Guidance Department

Resume

As a high school student, you may think that you don't need a resume until you are about to graduate from college and begin your search for a full-time job.  However, high school students need resumes just as much as college students do.  From getting into college to obtaining a part-time job, a resume is essential because college recruiters and employers alike want to see a brief summary of your abilities, education, and experiences.  Here is what you should include in your high school resume.

Heading
Your name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address should all go at the top of your resume.  Be sure to use a permanent address and telephone number.  Also, remember to use an e-mail address that sounds professional.  FirstnameLastname@ is the standard format for an e-mail address when using it on a resume.  Do not use an e-mail address such as hotbody@soandso.com.  It just isn't professional.

Objective
An objective lets college recruiters or potential employers know your main goal.  If your target is a college recruiter, tailor your objective to that specific school. For example, your objective may be, "To earn a degree in psychology at Boston College."  If you want to get a part-time job, you will need to modify your objective to that particular job, such as "To obtain a part-time sales position with Hollister."

Education/Academics
In the education section, list the schools you have attended.  Be sure to include your GPA if it is a 3.0 or higher.  You can also mention any academic honors, awards, and/or recognitions that you have received.  These can include honor-roll recognitions, essay-writing awards, science competitions, etc.

Experience
The experience section should briefly give an overview of work experience that has taught you valuable skills.  In this section, include:  title of position, name of organization, location of work (town and state), dates of employment, and description of work responsibilities.  Be sure to use action words to describe your job duties, such as sold, created, processed, etc.  Since many high school students do not have a lot of work experience, you can also describe class projects in which you have learned important skills or even leave this section out all together and concentrate on the education/academics and additional information/extracurricular sections.

Additional Information/Extracurricular Activities
The additional information or extracurricular section should be used to place key elements of your background that doesn't fit in any other section.  You may want to include:  special skills, leadership roles, volunteer experiences, participation in sports, band, yearbook, etc.  This section is where you can demonstrate your uniqueness.

References
Be sure to ask people if they would serve as your reference before you give their names out.  Give the name of the person that you are using as a reference as well as the department for which they work.