High School Student Resume: Examples (2026)

A high school student resume is short, and it should be. Nobody reading it expects a career. A camp director, a store manager or a summer program coordinator wants to know three things: that you show up when you say you will, that you can follow instructions and work with people, and that you have done something with your time that proves both. School, sports, clubs, volunteering and small paid jobs all count as that proof.

This guide shows what to put on a high school resume, the order that works, how to write lines about school activities so they read like experience, and a complete example for a junior applying to be a summer camp counselor. If you are applying for your very first paid job at a store or restaurant, the first job resume guide is the shorter version. If you have nothing to list yet except school, start with the resume with no experience guide.

For most high school students the order is: contact details and headline, a short summary, education, activities and volunteering, work, then certificates, skills and languages. That order puts your strongest evidence first. Change it in two cases:

• You already have a real job. If you have worked at the same place for six months or more, move work above activities. Steady paid work is the strongest signal a teen resume can send.
• You are applying to a college, scholarship or academic program. Lead with education and academic honors, then activities that show leadership, and keep work lower. The scholarship resume guide covers that version in detail.

Keep it to one page. A high school resume that runs to two pages looks padded, even when every line is true. Use a simple, single-column layout: tables, text boxes and two-column designs often come out scrambled when an employer's hiring software reads the file. All four CVPoet templates are single column for that reason, and you can switch between them without retyping anything.

Save and send it as a PDF unless the posting asks for something else, and name the file with your name, for example Ethan-Morales-Resume.pdf.

The example above is for Ethan, a junior applying to be a counselor at a city recreation center's summer day camp. Here is why each part is there.

Headline: High School Junior, Summer Camp Counselor Candidate. It names the job he wants, so the director reads the rest of the page with that job in mind.

Summary: three sentences that cover the camp director's checklist in order: experience with young kids (coaching 6 and 7 year olds, library story time), safety (First Aid, CPR and AED), and dates he can work. Bilingual is there because many camps serve families who speak Spanish at home, which makes it a real advantage, not decoration.

Education: school, expected graduation and a 3.6 GPA. If a class connects to the job, such as Child Development for a camp, you can name it in the summary or in an interview; one strong line beats a list of courses.

Volunteering: this is the heart of the page. The coaching lines say how many kids, how old, and how often, and the warm-up game shows he does more than the minimum: nine other coaches now use it. The library role adds group size (up to 25) and responsibility (140 reading logs).

Work: one grocery job with two lines. It has nothing to do with camp, and that is fine. Sixty customers a shift and Employee of the Month tell a stranger he is reliable, polite and trusted.

Certificates, skills and languages: the Red Cross certificate is listed by its full name and year. The skills are things the director can picture on day one: running games and crafts, first aid, customer service.

• Leaving things off because they are not a job. Coaching a younger team, helping at a food bank or running a club's social media is experience. Write it with a title, dates and a number.
• A silly email address. Make a free one with your name before you apply. The reader decides a lot from that one line.
• No availability. An employer who cannot tell when you can work may move on to someone who said so. Put your hours or dates in the summary.
• Adding a photo, age or birthday. In the United States these stay off a resume. If the job has a minimum age, the application form will ask.
• Stretching it to fill space. A confident half page to one page beats a padded page and a half. Cut anything that does not help with this job.
• References on the page. Have two ready (a coach, teacher or supervisor, not family) and bring them when asked. You do not need to write References available on request.

These guides cover situations close to yours:

• First job resume: a shorter version for store, restaurant and other first paid jobs.
• Resume with no experience: what to write when school is the only thing you can list yet.
• Scholarship resume: the academic version, for scholarships and college applications.
• College student resume: what changes once you are in college and applying for part-time or campus work.

Every example is in the resume examples hub, grouped by job and situation.