Only include LinkedIn, GitHub, a portfolio, or another profile when it is relevant, current, and appropriate to share with an employer.

High school students should also be careful about where they send personal information. A resume should not include sensitive identifiers such as a Social Security number, bank information, birth date, or other data an employer does not need at the application stage.

Know the Rules if You Are Under 18

For U.S. students, age can affect which jobs and hours are legal. The Department of Labor explains that 14- and 15-year-olds face federal limits on work hours and on certain occupations, while state rules may add additional requirements. Review the Department of Labor's YouthRules guidance.

Do not guess about work permits, hours, or hazardous-job restrictions. Check the rules that apply to your age, state, and type of work, and be accurate about your availability when applying.

Watch for Job Scams

Students looking for flexible or remote work can be attractive targets for fake job offers. The Federal Trade Commission warns about scams that ask applicants to pay for starter kits, training, or certifications, send fake checks, or request sensitive financial information. Read the FTC's job-scam guidance for students.

Verify unexpected recruiters through the company's real website or contact information. Do not pay to get a job, and treat requests to deposit a check and send money elsewhere as a major warning sign.

A Final High School Resume Audit

• Is it obvious what kind of job, internship, or opportunity the resume is targeting?

• Does Education accurately show your current school status and expected graduation?

• Have you included relevant experience from volunteering, tutoring, projects, activities, family responsibilities, or paid work without overstating it?

• Do your strongest bullets explain actions, context, responsibility, tools, or evidence rather than vague participation?

• Are skills supported by examples elsewhere when possible?

• Did you remove invented metrics, inflated titles, and claims you could not explain in an interview?

• Is the document easy to read in the final file format requested by the employer?

• Have you kept sensitive personal information off the resume?

• If you are under 18, have you checked age, hour, and job restrictions for the role?

How Joobee Fits Into the Process

A resume builder should help organize and present your real experience, not manufacture experience you do not have. You still decide what is true, relevant, and worth emphasizing.

Joobee can help keep job descriptions, tailored resume versions, applications, and follow-ups connected as you start applying. That becomes useful quickly when your first job search spreads across different employers and application sites.

Sources and Further Reading

• College Board BigFuture: What's a High School Résumé?

• NACE: Career Readiness Defined

• U.S. Department of Labor: YouthRules for Ages 14-15

• Federal Trade Commission: Avoid Job Scams While You Job Hunt

The Bottom Line

A first resume does not need to look like the resume of someone who has already been working for five years. It needs to make a smaller amount of real experience understandable.

School, volunteering, clubs, projects, tutoring, sports, family responsibilities, and early work can all contribute when they show what you did and how you handled responsibility. Build around evidence you can defend, tailor it to the opportunity, keep the document readable, and let the first job add the next layer of experience.