How to Write Your First Resume

A resume has one job: get you an interview. It's not a life story or a list of everything you've ever done. It's a short document — one page for most people starting out — that answers a single question for the hiring manager: 'Does this person have the basics to do this job?' That's it. Keep that goal in mind every time you're tempted to add something.

A solid first resume has five parts, in this order: (1) Contact info — your name, phone, email, and optionally a LinkedIn URL or portfolio link. No photo, no home address. (2) Summary or objective — two to three sentences about who you are and what you're looking for. Skip this if you're applying to a specific role and your experience section makes it obvious. (3) Experience — jobs, internships, part-time work, freelance gigs, and relevant volunteer roles. If you have none, this section can include class projects, club leadership, or significant personal projects. (4) Education — school, degree or expected graduation, GPA if it's above 3.5. (5) Skills — a short list of relevant hard skills: software, languages, tools. Not soft skills like 'good communicator' — those are assumed and add nothing.

Almost everyone's first resume has this problem. The fix is to reframe what counts as experience. Babysitting regularly for two years is customer service and responsibility. Running a club at school is leadership and event coordination. A summer job at a coffee shop is cash handling, customer interaction, and working under pressure. The key is to describe what you actually did and what it required — not just the job title. Use bullet points that start with action verbs: managed, coordinated, trained, handled, built, organized. Quantify where you can: 'Handled cash transactions for 50+ customers per shift' is stronger than 'worked the register.'

Most companies use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to filter resumes before a human sees them. These systems scan for keywords from the job description. If your resume doesn't include them, it may never reach a person. The fix is simple: read the job posting carefully and mirror its language. If the posting says 'customer service experience,' use that exact phrase — not 'helped customers' or 'client-facing.' Use a clean, simple format: no tables, no text boxes, no graphics. Standard section headings (Experience, Education, Skills) are safer than creative alternatives. Save and submit as a PDF unless the application specifically asks for a Word document.

Use a standard font — Calibri, Arial, or Georgia at 10–12pt. Margins between 0.5 and 1 inch. One page if you have under ten years of experience. Consistent formatting throughout: if one job title is bold, all job titles should be bold. Dates aligned to the right margin. No color unless you're in a creative field and you know what you're doing. The goal is that a hiring manager can scan it in six seconds and find what they need. Most can't — and that's why most resumes get skipped.

These are the things that get resumes thrown out: (1) Typos and grammar errors — proofread twice, then have someone else read it. (2) Generic objective statements — 'Seeking a challenging position where I can grow' tells the employer nothing. (3) Responsibilities instead of accomplishments — 'Responsible for social media' is weak; 'Grew Instagram following from 200 to 1,400 in six months' is strong. (4) Irrelevant information — hobbies, references, high school awards if you're in college, jobs from ten years ago. (5) One resume for every job — tailor it. It takes fifteen minutes and doubles your response rate.