STEP THREE: Creating Your First Student Resume

Do high school students need a resume?

High school students are entering a new phase in their life, and now is the time to start putting together their first student resume (also known as a CV, which is short for the French term Curriculum vitae, meaning "course of life").

The high school student resume objective is to show the reader who you are before they even meet you. It is that important "first impression" that everyone is always telling you about. This first glance is what gives your reader a mental image of who you are -- so you need to put your best foot forward to let them know that you are the perfect candidate for whatever it is that you are applying for.

For our purposes at Enter13, we are creating your resume to use in applications for scholarships, but this first student resume will be the foundational document that with diligent updating the information as your achievements progress you will be able to use for many years to come.

Putting everything about you on one sheet of paper may seem like a difficult task at first, but this post will show you how to find what you need to highlight, put everything into a quick summary and format the detailed list in a polished and professional manner.

A Word About The Format

The best way to get noticed is by highlighting the important things in a standard professional resume format. For scholarship application purposes, we are going to explain the very basic information that should be on this document. In this case, the simpler the better.

However, if you are a creative student, and feel that it is appropriate to get a little funky and outside of the box -- by all means make that colorful resume as a second copy the use in the situations where that creativity is expected. Various industries will love that look! Always remember that you are writing your resume for your audience, not for yourself. The reader is the one who will be deciding how the way you present your accomplishments makes them think about you.

At the end of this post there is a link to a template that you can use for your first student resume. You may want to print that out and review it as you read the descriptions below, or even copy and paste that template and write over it as each section is described below.

Note that you can change the sizes, fonts, even the order of the categories that we have suggested on this template. It is just intended to give you a starting place to create your resume format.

What should be on a high school resume

Your student resume should be divided into the following sections:

CONTACT INFORMATION

The top of your resume should always include your contact info:

• name (use a larger, bold font to make your name stand out)

• home address

• phone number

• email address

Be sure that you use an email address that you check often, with a username that sounds like a professional address. For instance, "FootballSCJ" is fine if you are an athlete, but"lockedinacage2020" may not be what you want to put out there as your first impression.

My suggestion is to create an email address specifically dedicated to your college and scholarship search, and share the login information for that account with your parents. A lot of emails are generated when you start signing up for college information, and it might be easier to keep that all in one place rather than having it mixing in and taking over your regular email inbox. A second or third set of eyes on this scholarship email account could assure that nothing important is missed which could cause you to be passed over for an award.

A Side Note About Social Media

Social media contacts can be added in the contact information section, but it is really only necessary if it is a significant part of your life. If you are a true influencer, or in a niche that your reader would not likely know about, then absolutely add your handle in your contact information! But if you are like most students, your social media accounts aren't really something you use as a resume builder.

If you do add any social media contacts to your resume, be sure that you take the time to dig deep into your social media accounts and scrub them of anything that might not be showing your best self. Don't be lured into the security of "private" settings, as they may not be as private as you think. Check every tag from your friends, as "guilty by association" could be a deal breaker for a scholarship judge, a hiring manager or a college admissions team.

Remember that keg party that the class clown held when his parents were out of town your Junior year? And his girlfriend tagged every boy in the class, hoping to get a lot of likes? Oh, and you weren't even at that party because it was your grandma's birthday and your family was taking her out to dinner for the special occasion? The person who is stalking your social media accounts doesn't know any of that background story... all they know is that your name is tagged at a keg party and you're 16 years old. You may not have even noticed the tag, since you aren't really friends with these people. IT DOESN'T MATTER, you are now guilty by association, and your scholarship could be lost.

Anything that is the slightest bit questionable should be scrubbed on a regular basis in order to protect your reputation. Unfortunately, that's the world we live in today.

Here's the upside.... It is likely that every big achievement, every award, every milestone you have passed has been documented on social media by someone who loves you. When you are putting together your resume, scan through that person's social media accounts! It will remind you of activities and achievements that you may have forgotten about, and all of the details regarding the honors and dates will be right there for you!

EDUCATION

The second section of your student resume should include your education, including any special summer or after-school programs you may have attended.

For your first resume, this will include the name of your current school, the city and state where the school is located and the year you expect to graduate. Underneath you can add your GPA if it's impressive (3.5 and above). You could also add in things like if you were on the Dean's List -- either by number of quarters that you were on it or the actual years that you had that honor.

If you transferred schools in high school, you should use the same format for both schools you attended. Note that everything should be in reverse chronological order, so the newest information is always on top. The school you are currently attending will be on the top, and the school you transferred from would be just below.

If your school is a career school that isn't clearly identified by its name, be sure to note that next to the school's name, as your reader may not be aware of the special curriculum.

if you participated in any other special educational opportunities, this is where to add that relevant coursework. Other activities could be fun summer school classes, a babysitter certification class, Splash!, Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, Space Camp, etc.

The goal of adding this additional information to your resume is to show your reader that you are interested in learning beyond the regular school day. Many high school students will not have these additional opportunities to add -- that's absolutely okay -- but if you do, certainly bring them to the forefront!

EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

What do you do outside of class, but is still connected to the school or your peers?

Did you run for Student Council? Do you play JV basketball or belong to a travel sports club? Do you work on the yearbook? Are you in the Chess Club? Do you participate in Girl/Boy Scouts?

This section should include the name of the organization you belong to, the years you belonged, and any leadership positions you have held.

For organizational purposes, it might be easiest to try to group similar activities together and use bullet points. For instance, list all of your theater experience with one bullet point titled "Theater" and the shows you were in indented below that, noting the character you played and the year, and then add all of your sports activities with a second bullet point, and listing the name of the sport and the years you played.

The order of how you list these activities is completely up to you, but make sure it is logical. You could choose to put the ones on top if you held leadership or team captain roles, you could choose to order them based on how important these activities are to you, you could try to put them in reverse chronological order, with the most recent on top.

Once you have everything noted in a way that makes sense to you, be sure you show the document to someone else to see if they understand your logic. Your reader may see things differently than you do, so an objective second opinion on this layout will help give you a different perspective.

VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE

This section is to show the things that you have done for your community outside of school. It could be involvement in a single event, or an activity you participate in on a regular basis.

Remember when you took tickets at the PTA fundraiser booth? Did you help at Big Truck Day at the local library? Help serve cookies at the blood drive at your Community Center? Usher or lector at your local church? Take your weekend to mentor younger students in reading or teach elementary students new skills in your sport?

Volunteer work and what you choose to do in your free time is important for many scholarships. In some cases it can be as important as your academic achievements. If you haven't started serving your community in some way, now is the time to start!

AWARDS AND HONORS

Were you named MVP or Most Improved during a soccer game? Did you achieve the Gold Level in the local library's school reading program? Win any yearbook superlatives? Was your poem selected to be published in the local newspaper?

This section seems to be the hardest for students to remember, but if you have parents who are on social media a lot, now is the time to stalk their pages. Parents love to share honors that their kids receive, even the ones that students might quickly forget. Trust me, the information is there, right down to the time and date stamp when the honor was awarded. :)

WORK EXPERIENCE

You're young, so the person reading your resume isn't expecting you to have a wealth of work experience. A part-time job after school or full-time summer jobs should definitely be included on your resume.

Did you mow lawns over the summer? Did you babysit? Walk the neighbor's dog after school? Manage the website for your church?

These experiences will show the reader not just that you can respond to a job ad, but that you are acquiring essential soft skills (empathy, communication skills, emotional intelligence) in addition to the hard skills (reading, writing, math) that you are learning in the classroom. It shows them that you are learning responsibility and are gaining independence.

SPECIAL INTERESTS AND SKILLS

The Special Interests and Skills section is where you can add in anything that doesn't fit somewhere else.

Did you reach Level 48 in Pokemon Go? Love fishing or tinkering with old cars with your favorite uncle? Are you the person who people always ask to bring something to the bake sale since your cupcakes are so spectacular? What programs can you code in?

What you want to show here is that you are developing interests of your own outside of the classroom. Whatever you write in this section will often be the lead question when an interviewer meets you, since they know that it will make you comfortable to talk about it. It could also be a shared interest of the interviewer, which will make the start off conversation easy as they transition to the rest of the interview questions.

It’s also important to list relevant skills or qualifications that make you stand out from others who are applying for the same scholarships. Remember, it’s all about what makes YOU different from other applicants, so don't skip over this skills section!

Whew! You are far more impressive on paper than you expected, aren't you?

Last thoughts....

• Keep everything to one page. Once all of your information starts to get to be too much for one page, the older or less important details should start to be deleted. While you are young, the loose rule is that things fall off your resume once they are about four years old. By the time you reach your senior year, very little if anything from middle school will be left on student resumes.

• At the end of this section you will have your first real resume. Going forward, every time you break a school record, start a new part-time job, win a scholarship, etc add it to your resume immediately. Keeping this document up to date will make your life as a college student significantly easier. In a few years, as a college student you will use this student resume to share with a hiring manager when applying for part-time jobs or even your first internship. Your college student resume will be easier to create since you have this high school resume as your foundation.

• .Proofread and spell check, again and again and again!. Today's auto-correct technology is both a blessing and a curse. You know you have laughed at your mom's texts when she thinks she has said or typed one thing, but the words come out completely different on the small screen. Don't let that happen in reverse! One instance of the wrong apostrophe or spelling could eliminate your application from the running. Don't rely on the auto-correct, and take the time to proofread and spell check every time you look at your resume. Ask a trusted family member, teacher or school counselor to be a second set of eyes for typographical errors. Double check and triple check your document before you commit to making it a PDF. I'm going to say that again... Double check and triple check your document before you commit to make it a PDF. The more eyes on the paper before you submit it with an application, the more likely you are to catch every little potential problem before it's too late.

Here's the link to a first resume template. So go ahead -- impress us!