How To Write A College Student Resume (With Examples) - Zippia (2024)

As a college student, a resume may seem daunting because you may not have much experience, but there are a lot of other opportunities to make your resume stand out to employers. The opportunities that you can showcase include any volunteering you did, studying abroad, any specialized classes, or internships you’ve done.

To help you write your college student resume, we’ll go over how to write a college student resume, provide a resume example, and go over some tips to keep in mind.

Key Takeaways:

• Emphasize your education and honors/awards received in college.

• Take advantage of the many opportunities college gives to you and use those to spice up your resume.

• Make your resume job/internship application-specific.

• Include extracurriculars, volunteer experiences, certifications, publications, interesting projects, or impressive leadership experiences if you have any.

What is a college student resume?

A college student’s resume is a document that summarizes your academic qualifications and your time spent in college. You probably had to write a brief resume for your college applications. Writing a resume as a college student is similar to that, except with a more professional edge.

Since you don’t have years of professional experience, hiring managers will understand when you don’t have that, which is why they will be looking at your academic history. They will be wondering how you have applied yourself in college both inside and outside of the classroom.

As mentioned above, college is full of opportunities to have enriching experiences. Take advantage of them — they will greatly help you not only by filling out those blank spots on your resume but also by giving you something to stand out from the rest of the competition.

Hiring managers and recruiters will be looking for signs of maturity, self-motivation, and work ethic. Keep these elements in mind as you decide how best to sell yourself based on your college experiences.

How to write a college student resume

To write a college student’s resume, you should start with a resume header that includes your contact information and then go into your resume objective statement. Your top claim to fame is your educational experience and the extracurricular activities you were involved with.

Here’s a more detailed list of what each section of your resume should include:

1. Resume header. Your resume header should include your contact information. Open with your first and last name, which should be a slightly larger size or otherwise emphasized above all else. Include your location ([City, State] is fine), phone number, and professional email address. If you have a LinkedIn or an online portfolio, feel free to include a link to those here as well.

   Important tip: Never put your contact information into an actual header on your word processing software. Some applicant tracking systems (robots that parse resumes to weed out unqualified candidates) can’t read the information in a header.

   If the ATS can’t find your contact information, your resume will be thrown out before it even reaches a human reader.

2. Resume objective statement. We normally steer job-seekers away from resume objectives toward resume summary statements.

   However, it’s perfectly appropriate for a college student to use a resume objective instead. Be sure to keep it short (1-3 sentences), include keywords from the job description, and state your relevant skills and career goals.

   That being said, if you have substantial or impressive work/internship experience under your belt that truly makes you perfect for the position, opt for a resume summary statement that emphasizes your qualifications and expresses your value to the employer.

3. Education. Depending on how valuable you find your education section as compared to your experience section, you can swap the order around. We put education third based on the assumption that it’s your most valuable asset at the moment.

   Your education section should always include the following information:

   • Name/Location of the school you attended

   • Dates attended, date graduated, or anticipated date of graduation

   • Name of your major/degree

   The rest of the information is optional, but more is usually better (especially if the rest of your resume is light):

   • GPA (if it’s over 3.5)

   • Minor (if relevant)

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   • Academic honors (Latin titles, Dean’s List, Honors Programs, etc.)

   • Merit scholarships

   • Publications and/or research

If you really want to beef up your education section, you can also include more details about relevant coursework. This can be a great way to incorporate keywords from the job description and showcase that you have solid foundational knowledge.

4. Experience. Once you’ve progressed in your career, this will be a history dedicated to your work history, but for now, keep the heading more open-ended by calling it something like “Relevant Experience.” The reason why this heading works is because it allows you to put down a whole host of experiences in just one section. Items you can put here include:

   • Work experience (summer jobs, part-time work, etc.)

   • Internships

   • Volunteer work

   • Freelancing experience

   • Relevant coursework (if you didn’t include it in your education section already)

   • Study abroad

   • Club membership/leadership positions

   In general, you should keep things in reverse chronological order (the most recent stuff first). Always be sure to quantify your accomplishments whenever possible. Make it easy for a reader to see what value you added to each experience you were a part of.

5. Extracurriculars. If you’re a part of one or many extracurricular activities, it might be worth including a separate section detailing your involvement with each. Be sure to highlight the key skills you picked up from each experience to show how it relates to the job you’re applying for.

6. Skills. You’ve certainly acquired some skills during your time in college. Try to give a healthy mix of hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills are those you must be taught, and be tested or measured in some way. Soft skills refer to the intangible, interpersonal qualities that make you great to work with.

   Where you can, add a bit of detail to flesh out each skill more fully. For example, if you put down “HTML” as a skill, give a brief description like “wrote webpages during a 3-month internship with XYZ Inc.”

   Also, try to make sure that each soft skill you list comes with a correlating piece of data in your experience section. For instance, if you write that you have excellent communication skills, there better be some proof of those skills in action elsewhere on your resume.

7. Hobbies and interests. If you’re still not at a full page, you can consider adding relevant hobbies and interests. Even something seemingly irrelevant, like a love of working on miniature models, can paint a picture of a candidate who regularly hones her attention to detail in her free time.

Current college student resume example

Remember, every resume should be job-specific. You should b e tailoring it to each job you apply to. This will help you get noticed by hiring managers.

