How to Write Your First Resume (Teens, Students, First Jobs)

What a first-time employer is looking for

When a shop, café, supermarket, cinema or summer camp hires someone for their first job, the manager isn't comparing career histories. They're trying to answer a few practical questions from one page:

• Will you turn up? Reliability matters most. Good school attendance, a long-running weekend commitment or a sport you've stuck with for years all answer this.
• When can you work? Part-time rosters are built around availability. A resume that says which days and hours you can do saves a phone call.
• Can you deal with people? Serving, helping, coaching, tutoring and volunteering all show it.
• Can you handle basic tasks? Counting change, following a checklist, using a till or a spreadsheet, keeping a space clean and safe.
• Will someone vouch for you? A teacher, coach or neighbour you've done work for can act as a reference.

Keep those five questions in mind as you write. Every line on your first resume should answer at least one of them. Anything that doesn't — favourite films, a long list of school subjects, a paragraph about your dreams — can go. If you're a graduate looking for a first professional role rather than a part-time job, our guide to a resume with no experience covers that stage in more depth.

The first resume layout, section by section

A first resume fits comfortably on one page. Use this order, and drop any section you have nothing real to put in:

1. Name and contact details: your name, a mobile number you answer, a sensible email address (firstname.lastname rather than a nickname) and your town or suburb. A full street address isn't needed.
2. Objective: two lines on the job you want and what you bring. For a first job an objective works well; our resume objective examples include some for students.
3. Availability: the days and hours you can work, and when you can start. More on this below.
4. Education: your school or college, the year you're in or when you finish, and any results, awards or subjects that relate to the job.
5. Experience: any work you've done for someone else, formal or informal: babysitting, tutoring, a family business, a market stall, a work experience placement.
6. Volunteering and activities: sport, clubs, school roles, community or faith groups, events you helped run.
7. Skills: practical ones, such as cash handling, a first aid certificate, food hygiene training, typing speed and the languages you speak.
8. References: one or two adults who know you well and aren't family. Our guide to references on a resume covers who to ask and how to list them.

If your experience is stronger than your schooling — a year of weekend work at a garden centre, say — put Experience above Education.

What counts as experience at 15, 16 or 17

Most first resumes have no formal job on them, and managers expect that. What matters is that you did something useful, for someone else, more than once. All of these count:

• Babysitting, pet sitting or dog walking for neighbours or family friends.
• Tutoring or homework help for younger students.
• Mowing lawns, washing cars, clearing gardens or a paper round.
• Helping in a family shop, farm, restaurant or business.
• Selling at a school fair, a market stall or an online shop you ran.
• A school work experience week or placement.
• Coaching or refereeing junior sport.
• Volunteering at a food bank, charity shop, animal shelter, place of worship or community event.
• School roles: prefect, class representative, library monitor, stage crew, canteen helper.

Give informal work a plain title and context, just like a job: Babysitter, three local families, 2024-present, or Shop assistant, family convenience store (weekends), 2025-present. Don't dress it up as more than it was. "Childcare Specialist" for occasional babysitting will make a manager smile, and not in a good way; the honest title and a strong bullet do more. Volunteering can sit in its own section or under Experience, and our guide to volunteer experience on a resume shows both ways.

Turning school, sport and chores into bullet points

Give each entry one to three bullets. Start with an action verb, say what you did, and add a detail that shows responsibility: how often, how many, how long, or what you were trusted with. Some weak lines and stronger rewrites:

• Babysitting. Weak: "Looked after kids." Stronger: "Care for two children aged 4 and 7 every Friday evening, including dinner, homework and bedtime; booked every week for over a year."
• Paper round. Weak: "Delivered newspapers." Stronger: "Delivered to 60 houses before school six days a week for 18 months, in all weather, without missing a round."
• Sport. Weak: "Play football." Stronger: "Vice-captain of the under-16 team; help the coach run warm-ups and look after the kit at two training sessions a week."
• School canteen. Weak: "Helped in canteen." Stronger: "Serve lunch to a queue of around 150 students on a weekly rota; follow food hygiene rules and work the till."
• Tutoring. Weak: "Tutored maths." Stronger: "Tutor a Year 7 student in maths every week, preparing practice questions from the school's topic list."
• Stage crew. Weak: "Helped with school play." Stronger: "Ran the lighting cues for four performances of the school musical after learning the desk in two weeks of rehearsals."

Use present tense for things you still do and past tense for finished ones. Only use numbers you could explain to the manager in person; if you don't know one, describe the responsibility instead. Our list of resume action verbs has more openers.

