As a teen, you don't need all the experience in the world to land your first job. You may already have the skills required for the job; you need to describe them in a way that pleases recruiters.
Before we start with the teen resume examples, check this video for essential resume-writing tips for teens.
All resume examples, writing tips, and guides are meticulously reviewed and approved by certified resume experts from the Resume Example team to ensure accuracy, quality, and industry relevance.
Teen Resume Examples
Use these examples as inspiration when writing your teenager resume, or you can use our resume builder to create a standout and ATS-friendly resume in a few minutes.
Teen Resume
This resume is for teenagers seeking their first job or entry-level roles. It highlights transferable skills, volunteer work, and extracurricular activities to showcase responsibility, reliability, and a strong work ethic.
Job Description
Teen job seekers often work in customer service, retail, food service, or other entry-level roles. Responsibilities can include handling transactions, assisting customers, stocking inventory, or completing general labor tasks.
Key Notes
Emphasize soft skills such as communication, teamwork, and problem-solving. Highlight any relevant school activities, volunteer work, or skills that demonstrate a strong work ethic.
Additional Tips
- Highlight Transferable Skills: Even without formal work experience, emphasize communication, leadership, and problem-solving.
- Include Volunteer Work: If paid experience is limited, showcase volunteer roles and school activities.
- Keep it Concise: Stick to a one-page format with clear headings and bullet points.
Teenager Resume with No Work Experience
This resume is for teenagers who have never had a job before. It focuses on transferable skills, volunteer work, school activities, and any relevant personal projects to demonstrate responsibility and a strong work ethic.
Job Description
Even without formal work experience, teenagers can apply for entry-level roles in retail, food service, babysitting, or volunteering. Employers value reliability, communication skills, and enthusiasm for learning.
Key Notes
Highlight leadership roles, school activities, and any responsibilities that showcase teamwork, problem-solving, and organization. Emphasize enthusiasm, willingness to learn, and adaptability.
Additional Tips
- Highlight Informal Work: Babysitting, pet sitting, lawn care, or helping family businesses count as experience.
- Show Reliability: Employers value punctuality, responsibility, and a willingness to learn.
- Keep It Professional: Use a clean format with bullet points and clear headings.
Teen Resume with Work Experience
This resume is for teenagers who have already gained some work experience. It highlights past jobs, skills developed, and contributions made to previous employers.
Job Description
Teenagers with prior work experience often apply for retail, food service, or customer service roles. Responsibilities include assisting customers, handling transactions, stocking shelves, and maintaining cleanliness.
Key Notes
Emphasize previous job responsibilities, workplace skills, and any achievements. Show how past experience makes you a strong candidate for the next role.
Additional Tips
- Showcase Experience: List key responsibilities and achievements in previous jobs.
- Use Metrics if Possible: For example, “Processed an average of 50 transactions per shift.”
- Highlight Work Ethic: Employers appreciate reliability and willingness to take on responsibility.
Babysitter Resume
This resume is for teenagers who work or want to work as babysitters. It highlights childcare experience, responsibility, and skills such as patience, organization, and problem-solving.
Job Description
Babysitters provide care for children, ensuring their safety and well-being. Responsibilities include supervising playtime, preparing meals, assisting with homework, and following parents’ guidelines.
Key Notes
Emphasize responsibility, reliability, and experience with children. Highlight skills like communication, first aid knowledge, and problem-solving.
Additional Tips
- List Certifications: CPR and First Aid training make you stand out.
- Show Responsibility: Babysitting requires trust, so highlight reliability and communication skills.
- Include Parent Testimonials (if possible): Family references can strengthen your application.
Fast Food Worker Resume
This resume is for teenagers seeking jobs in the fast-food industry. It highlights customer service, teamwork, and efficiency in a fast-paced environment.
Job Description
Fast food workers take orders, prepare food, operate cash registers, and maintain restaurant cleanliness. Their responsibilities include greeting customers, handling transactions, assembling orders, and ensuring food safety standards.
Key Notes
Emphasize customer service skills, the ability to work in a fast-paced environment, and teamwork. Highlight any experience with food preparation, cash handling, and problem-solving.
