Resume for High School Student: How to Write One (5 Examples + Template)

How do you write a resume as a high school student?

Start with your name, phone, professional email, and city. Add a short objective, then your education, experience (including babysitting, volunteering, and club roles), skills, and any certifications. List entries newest first, describe each one with action verbs and results, and keep everything on one clean page.

That's the short version. The longer version is where most first-time resume writers get stuck, because the standard advice assumes you already have a job history. You probably don't, and that's completely fine. Hiring managers who read a resume for a high school student aren't looking for a career. They're looking for signs that you'll show up, learn fast, and treat customers and teammates well.

This guide shows you how to prove exactly that. You'll learn how to create a resume for a high school student section by section, how to turn everyday experience into strong bullet points, and which skills and objectives work best. You'll also get a copy-and-paste template and five complete examples, including students headed toward software development, engineering, marketing, and product management.

What Is a High School Resume, and Do You Really Need One?

A high school resume is a one-page summary of your education, activities, skills, and any work you've done, paid or unpaid. Many entry-level employers will hire you from an application form alone, so you won't always need one. But a resume makes you stand out when you walk in to apply, email a manager, or apply for anything competitive, like an internship, a summer program, or a scholarship.

It also does something for you: writing it forces you to notice what you've actually accomplished. Most students are surprised by how much they have to say once they start listing it.

Job resume vs. activities resume

Before you write a single line, decide which document you need. They look similar, but they're built for different readers.

How to Write a Resume for a High School Student, Step by Step

Here's how to write a resume for a high school student from a blank page to a finished draft. Before you start formatting, spend 15 minutes on a "brain dump": list every job, chore-for-pay, club, team, project, award, volunteer shift, and certification you've had since ninth grade. You'll pick the best items from that list in the steps below.

Step 1: Choose a simple, reverse chronological format

Use a single column, clear section headings, and one readable font (Arial, Calibri, or Georgia at 10.5 to 12 pt). Within each section, list your most recent item first. Wikipedia's résumé article describes this reverse chronological layout as the most common format, and it's the one managers expect to see. Learn more in our guide to the reverse chronological resume.

Some advice tells teens to use a skills-based (functional) resume because they lack work history. Skip it. A functional layout hides dates and context, which makes a short history look like it's hiding something. A short, honest timeline of real activities is far more convincing. And yes, keep the resume one page.

Step 2: Write your contact information

Put this at the top in the body of the document, not in a header field that some application software skips.

Step 3: Add an objective that names the job and your availability

An objective is one or two sentences explaining what you want and what you bring. Experienced professionals usually swap it for a summary, but an objective for a resume for a high school student is genuinely useful, because your title and history don't tell your story yet. A good one is specific: it names the role, one or two strengths with proof, and when you can work.

For more variations, see our full guide to writing a resume objective.

Step 4: Build your education section

Education is your strongest credential right now, so give it detail. Include your school name, city, and expected graduation month and year. Add your GPA if it's 3.0 or higher, honor roll or academic awards, and advanced classes (AP, IB, honors, or dual enrollment). A line of relevant coursework helps when classes connect to the job, like Business Math for a cashier role or Computer Science for a coding camp.

Step 5: Describe your experience with action verbs and results

This section includes paid jobs and informal work: babysitting, pet sitting, lawn care, tutoring, helping at a family business, or selling crafts online. List the role, organization (or "Self-Employed"), and dates, then add two to four bullets. Use this formula:

Need more verbs than "helped" and "did"? Our list of action verbs has hundreds, with before-and-after examples.

Step 6: Add activities, volunteering, and leadership

Clubs, sports, music, student government, and volunteer work show commitment and teamwork. For each, include your role, the years or grade levels you participated, and one bullet showing what you contributed. Leadership roles deserve the most space. If an activity taught you a job-relevant skill, say so in the bullet, not in a separate sentence.

Step 7: Choose the right skills

Pick six to ten skills that match the job posting, and make sure each one is backed up somewhere else on the page. Here are strong skills for resume high school student applicants, grouped so you can mix and match:

Skip vague words like "hardworking" and "fast learner" in the skills list; show them in your bullets instead. For more ideas, see our guide to good resume skills.

Step 8: List certifications that make you easier to hire

A short certification can be the deciding factor for teen-friendly jobs. Here's what's worth earning and listing:

Here's how to list certifications on your resume so they're easy to spot.

