How to Make a Resume for Your First Job
Creating an effective resume can be difficult when you are new in the job market and do not have an impressive list of past job experiences. You can help your cause by doing unpaid internships within your field while in college, getting involved in organizations and clubs that help enhance your career knowledge and becoming part of professional networks. Once you have done all you can to gain industry experience, you need to get it into a resume that will help you land your first job.
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Instructions
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Creating Your First Resume
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Keep your resume tone professional, avoid mentioning specifics about your ethnic background or gender and use a format that is easy to read. A good format is the outline format that uses bullet points to highlight areas. Begin the resume by pointing out your career goals. Indicate what kind of position you are hoping to obtain, and the path you hope to follow.
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Your next section is your educational background. This should list the educational institutions you attended, the course of study you took, when you graduated and any special projects or commendations you received. If your grade point average was above a 3.0, list it; otherwise leave it out. List any school political offices you held, and also mention any pertinent school organizations you belonged to. For example, if you are looking for a career in journalism and you wrote for the school newspaper, mention it here. If you are looking for a career in biochemistry and were in the school chess club, that is not necessary to mention.
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Outline your experience and pertinent industry accomplishments next. Because this is your first resume, this section does not need to be in chronological order. The point of this section is to highlight your industry experience, so put the most direct experience first. Begin with internships you held, paying jobs you worked and any professional organizations you belong to. List company names, dates of service and tasks performed.
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Your final section will be your relevant skills. Take some time to come up with as extensive a list as possible for this section. Avoid lying, but do list anything you can think of that would pertain to the jobs you will be applying for. Computer experience, volunteer work you have done or any other skills that you have that would be important to your career should be listed in this section.
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Tips & Warnings
Keep the resume to one page. Leave out salary requirements. Use a font such as Arial or Times New Roman for easy reading.