With that in mind, check out this current college student resume example:

College student resume template

Here is a college student resume template to help you get started on yours. Be sure to tailor your resume to fit your needs and the position you are applying for:

Tips for writing a college student resume

When writing a college student resume, you should include action verbs to help show what you did and be sure to keep your resume relevant to the job you are applying to. Here are some more tips to keep in mind when writing yours:

• Use action verbs. Action verbs help you show a potential employer what you did. Some example action verbs to use are:

  • Led

  • Researched

  • Organized

  • Trained

• Proofread. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is sending your resume in without proofreading it first. Take an extra couple of minutes and read through your resume for any spelling or grammar mistakes. You can even have a friend or a professor look over it to catch anything you might have missed.

• Choose the right format. You want your resume to be easy to read so make sure you choose a format that won’t get tossed aside because it has a million different fonts and colors. The top resume formats to use are chronological, functional, and combination.

• Keep it relevant. You only want to add the relevant information. They won’t want to hear about your pottery club if you are applying for a tech company. Rereading the job description is a great way to know what relevant information you should include. This will

• Get help. If you are completely stuck, ask for help. They have centers at most colleges that help with this kind of thing. They won’t judge you for having the wrong format or too much information. The entire point of college is to learn and get prepared for the workforce, and getting help is doing that.

  Getting help will also give you feedback on how to improve your resume. Career centers are the best places to get help with resumes and cover letters.

• Keep it to one page. Since you don’t have much experience, your resume should be one page long. If your resume is too long, potential employers will pass yours over. Keeping your resume to one page will also help you keep it relevant and concise.

• Select the right font. The font that you use should be professional and easy to read. The most professional fonts are sans-serif or serif fonts and examples of those include Calibri, Helvetica, and Georgia.

College student resume FAQ

1. What should be on a college resume?

   A college resume should include education history, relevant jobs, extracurricular activities, leadership experience, and any skills relevant to the job.

   Since college students may not have much work experience, it’s important to emphasize your education history and any relevant jobs that may have armed you with skills for the job you’re applying for.

   You can also demonstrate your abilities by including volunteer work, internships, or extracurricular activities.

2. How do you write a resume for a college application?

   The five things you need to write a resume for a college application are:

   • Your relevant contact information

   • Detailed education history and test scores

   • Experiences

   • Awards/honors

   • Any additional skills you’d like to share

   These are the different sections required for a resume for a college application. Most sections are self-explanatory, but your experiences section might be a little tricky for some.

   In this section, you have the opportunity to differentiate yourself because you’ll want to articulate more than your responsibilities. Focus on your accomplishments and provide numbers for context and scale.

3. Do you need a resume for college?

   No, you don’t need a resume for college, unless a school specifically requests one. The items typically requested on a college resume are typically things that are asked on your college application.

   However, resumes can be used to streamline this information and can be advantageous for those with extensive leadership achievements in and outside of the classroom.

   A resume can also be used to tell a story, rather than just a list on an application, and can allow applicants to expand on experiences not mentioned in other places.

4. How can a college student make a resume for a first job?

   A college student should include contact information, a resume summary, education, experience, skills, and any additional achievements on their resume for a first job. The candidate should have the relevant experience to draw on for an entry-level job by including all of this information.

   Many managers hiring for entry-level jobs understand that college students may not have extensive work experience and will be looking for certain keywords throughout the resume that highlight education, experience, and skills.

   Education can include your degree or any special training, experience may include work, volunteer, or internship experience, and skills may include anything that highlights a good fit for the open position.

5. How long should a college student’s resume be?

   A college student’s resume should be one page. Resumes should be this length so that employers and hiring managers can review them quickly. Typically those looking to hire a candidate only have a few minutes to review a resume, so you should make sure it’s relevant and succinct, with all of your impressive information listed early.

   Once you gain more experience, your resume may become longer but is typically only recommended for those applicants with over ten years of experience in the workforce.

6. How do you write a resume for college with no experience?

   When writing a resume for college with no experience, be sure to emphasize your education instead. Your education and experiences in school will be key in helping you craft an effective resume for college. Be sure to include relevant internships, any soft or hard skills you possess, and projects you may be proud of.

   You may also want to include hobbies, interests, certifications, languages spoken, or any additional achievements you may have received, whether they were in or outside of an academic environment.

7. What makes a college resume stand out?

   Any relevant experience you have will make your college resume stand out. Your relevant experience may include any internships, volunteer positions, or extracurricular activities. To get an idea of what relevant experience you should include, reread the job description. This will include any keywords that you can add to help make your resume stand out more.

   Adding any relevant awards or achievements can help your resume stand out. Awards and achievements help show any potential employer that you have the skills and abilities to do the work.

Final thoughts

Writing a resume as a current college student is exciting because of the flexibility you have in crafting it. Every college student will have a unique resume and that’s a great thing because it helps you stand out from each other.

When writing a resume as a current college student, keep in mind that the best way to make your resume stand out is by taking advantage of the many opportunities being in college gives you.

Try new things: take on a new project or volunteer opportunity. It not only will help your resume but will also give you great pre-professional experience that will help you decide which career path you should take.

References

1. Harvard Extension School – Resume and Cover Letters

2. University of Pennsylvania – Undergraduate’s student resume samples