Step 9: Add an availability line (job resumes only)

Managers who hire teens build schedules around school. A line like "School year: weekends and Tue/Thu after 3:30 p.m. | Summer: full availability" answers their biggest question before they ask it. Just make sure what you promise fits the hour rules for your age, covered later in this guide.

How to Write a High School Resume With No Experience

If you've never had a paid job, your resume isn't empty. You just need to translate what you've done into language employers recognize. Use this table as your starting point:

Put informal work under an "Experience" heading, not a separate "Other" section. Babysitting three evenings a week for a year is real work, and it deserves the same space a store job would get.

Resume Template for High School Student (Copy and Fill In)

This job resume template for high school student applicants works for retail, food service, camps, and most first jobs. Delete any section you can't fill honestly. For an activities resume, remove the objective and availability, and move Activities & Leadership above Experience.

5 High School Resume Examples

Each example below shows a different situation. Names, schools, and businesses are fictional, so borrow the structure and swap in your own details.

Example 1: First job, no paid experience (aspiring marketer)

Ava is a 15-year-old sophomore applying for a weekend crew role at a café. She's never had a paid job, so her babysitting, fundraiser volunteering, and club social media role carry the page.

Why it works: Every entry is unpaid, yet each bullet shows a skill the café needs: handling money, staying calm with people, and showing up consistently. The availability line stays within the limits for a 15-year-old.

Example 2: Retail or food service with some experience

Marcus is a 16-year-old junior with a year at an ice cream shop, applying for a sales associate role at a sporting goods store.

Why it works: With a real job to show, experience moves above education. The training bullet signals that Marcus is ready for more responsibility, and the sports entry quietly proves time management.

Example 3: Aspiring software developer

Priya is a senior applying for a junior instructor role at a summer coding camp. Projects replace job history as her strongest section.

Create Free Resume

Your resume is only 30 seconds away from being done.

Why it works: The objective connects coding skill to teaching, which is what a camp actually needs. The tutoring and library bullets prove she can explain technology to beginners, not just write it.

Example 4: Future engineer

Diego is a junior applying to a competitive summer engineering program and a part-time role at a local hardware store.

Why it works: Diego renames his sections to fit his story ("Engineering Experience" and "Work Experience"), so the most relevant work leads. For the hardware store, he'd flip that order.

Example 5: College and scholarship activities resume (future product manager)

Jasmine is a senior using an activities resume for scholarship applications. Notice there's no objective, and each activity shows grade levels and hours per week, the details admissions and scholarship readers look for.

Why it works: Each bullet reads like a small product story: spotting a problem, planning a fix, and measuring the result. That's exactly the kind of initiative scholarship committees remember.

Section order cheat sheet

Before You Write Your Availability: Know Your Hour Limits

If you're 14 or 15, the hours you list on your resume need to match what you're legally allowed to work. According to Wikipedia's summary of child labor laws, 14 is generally the minimum age for most non-farm jobs, and 14- and 15-year-olds face these federal limits:

[IMAGE PLACEHOLDER – upload chart before publishing] Hour limits for 14- and 15-year-olds (file: images/image1.png from the doc export).

Hour limits for 14- and 15-year-olds. Workers aged 16 and 17 have no federal hour limits but can't do hazardous jobs.

Many states set stricter rules or require a work permit (sometimes called working papers), which is often issued through your school. Ask your school counselor what applies to you before you finalize your availability line. Promising hours you can't legally work is an easy way to lose an offer.

Common Mistakes on a High School Resume

Your Final Checklist

• One page, one column, one readable font
• Professional email and city and state only
• Objective names the job and your availability (job resumes)
• Education includes expected graduation date and GPA if 3.0+
• Informal work is listed as experience, newest first
• Every bullet starts with an action verb and includes a result where possible
• Skills match the job posting and appear in your bullets
• Availability fits the hour rules for your age
• Saved as a PDF named FirstName-LastName-Resume.pdf

Final Thoughts

Your first resume won't look like a professional's, and it shouldn't. What matters is that it's honest, clear, and shows the habits every employer wants: reliability, effort, and a willingness to learn. Babysitting, club roles, and school projects aren't filler. Written well, they're proof.

Once your draft is ready, tailor your resume to the job description for each application. Jobsuit can match your wording to the posting's keywords so the right skills stand out, while you keep every claim true to your real experience. If you'll also send a cover letter, our guide on cover letter vs. resume explains what goes where. And when you're ready to start applying, our guide to jobs for teens lists roles that hire high school students.