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Creating a resume and cover letter is a vital skill for high school students, whether they are applying to college or seeking employment after graduation. These documents serve to highlight their skills, interests, educational accomplishments, and aspirations, all while reflecting their professionalism.
How can high school students develop a resume when they have limited work experience? We’ve gathered the best advice for teaching resume-writing to high school students and provided high-quality, ready-to-use templates to ensure your college and career readiness curriculum aligns with today’s professional standards.
Streamline the resume format
The initial step in crafting a resume is recognizing that it should be concise despite containing numerous details. Students and novice resume writers often mistakenly believe “more is better,” cluttering their resumes with excessive information, which can transform them into lengthy essays instead of easily scannable professional documents.
Utilize resume templates for high school students to demonstrate the ideal one-page structure typical of resumes, including bullet points, margins, and other formatting essentials. Tech-savvy students can personalize their resumes for readability and uniqueness, as long as they remember that this is a quick-reference document, not an autobiography.
Follow a straightforward career readiness template
While many aspects of job applications have evolved since teachers’ days, the importance of the resume remains. Educate students on how to present their skills and interests with templates that guide them in creating resumes, cover letters, and other essential professional documents.
Resume Writing Template and Cover Letters for Career Exploration Activity
By Caffeine Queen Teacher
Grades: 10th-12th
Subjects: Business, Economics, Family Consumer Sciences
Launch a high school career exploration unit with a comprehensive resource that addresses each step. Use both digital and printable templates for cover letters and resumes to assist students in crafting their initial career documents. Ensure students verify their work with rubrics and word choice cheat sheets.
Resume Writing Template
By Literacy in Focus
Grades: 7th-10th
Subjects: Business, Writing
The fill-in-the-blanks approach makes resume writing straightforward. Guide students on where to input their contact details, work experience, education and awards, interests, and references using a simple resume template. The form can be printed for students to complete or used as a draft before they create their own format.
Keep the basics brief
While resumes should delve slightly deeper than just “name” and “contact information,” they should not be overly detailed. Essential components of a high school student resume include:
- Name and contact information (email and phone number)
- Educational experience (including GPA)
- Work and/or volunteering experience (if any)
- Extracurricular activities
- Skills (soft and hard)
- Awards and honors
- Interests
- References
Each section should be concise, using minimal words. Remind students that employers or college admissions officers should be able to quickly grasp who they are by glancing at their resume. And if students enjoy writing, they’ll have more freedom in their cover letters!
Write resumes thoughtfully and deliberately
Writing a resume is akin to any other writing task in class, but this one could be pivotal for landing a desired job. Assist students in applying academic writing techniques to their resumes by using academic standards and methodologies when crafting this key document.
Resume & Cover Letter Writing + Templates—College & Career Readiness Activities
By Jenn Liu — Engaging to Empower
Grades: 9th-12th
Subjects: School Counseling, Writing
Utilize a no-prep career preparation resource to guide high schoolers in writing cover letters and resumes through the 5E approach (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate). The resource includes two comprehensive lesson plans to guide teachers and students in creating professional documents, with samples, templates, and scoring guides instructing students on the correct format.
Resume and Cover Letter Writing for College & Career Readiness
By Tracee Orman
Grades: 11th-12th
Standards: CCSS W.11-12.1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10; L.11-12.1, 2, 3, 4; CCRA.W.1, 2, 4, 10; L.1, 2, 3
This resource aligns with writing and language CCSS and is designed for a college and career readiness unit, providing everything high schoolers need to write a resume and cover letter. Students use online editable Google Drive links to construct their professional documents using templates, rubrics, samples, and guidance for preparing polished interview materials.
Include soft and hard skills
Your college and career readiness program should differentiate between soft and hard skills, especially in relation to a student’s abilities within and outside the classroom.
Common soft skills to feature on a high school student resume include:
- Communication
- Time management
- Problem-solving
- Flexibility
- Organization
- Leadership
Hard skills, which are industry-specific, depend on a student’s future career goals or interests but frequently include:
- Foreign language proficiency
- Coding and computer programming
- Creative and technical writing
- Artistic and musical abilities
- Scientific research and writing
Encourage students to brainstorm different skills and find ways to incorporate them into their resumes, possibly by providing relevant examples or simply listing them in a “Skills” section for future employers to see.
