High School Student
Resume Example

Applying for a job or internship as a high school student is intimidating, to say the least.

Even if you have formal work experience—whether as a summer camp counselor, grocery store cashier, or something else—chances are it won’t be related to your target job or internship’s industry. To make things worse, plenty of other high students in the same boat as you are applying for the position you’ve got your eye on.

So how do you make yourself stand out?

Keep reading to find out our top three tips for writing a winning high school resume.

1. Write a killer career objective

Here’s a critical section many people forego in order to fit more experiences on their resume: the career objective.

But a career objective, which can also be framed as a professional profile or summary of qualifications, is more than worth including, especially for high school students.

That’s because a career objective paints a big picture of you that your limited experiences as a high school student can’t; it highlights your skills and what you can contribute in a succinct paragraph. This is a tremendous help to hiring managers and HR, who often lack the time to thoroughly peruse each and every resume they receive.

Check out how our candidate uses their career objective to emphasize their strengths:

Responsible and ambitious student (3.8/4.0 GPA) with excellent time management. Seeking to apply my customer service abilities and project/event planning skills to the Business Development summer internship at your company. Possess proven communication skills and strong work ethic that will aid your company in meeting its milestones.

On top of highlighting applicants’ skills, career objectives can be customized for the specific company you’re applying to, e.g., by referring to your desired position or choosing to emphasize more relevant skills. In doing so, you’ll demonstrate to employers that you’ve done your research and aren’t just sending in a generic resume.

2. Spotlight your volunteer experiences and extracurricular activities

If you’ve got formal work experience, you’re in luck.

That’s not always the case for high school students, though—but there’s no need to panic if you’re one of them.

The work experience portion of a standard resume can easily be replaced by a section describing your involvement in volunteer groups, extracurricular activities, or both.

Our candidate lists both, but focuses on their volunteering experiences by providing detailed bullets of what they did in each role. For instance, as a homeless shelter volunteer, they:

• Organized a successful schoolwide canned food drive that collected 400+ cans in one month
• Assisted in biweekly meal preparation and lunch service on Saturdays
• Processed incoming food donations and organized food pantry, developing new system of grouping items by expiration date to reduce monthly food waste by 15%

Similarly, you should expand on the activities you’ve been most involved in, whether at school or outside of it, using detailed bullets. Make sure to include noteworthy information, like any leadership roles you’ve held or major projects you’ve led and organized.

3. Include relevant coursework

To help further convince hiring managers you’re the best candidate, it’s crucial that you include any coursework related to the position you’re applying for.

Since our applicant is aiming for a Business Development summer internship, they’ve included a few related courses they’ve taken—Intro to Business, Entrepreneurship, and Computer Applications—in the education section of their resume.

Can you see why listing these classes would help this candidate stand out to employers?

It’s easier to fill a vacancy with someone who has some experience or familiarity with the role or industry, even if that background is purely foundational. Why? It’ll be easier to train these candidates instead of those with zero background knowledge.

In case you’re having a hard time determining what classes relate to different jobs and industries, here are some ideas:

• Creative Writing, Rhetoric, Humanities → Journalism jobs
• Government, Civics, Economics, Public Speaking → Political or legal roles
• Fundamentals of Math, Algebra, Accounting → Accounting or finance positions
• Foreign languages → Customer-interfacing roles
• Biology, Calculus, Computer Science → STEM internships

Feeling a little more confident about writing your high school resume now?

It’s okay if not; resume writing isn’t supposed to be easy, especially the first time around. With that said, we’re happy to help out. Check out our comprehensive resume-writing guide to learn how to get started—or better yet, try our easy-to-use resume builder.