Student Resume Example
A student resume or a college resume shouldn't be underestimated as it's the starting point of your upcoming career. As important as it is many candidates overlook the key aspects that can make your student resume a win. This article walks you through a complete guide on how to write a student resume to secure that very first job.
You can now build your Student CV FREE from our resume builder below.
How to write a student resume?
The main sections of a college resume/ student resume are as follows.
- Contact Information Section
- Objective/ Personal summary statement
- Education Highlights
- Relevant Experience
- Skills
Apart from these key areas, it's favorable to add the following sections too.
- Awards/ Achievements
- Any Major Projects
- Interests
- Languages/ Hobbies
- References
Now let's look at each important element separately.
1. How to write the contact information section?
As in any other professional resume, contact details must be included in a student CV. The main fields to include here are,
- Your first name followed by the last name
- Phone number
- Email Address
- Residential Address
In a professional resume, you can see a professional title on top. Here, if you don't have enough experience in a given profession, feel free to add the title of the position that you apply for. E.g.: Intern Software Engineer
Apart from the above key fields, you can also add a link to your LinkedIn profile. However, if you do so, make sure that the profile is up to date. Also, if you have any online presence related to the job you are applying for, links to such websites/ portfolios can be added in this section.
2. CV / Resume Summary for Freshers
Generally, a recruiter will spend only 6 seconds on a resume to determine if he/ she should proceed reading further. That's why a strong resume summary/ objective is vital to be added at the top of your resume.
However, a resume summary's main focus is on work experience, whereas a resume objective mainly focuses on the candidate's skills, goals, and education. So an objective statement is ideal for a fresher.
In an intern resume/ student resume, include the following details in the objective section.
- Your main field of study
- The relevant skills that you possess for the position
- How can you benefit yourself and the company
Check out the curriculum vitae example for students resume objective below.
3. How to write the Education Section?
When adding education summary records, use the reverse-chronological order, where to write the latest on the top. For a student CV, writing a detailed education section is important because relevant details can convey a lot about your competencies.
A general education record would look like below with the key fields of the name of the qualification, University/ college/ school name, graduated year, and month.
However, in your student resume, you can add optional fields such as your GPA, Awards, any Honors, and relevant coursework or projects you undertook as depicted below.
The recruiters know that you do not ought to have a lengthy list of professional qualifications, hence emphasizing what you possess matters.
4. How to write the experience section of the fresher's CV?
Again, the employers don't expect the freshers to have much of professional experience. That's why as a starter you should replace the sub-heading of Professional experience with Relevant experience.
The challenge is to determine what comes under the relevant work experience. You can highlight your practical experience by adding the following records under experience.
- Any internships
- Part-time jobs that can show relevant competencies for the job you apply for
- Volunteered work
- Records of exchange programs
- Records of freelancing work
Each record of your employment should contain,
- Job Title/ Designation
- The Employer or the institution
- Duration
- A brief list of the most important responsibilities
Check out the work experience CV pattern for freshers below.
5. What skills should be emphasized in a Student Resume?
When it comes to curriculum vitae format for students, adding a powerful skills section is important. Your skills can be grouped under hard skills, and soft skills. Hard skills are job-related skills acquired via education or training, whereas soft skills cover your personality traits.
For example, some of the hard skills that you can list for an intern Software Engineer position would be,
- Data Analysis & Statistics
- Web Development
- Database Management
- Technical Writing
- Version Control
Some of the soft skills that you can include are,
- Effective communication
- Leadership
- Team worker
- Critical thinking
- Conflict resolution
Or else, you can dedicate a technical skills section as depicted in the image below.
Other Top Tips
- Use positive action verbs and keywords when elaborating on your experiences. And most importantly avoid buzzwords from your resume.
- Buzzwords are cliches that give an overall less professional outlook to your student resume. You can now use our Buzzword scanner below to determine any buzzwords from your resume and to avoid them.
- Formatting your document well is another essential thing to do. Poorly formatted document sends a negative signal to your work ethic.
- Get your resume proofread by someone. Again, grammar and spelling errors save negatively on the outlook of your resume. Therefore, proofreading matters!
Curriculum vitae format / sample for students
Check out the example CV layout for students below.
Given below is a Student Resume cover letter example which was written to the above resume. You can study it and grab the key aspects of a good cover letter.
Also, now you can write the complete cover letter guide from here.
Also, you can now explore a wide array of other resume guides on the Resume Samples page including Graphic Designer Resume Sample, Content Writer Resume Sample, and many more!
We hope our guide on CV ideas for students gave you a good insight into what is expected from you as a fresher. Also now you can request a free CV format of a student from the form below.