Additional Tips
- Emphasize Speed & Efficiency: Fast food jobs require quick service while maintaining quality.
- Highlight Customer Service Skills: A friendly attitude and communication skills are essential.
- Show Adaptability: Employers value workers who can multitask and handle busy shifts.
Stocker Resume
This resume is for teenagers seeking stocker positions in retail or grocery stores. It highlights skills such as organization, time management, and the ability to handle physical tasks efficiently.
Job Description
Stockers are responsible for receiving shipments, organizing inventory, stocking shelves, and maintaining store cleanliness. They may also assist customers with locating products.
Key Notes
Emphasize organization, attention to detail, and the ability to lift and move items. Highlight teamwork, time management, and any experience handling inventory.
Additional Tips
- Emphasize Physical Capabilities: Stocking requires lifting and organizing heavy products.
- Highlight Efficiency: Employers value speed and accuracy in restocking inventory.
- Show Customer Assistance Skills: Stockers sometimes help customers find products.
Retail Associate Resume
This resume is for teenagers seeking retail positions. It highlights customer service, sales, organization, and teamwork skills essential for working in retail stores.
Job Description
Retail associates assist customers, manage inventory, operate cash registers, and maintain store cleanliness. They may also help with merchandising, restocking, and providing product recommendations.
Key Notes
Emphasize customer service, sales skills, and teamwork. Highlight experience with handling transactions, organizing merchandise, and assisting customers.
Additional Tips
- Highlight Customer Service Experience: Retail jobs require strong communication and people skills.
- Showcase Cash Handling & Organization: Employers value efficiency in handling transactions and keeping the store neat.
- Emphasize a Positive Attitude: Friendliness and professionalism are key in retail.
Library Assistant Resume
This resume is for teenagers seeking a library assistant position. It highlights organizational skills, attention to detail, and customer service abilities.
Job Description
Library assistants help organize books, assist patrons, manage check-ins/checkouts, and maintain a quiet and welcoming environment. Responsibilities may include shelving books, assisting with research, and ensuring library materials are in order.
Key Notes
Emphasize organization, attention to detail, and customer service skills. Highlight experience with book sorting, assisting patrons, and maintaining a structured environment.
Additional Tips
- Highlight Organizational Skills: Libraries require meticulous attention to sorting and categorizing books.
- Showcase Customer Service Experience: Assisting patrons is a key part of the role.
- Emphasize Technical Skills: Many libraries use digital catalog systems, so familiarity with computers is helpful.
Volunteer Resume
This resume is for teenagers looking to showcase their volunteer experience. It highlights community service, leadership, teamwork, and organizational skills.
Job Description
Volunteers assist organizations by supporting events, services, and community initiatives. Responsibilities may include organizing donations, helping at events, assisting people in need, and contributing to various community projects.
Key Notes
Emphasize commitment to service, teamwork, and leadership skills. Highlight experience in organizing events, assisting organizations, and positively impacting the community.
Additional Tips
- Show Commitment to Service: Highlight long-term volunteer work to show dedication.
- Emphasize Leadership Roles: If you led a project or team, mention your leadership experience.
- Highlight Transferable Skills: Volunteer work builds teamwork, communication, and organization skills.
Pet Sitter Resume
This resume is for teenagers seeking pet-sitting jobs. It highlights responsibility, animal care experience, and trustworthiness.
Job Description
Pet sitters care for pets while owners are away. Their responsibilities include feeding, walking, cleaning up after pets, administering basic care, and ensuring the well-being of animals.
Key Notes
Emphasize reliability, love for animals, and experience with pet care. Highlight any experience with walking dogs, feeding pets, administering medication, and ensuring a safe environment.
Additional Tips
- Showcase Responsibility: Pet sitting requires trustworthiness and dependability.
- Highlight Experience with Animals: Any past pet care experience, including personal pets, is valuable.
- Mention Customer Service Skills: Communication with pet owners is essential for building trust.
How to Write a Teen Resume
As a teenager, you don’t have to make your resume look like you’ve had all the experience to fit the job description. So, relax; we’ll show you how to write it step by step.