Writing your availability and objective lines

For part-time and casual work, availability can decide whether you get an interview. Put it near the top, under the objective, as one or two plain lines:

• School student: "Available weekdays after 4 pm, Saturdays all day, and full-time in the school holidays."
• University or college student: "Available up to 15 hours a week during term (Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, weekends) and full-time from mid-May."
• Summer job: "Available full-time from 20 June to 31 August, including weekends."
• School leaver: "Available full-time immediately; happy to work early, late and weekend shifts."

Be accurate. Saying you can work Sundays and then backing out loses a job faster than saying no at the start. If you're an international student, keep your hours within the work conditions of your visa.

The objective sits just above. Two lines are enough: the job you want, and the one or two things that make you a good bet:

• "Year 11 student looking for a weekend retail role. Two years of regular babysitting and a school canteen rota have taught me to stay calm, count change accurately and look after people."
• "First-year nursing student seeking part-time work as a care assistant. Holds a current first aid certificate and has volunteered weekly at a care home since 2024."

A complete first resume, worked through

Here's how a full page could look for Maya, 16, applying for a weekend team member job at a supermarket in the UK. The details are invented; the shape is what to copy.

• Header: Maya Patel, her mobile number, a professional email address, and her town (Leicester).
• Objective: "Reliable Year 11 student looking for a weekend team member role. Regular babysitter and school canteen volunteer, comfortable with cash, customers and early starts."
• Availability: "Saturdays and Sundays, any shift; full-time in the school holidays."
• Education: "[School name], Leicester. Year 11, taking GCSEs in Maths, English, Science and Business. Attendance award, Year 10."
• Experience: "Babysitter, two local families, 2024-present: care for three children aged 3 to 8 on weekday evenings; trusted with house keys and emergency contacts." Then: "Canteen volunteer, [School name], 2025-present: serve around 150 students at lunch on a weekly rota and work the till."
• Activities: "Netball club for five years; vice-captain of the under-16 team. Stage crew for the school musical, 2025."
• Skills: cash handling, customer service, Microsoft Word and Excel, English and Gujarati.
• References: "Available on request: Head of Year 11 and netball coach."

That fills one page once it's spaced properly, and every line answers one of the manager's questions. A university student would follow the same shape, with their course and year under Education and campus roles or holiday jobs under Experience. For shop work specifically, the retail sales associate resume template shows how a slightly longer history is laid out.

Age, work rules and personal details by country

What you include about yourself, and when you can start working at all, depends on where you live:

• United States: under federal law, 14 is generally the youngest age for most non-farm jobs, with limits on the hours 14- and 15-year-olds can work. Some states add their own rules or ask under-18s for a work permit, often arranged through school. Leave your date of birth and photo off the resume.
• United Kingdom: 13 is usually the youngest age for part-time work, with limits on hours during term time, and local councils can add their own rules. Many employers say "CV" rather than resume. Leave off your date of birth and photo.
• Australia and Canada: the youngest working age and the hour limits are set by each state, territory or province, so check your local government's website. No photo or date of birth on the resume.
• India: the law bars employing children under 14 in almost all work, and under-18s in hazardous work. Teen part-time jobs are less common, so a first resume is usually written for a college internship or a first job after a degree; our resume format for freshers covers that. Indian resumes sometimes include a date of birth, but it's optional.

If an employer needs your age for legal reasons, the application form will ask. You don't need to put it on the resume itself.

Sending it: in person, online or by email

First jobs are often found by walking in as well as online. A few habits help whichever route you take:

• Handing it in: print a few copies on plain white paper, go at a quiet time (mid-morning, not the lunch rush), and ask for the manager.
• Online forms: larger employers often ask you to fill in a form as well as upload a resume. Keep the details the same in both.
• By email: attach a PDF named "Firstname-Lastname-Resume.pdf" and write a short message: the job, when you're available, and a thank you. A few lines is enough for a part-time role; our guide on how to write a cover letter covers longer ones.
• Follow up: if you've heard nothing after a week, a polite call or visit is normal.
• Tailor it: change the objective and the order of your bullets for each kind of job. A café cares about speed and hygiene; a tutoring centre cares about patience and grades.

Before you send anything, ask a parent, teacher or friend to check it for typos. Spelling mistakes are the easiest reason to be passed over, and the easiest to fix.

Making your first resume with ResumeInk

Start from a sample resume, or upload a draft you've already written as a PDF, Word file or photo, and the AI rebuilds your details in a designed template. Click any text to edit it, and hide the sections you don't need. Availability isn't a standard section, so add it as a custom section with that heading. The optional AI help can improve a bullet's wording or suggest skills for the job. Single-column layouts such as Classic and Compact header suit a first resume; if you apply somewhere a photo is expected, four layouts can show one (Sidebar, Portrait, Compact header and Timeline). Switch among the 260 designs without retyping, check the ATS score, and download a clean PDF. The resume builder for freshers page has more for students.