Find experience in extracurriculars
If a resume is a professional document, how do high schoolers build one without professional experience? The solution lies in identifying experience from everyday activities, including extracurriculars, volunteering, class projects, and other aspects of life, and substituting them for work experience. These activities are excellent for showcasing both soft and hard skills effectively.
For instance, club presidents and founders exhibit leadership and initiative, as do volunteers at summer camps or elementary reading programs. Students involved in long-term passion projects can highlight the collaborative skills they developed, while performing arts students can demonstrate the focus and dedication they bring to every performance. Participating in sports also emphasizes teamwork!
“One strategy I’ve found especially effective is having students create a ‘Love–Hate Business Plan.’ They identify the things they love to do and a problem in the world they wish did not exist, then design how they can use their unique interests and skills to make a positive impact, such as hosting a bake sale or craft fair to support ending world hunger. Once they see where they are headed, the resume becomes a living roadmap instead of a static document, and they stop asking, ‘What do I put on a resume?’ and start asking, ‘How do I build the experiences that align with the life I want?’”
– Lauren from English With Ease
Focus on the future
While high school student resumes might not contain as much information as those of more experienced individuals, students don’t require decades of industry experience to know their future goals. Instead, they can use their current skills to develop a vision for their professional future.
Encourage students to use their resumes to narrate a story about their future. How might they apply their STEM skills from high school in engineering roles? What can they take from student government to a future legal career? How might athletes apply lessons from the field to becoming CEOs? Using goal-focused language can compensate for any lack of life experience reflected on their resume.
“Make life skills future-focused and action-oriented, and start with vision before logistics. When students realize they can design experiences instead of waiting for them, and that initiative builds resumes, confidence, and character all at once, life skills become transformational rather than mundane.”
– Lauren from English With Ease
Personalize the cover letter
A cover letter allows students to address any gaps in their resumes. It’s where they can not only demonstrate their writing skills but also answer any remaining questions an employer or college admissions officer might have about them. Incorporate cover letters into high school writing prompts, encouraging students to reflect on their experiences.
Students should tailor cover letters (and, to some extent, resumes) to their audience, linking their personal attributes to the specific organization where they are applying. Different job opportunities may necessitate varied writing styles. For instance, a trade-related job might require a cover letter emphasizing practical and hard skills, while an office internship might benefit from a focus on the student’s personality.
“Lean into your students’ interests. Understand what careers they wish to pursue and tailor your lessons accordingly. For example, it’s important to know if your learners are pursuing trades apprenticeships or more office type roles.”
– Lynne from Northleo Writing Inc
Develop interview skills
High school student resumes serve an important role, but they are just the starting point in the job application process. Students need to know how to use an interview to embody the person depicted in their resume (who should ideally be an accurate representation of who they are).
Conduct practice interviews where students can distribute their resumes and discuss their skills, and what they would contribute to a hypothetical job. You can act as the interviewer, have peers interview each other, or invite professionals from the community to listen. These discussions build crucial speaking and listening skills while reinforcing the idea that a resume is a launchpad for professional endeavors.
Inspire high school professionalism with interview questions
Assist students in getting to know each other (and themselves) with interview questions focused on their future careers. They will learn from each other as they answer, and hopefully, enhance their interviewing skills in the process.
Conversation Starters for Middle and High School | Interview & Resume
By College Counselor Studio
Grades: 9th-12th
Subjects: School Counseling
Encourage high school students to think and talk about their futures with a set of discussion questions on resumes, interviews, and careers. A straightforward lesson plan guides students through the process, while the conversation starters help them refine their understanding and practice job interview skills with peers.
Prepare for the modern work landscape
The landscape of job seeking has evolved significantly over the past 50 years. Paper applications have been replaced by online forms, job duties take a backseat to measurable achievements, and with the advent of automated resume readers and AI tracking systems, keeping professional materials relevant and easily scannable is more critical than ever.
High school students should understand that what sets them apart is not fancy fonts or scented resumes, contrary to what movies might suggest. Employers want to know that the person they hire is capable, adaptable, and eager to learn. This reflects how high school teachers aim to prepare their students and what high school student resumes should communicate.
Bring career exploration into every class
When college and career readiness is integrated into all classes, students will develop crucial high school life skills alongside academic knowledge. Whether crafting a high school student resume in social studies, researching salary potentials in math, or writing a well-composed cover letter in English, they will be equipped for any path they choose after graduation.
For additional college and career readiness resources, explore more high school resume resources to help students display what they’ve learned and what they aspire to achieve.