Key Points for Writing a Teen Resume (Even Without Experience)
- Use a Professional Layout and Design - Choose a clean, easy-to-read font and professional colors. Use clear headings and consistent formatting for a polished look. Leave enough white space to keep it uncluttered and easy to scan.
- Write a Strong Resume Objective - Focus on your motivation, willingness to learn, and relevant skills.
- Highlight Volunteering, Projects, and Extracurriculars - List any volunteer work, school projects, or community involvement. Mention the responsibilities you held and the skills you developed (like teamwork, organization, or leadership).
- Use Resume Templates Wisely - Utilize modern and professional resume templates to ensure a neat layout.
- Emphasize Transferable Skills—Include hard skills (like computer proficiency, languages, or technical skills) and soft skills (like communication, teamwork, and problem-solving).
- Create an ‘Additional Information’ Section - Mention achievements, awards, extracurricular involvement, hobbies, and any personal projects. List languages spoken, certifications, courses completed (like online classes), or workshops attended.
- Showcase Tech and Digital Literacy—If relevant, Mention familiarity with essential software (Microsoft Office, Google Workspace) or social media skills.
- Include Contact Information Clearly - Add your full name, phone number, and professional email address.
- Add Referrals or References—If possible, include references from teachers, coaches, or supervisors who have had volunteer experiences.
- Proofread for Perfection - Carefully check for spelling, grammar, and formatting errors. Ask a friend, teacher, or mentor to review your resume for feedback.
- Be Honest and Authentic - Don’t exaggerate or lie about skills or experiences. Be genuine about your strengths and learning potential.
You can add the following sections on your teen resume to attract employers:
- Contact Information
- Career Objective
- Education
- Volunteer Experience (Only if you’ve volunteered)
- Extracurriculars
- Achievements
- Key Skills
Instead of a professional work experience section, you can add your volunteering experience or anything you've done so far, be it babysitting, hosting a birthday party, or anything else. It doesn't have to be about professional office jobs, so take it easy.
The Layout of a Teen Resume
The layout of a resume is how you align your text and use colors. You must make it visually appealing, as that grabs anyone's attention. Well, even recruiters' attention! We’ll help you make a good first impression with your resume layout here:
Use numbers and bullet points
Resumes for teens with pointers are easy to read, and it’s easy for recruiters to scan. Since recruiters don't spend much time reading every resume, having bullet points would be best for your future employers.
Don’t make the following mistakes:
- Adding sentences with more than two lines.
- Keeping the font size too small or too big.
- Not using numbers or numbering the lists wrong
The Format of a Teen Resume
Formatting your teen resume is the next crucial step. Your resume should have a flow for teens so that hiring managers don't have to take longer to look for relevant information. The three standard ways to structure your teen resume are:
Chronological—In this format, your education comes at the top soon after your career objective, followed by your skills and volunteering experience. This format is used when you're new to the workforce.
Functional—This format focuses more on skills and achievements than your educational qualifications. It is also suitable for your resume as a teenager.
Hybrid—This is a combination of the two formats mentioned above. First, you must mention your skills and then add other sections chronologically.
The best format for a teen is chronological order, where you initially put your education details.
Now, let’s check on all the main sections of the teenager's resume.
Header
The header is the first line that your recruiter sees. Like how you clicked this article after reading the heading, your hiring managers will pick your teen resume if your heading is good.
Header examples
We’ve provided two resume examples for teens with incorrect and correct headers to give you an idea.
INCORRECT
CORRECT
Mary Jane
Texas
mary.jane@gmail.com
As you can see, the first header and email address are unprofessional. The second one is clear, and the professional email address looks formal, too.
Another thing that most people get confused about while writing a resume is whether to add their photo. You need to add it if it is mentioned in the job description. Otherwise, don't include it. Adding a photo can be a distraction and lead to discrimination, which is why, in the US and the UK, they reject your application immediately if there's a photo in your resume.
Objective
This section is where you talk about yourself and your skills. You should add what you do and how you do it. It shows how you approach things and whether you're responsible enough to handle them independently.
