How to Write a Resume for Teens

It’s never too early to start a resume for applying for colleges, scholarships, and jobs. Starting as a teenager is a great way to build and eventually have a polished resume for the future.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. The format of a resume differs somewhat from person to person depending on preferences but should include the following: your full name, a way to contact you, your education, work or volunteer experience, extracurricular activities or hobbies, honors and awards, and special skills. To begin the resume, at the top of a new document, type in and center your full name. If you would like, have the name you would prefer to be called in parentheses.
   e.g. Jonathan (Jon) Smith

2. If applying for a job or if the reader of the resume needs to contact you, center a telephone number and/or an email address under your name. If you are living somewhere other than where you usually live (such as a college dorm as opposed to your house) and the reader of the resume needs to contact you, include a “current address” (where you live now i.e. dorm address) and a “permanent address” (where you usually live i.e. your house address).

3. Leave a space below and in a new line, type “Education” (not centered but aligned to the left as should the other categories). Depending on how you want to format the sections of your resume, after each section, hit either the tab or enter key. Hitting the tab key will have your information beside the section title while hitting the enter key will create a new line and have your information below the section title. After you hit either the tab or enter key, type in the name of your high school, its location, and your (expected) graduation year.
   e.g. Imaginary High School, Fake City, CA 2009

4. Leave a space below and in a new line, type “Work/Volunteer Experience”. Hit either the tab or enter key and type in your job title(s) and include descriptions such as what you did and accomplished while working or volunteering or when at an internship. Include the number of hours per day and days per week worked if you would like. Teens probably will not have much in this section at first but include anything you might have even if it’s babysitting experience.

5. Leave a space below and in a new line, type “Extracurricular Activities”. Hit either the tab or enter key and type in an activity name (e.g. Rotary Club) or a leadership position title (President of Science Club). If you have leadership experience, it is very important to highlight this. You might want to include a short description what the organization is, your duties, or your accomplishments. As with the “Work/Volunteer Experience” section, include the number of hours per day and days per week you participate in that activity if you would like.

6. Leave a space below and in a new line, type “Honors/Awards”. Hit either the tab or enter key and type in the title of an award, honor, or distinction. Include a description if you would like. A description would help if it was an award the reader of the resume would not automatically recognize. If in high school, you might not want to include your middle school awards.

7. Leave a space below and in a new line, type “Special Skills”. Hit either the tab or enter key and type in any special skills you might have such as typing speed in words per minute (WPM), word processing experience, computer platform experience (Mac or PC), etc.

Tips & Warnings

• Type your resume in a font and size that is easy to read such as Times New Roman font and point 11 or 12 size. Also, choose a font that all computers have so that if you were to email a resume, your resume would not show up as unknown characters.
• Use basic formatting for your resume such as bold or underline. Any other special formatting is distracting and unnecessary. Use bold or underline for your categories.
• Organize the information in your categories by least to most important or most to least important and group related activities together such as grouping/listing together service clubs, music performance groups, etc.
• Be sure to highlight your leadership experience and/or special awards or honors that make you stand out.
• A resume is a good thing to give to someone you would like a letter of recommendation from so that they know and can mention your activities or accomplishments.
• You can change the titles of categories to suite your preferences such as instead of "Honors/Awards," it could be titled "Accomplishments".
• Some resumes include an objective (what you hope to accomplish or job position you would like to obtain) before listing any categories but it is not necessary for a teenage resume. However, you could include your GPA if you would like. The general guideline is if it is above a 3.0, it would be good to include.
• For the categories of Work/Volunteer Experience, Extracurricular Activities, and Honors/Awards, you might want to include the time period/year(s) you were involved with those particular jobs, activities, awards, etc.
• As mentioned before, resume formats differ between person to person, this is just one of many formats of a resume. Research some others to find exactly which format you would like or suites your needs.
• Do not lie or exaggerate on your resume.
• Do not make your resume more than one page. The reader(s) of your resume have a limited amount of time to go over it.
• Make sure your resume is constant in its formatting. If you have periods at the end of descriptions, make sure every description has a period.
• Proof read and double check your resume for spelling or grammar errors, any words without spacing between, etc.
• Do not put down things you did in middle school.