What should you put on a resume for your first job?

If you are writing your first resume and have little or no paid work experience, use education, school projects, volunteering, extracurricular activities, training, and relevant skills as evidence of what you can do. Then tailor that evidence to the job posting instead of filling the page with generic claims.

CareerOneStop, a career resource sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, treats volunteer experience, education, training, and work history as information that can be relevant when preparing job-application materials.

Your first resume is therefore not an empty work-history form. It is a short, truthful case for why your existing experience relates to an entry-level role.

Start with a simple resume structure

A clear first-job resume can use these sections:

Contact information Name, professional email address, phone number, and general location such as city and state.

Optional summary or objective One or two lines explaining the kind of role you are pursuing and the relevant strengths you bring.

Education School, program or credential, expected or completed graduation date where appropriate, and relevant coursework or achievements when useful.

Experience, projects or activities Paid work if you have it, but also volunteering, school projects, community involvement, leadership, clubs, or other experience that demonstrates relevant skills.

Skills Specific skills that relate to the job, such as spreadsheet use, software, languages, customer service, equipment, writing, or other demonstrable abilities.

CareerOneStop's resume materials list contact information, objectives or summaries, work experience/accomplishments, and education/training among common resume sections, while allowing additional sections that highlight an applicant's strengths.

Use evidence even when you have no paid experience

“No experience” often means “no formal paid job yet,” not “I have never done anything relevant.”

Think about situations in which you:

  • organized an event
  • helped customers or visitors
  • managed money
  • worked to a deadline
  • created a presentation
  • used spreadsheets or software
  • looked after equipment

worked on a team; or volunteered for a school, community, religious, sports, or nonprofit activity.

Then describe what you did, not merely the name of the activity.

Weak:

Member, School Club Better:

Helped organize weekly club meetings, prepared sign-up materials, and coordinated event reminders with other student volunteers. Do not invent numbers to make a bullet look impressive. A truthful statement without a metric is better than a fabricated “increased engagement by 45%.”

Turn projects into resume evidence

Projects can be particularly useful for a first resume because they show an employer what you have already practiced.

Suppose you are applying for an entry-level office role.

A relevant fictional project entry might read:

School Business Project — Team Member Created and maintained a spreadsheet for project expenses. Prepared two slides summarizing the team's findings. Checked final written material for formatting and spelling before submission.

The purpose is not to pretend a class project was a job. Label it accurately as a project, then describe the skills it demonstrates.

The same principle can work for programming projects, design portfolios, science projects, community events, school newspapers, robotics, sports leadership, or personal work that is genuinely relevant.

Tailor the resume to the job posting

Read the job advertisement carefully and identify the qualifications the employer actually requests.

Suppose the posting emphasizes:

  • customer service
  • reliable attendance

basic computer skills; and clear communication.

Your resume should make truthful evidence of those skills easy to find.

Do not copy a long block of keywords into the document. Instead, use the employer's terminology where it accurately describes your own experience.

For example, if the posting asks for “customer service” and you volunteered at a community event answering visitor questions, describe that relevant interaction directly.

U.S. Department of Labor resume guidance similarly recommends demonstrating how skills, experience, training, and education match the employer's needs and stresses proofreading for spelling and grammar.

Keep the design easy to read

A first-job resume rarely benefits from a complicated visual design.

Use consistent headings, spacing, dates, and typography. Keep the main information easy to scan. CareerOneStop's guidance recommends simple professional formatting, readable font sizes, useful white space, and proofreading.

Before sending the resume:

Check the spelling of the company and position. Make sure verb tense is consistent. Check every date. Confirm your phone number and email address. Open the exported file to confirm nothing moved or disappeared. Give the file a useful name, such as Jordan-Lee-Resume.pdf.

Do not put sensitive information such as a Social Security number on an ordinary resume.

Use this fictional before-and-after example

Imagine a student named Jordan applying for a retail associate role.

  • Too vague
  • School volunteer
  • Helped people
  • Good communicator
  • Hard worker

More useful Community School Fair — Volunteer Welcomed visitors and directed them to activity areas. Answered routine questions and referred unusual requests to the event coordinator. Helped prepare materials before opening and restore the area after closing.

The second version does not claim that Jordan is a “great communicator.” It supplies evidence from which an employer can judge the relevance of the experience.

Use this approach throughout the resume: claim less; demonstrate more.

Know when federal applications are different

A general private-sector first-job resume and a federal application are not necessarily the same document.

Current USAJOBS vacancy guidance reflects a government-wide requirement limiting federal resumes to two pages, and individual announcements can require specific details needed to establish qualifications. Current USAJOBS postings also tell applicants to read the announcement closely and keep the resume within that limit.

This is important because older federal-resume advice can conflict with the current two-page rule. For a federal position, follow the current vacancy announcement and current USAJOBS/OPM instructions, not a generic resume template.

For an ordinary private-sector role, follow the employer's stated application requirements.

Final first-job resume checklist

Before applying, ask:

  • Does the resume make the target role obvious?
  • Are the most relevant examples easy to find?
  • Have I labeled school and volunteer experience honestly?
  • Does each bullet describe something I actually did?
  • Have I removed unsupported claims and invented metrics?
  • Have I checked grammar, punctuation, names, and dates?
  • Have I followed any application-specific instructions?

A first resume does not need to make you appear experienced beyond your years. It needs to make your real, relevant evidence easy to understand.

Source checks

Use the current guidance from CareerOneStop for the claims and procedures discussed above. Product interfaces, prices, rules and availability can change, so recheck time-sensitive details before acting.