As we mentioned, if you have work experience, you can add a professional summary instead of an objective.
To give you a clear picture of how a professional objective should be, here are two examples of the correct and the incorrect.
CORRECT
INCORRECTThe incorrect one does not seem professional. It just says you can take up marketing roles, but only what you have done previously to be best at them. However, the correct example shows your skills and the outcome of managing the drive, which is excellent. It means you can take up any responsibility and produce better results. Keep it relevant to the job.
Pro tip – Keep your professional objective not more than 3-4 lines.
Experience
You may have no experience or have little experience doing summer jobs. If you have done any, you can add it to this section. It's alright if you have no experience. You can add the little things you have done in your neighborhood and high school.
Likewise, you can add your hobbies and interests, extracurricular activities, babysitting experience, and volunteer work. You can also include what you did in high school and focus on your cover letter.
Example of experience section for teens
Volunteer Work
We Make Change Org, 2020
- Responsible for successfully implementing donation drives in and around the city.
- Increased donation by 5x in 3 months by reaching out to people on various social media platforms.
- Collaborated with other volunteers, brainstormed ways to help the needy, and came up with practical solutions.
Education
The next section of the resume is your education. You should add the high school you're studying in, your GPA, graduation date, and coursework here. If you have taken up any other courses online or elsewhere, you can include them, too.
How to include your education
Skills
Introduce the skills section and include both your hard and soft skills. Here are some of the best skills to add to in teen resume:
If you've participated in a debate competition or any group project in your high school as a high school student, you can add communication and leadership skills. Here are some of the best skills to add to in teen resume:
Hard skills
- Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
- Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets, Slides)
- Basic Computer Skills (email handling, file management)
- Social Media Management (Instagram, TikTok, Facebook)
- Content Creation (basic video editing, Canva for graphic design)
- Basic Coding (HTML, CSS) (if applicable)
- Customer Service (handling inquiries, resolving issues)
- Basic Math and Financial Handling (cash register operation, handling payments)
- Time Management (scheduling, meeting deadlines)
- Research Skills (online research, information gathering)
Soft Skills
- Communication (both verbal and written)
- Teamwork and Collaboration
- Problem-solving (creative and logical thinking)
- Adaptability (willingness to learn, handling new environments)
- Work Ethic (reliability, responsibility, punctuality)
- Time Management (prioritizing tasks effectively)
- Leadership Potential (taking initiative in group tasks)
- Customer Service Mindset (empathy, patience)
- Positive Attitude (optimism and enthusiasm)
- Attention to Detail (accuracy and thoroughness)
Additional Sections
You can add additional sections to enhance your resume, like your interests, languages you know, and the certifications you have gained so far.
Say, for example, if you know multiple languages and you're applying for a customer support job, it will quickly catch the attention of recruiters, and you'll surely get a call.
Computer skills and certifications
If you've worked on your high school projects or designed posters as a club member for fests, or if you have made a good presentation in your group project, then these are some of the skills that can be added.
It can be any software you've worked on. You can write that you have Photoshop skills, PowerPoint proficiency, and Microsoft Word or Excel proficiency. Hardworking people are always preferred.
Interests
Write about your interests and hobbies. Adding this section shows recruiters your interests beyond the job responsibilities and how you can contribute to the company with a broad range of skills.
Languages
Add all the languages that you know. Being multilingual is excellent in any workforce. It brings people together and helps you network with a wide range of people in your career. So, if you know several languages, this is a perfect addition to your resume.
What other sections to include?
You can add references in a separate section after the additional section where you can ask the organization you've volunteered to refer to. You can ask for references from all the places you've worked and add them in this section so the hiring managers know how you work through them. You can write a great resume by adding this section.
Cover Letter
To win over recruiters, always add a complementary cover letter unless it's mentioned in the job description not to add it. Your cover letter should not be more than one page long and should start with a short introduction explaining why you want the job and the skills you possess.
Do not deviate from the job description; only write what's related to it. Your cover letter can include your contact details, such as your phone number and email address.
