Student Resume

About This Resume

Semesters of classes, labs and group projects build skills that employers pay for, and the resume is where a recruiter first looks for proof of them. Many students send one that lists a summer job and little else. The fix takes an evening. A student resume leads with education and backs it up with projects, campus jobs and activities, so a short work history stops being a problem.

Recruiters who hire interns usually read the education section first. What they hope to find after that is a sign that you finish what you start, such as a project with a real result, a job you kept through exam weeks or a club role with actual duties. Grades matter to some employers and hardly at all to others. Include your GPA if it is 3.0 or above, or if the posting asks for it; when it is lower, let coursework and projects carry the page.

What to Include

• Education at the top: school, degree, major and minor, and your expected graduation month and year
• GPA if it is 3.0 or above or the posting asks for it, plus dean's list or other honors
• Relevant courses, named the way the job ad names the skill, such as Statistics or Financial Accounting
• Two or three projects with what you built, the tools you used and what came of it
• Campus jobs, part-time work and summer jobs, even ones that have nothing to do with your major
• Clubs, sports and volunteer roles where you held a title or a real duty
• A skills line with software, lab methods and languages you could use on the first day

Student Resume Sample

Tips for Your Student Resume

• Put education first until you have a full-time job in your field. After that first job, move it below your experience.
• Write each project the way you would write a job. Give it a title, the tools you used and one result, such as a finished report, a working app or a presentation to a real client.
• If a campus job has nothing to do with the internship, keep it anyway. Holding a job through exams shows you can be relied on, and managers of interns care about that a great deal.
• Use your school email or a plain personal address, and check it every day while you are applying, because interview invitations go to whatever address is on the page.
• Keep it to one page. A second page on a student resume is usually filled with high school details that can go.
• Drop high school once you are in your second year of college, unless you earned something there an employer would recognize, such as a state science fair win.
• Match course names to the posting. If the ad asks for statistical analysis, listing Econometrics and Probability and Statistics shows it in the employer's own terms.