The sign in the grocery store window says they're hiring for weekend shifts. You ask at the register, and the manager tells you to apply online and attach a resume. You're 16, and the only money you've earned came from babysitting. So what goes on the page?
Less than you might think. A manager reading a high school resume wants to know one thing: will you show up for your shifts and do what you're taught? Grades, a sport, babysitting and volunteer work can all answer that, as long as you add dates and numbers.
High school resume example: one page for weekend and summer jobs
This sample is for a made-up high school junior applying to be a cashier, a stocker or a library page. Replace anything in [brackets] with your own details.
[Your full name] [City, State] | [your.name@email.com] | [phone number]
Availability Saturdays and Sundays during the school year. Up to 30 hours a week from June 15 to August 31.
Education [High school name], [City, State], Class of 2028 GPA 3.6, honor roll for four semesters Classes that fit this job: Business Math, Spanish II, Intro to Computer Science
Experience Babysitter, three neighborhood families, June 2025 to present
- Watch kids ages 5 to 9 after school and on weekends, 6 to 10 hours a week
- Booked again by all three families every month since the first job
Volunteer, [local food bank], September 2025 to present
- Sort and shelve about 400 pounds of donated food each Saturday with a crew of six
- Showed five new volunteers how to use the intake checklist
Activities Treasurer, Spanish Club, 2025 to present
- Keep the club's $1,200 budget in a shared Google Sheet and read out the balance at each meeting
Varsity cross-country, two seasons
- Practice five days a week from August to November; missed two practices in two seasons
Skills Google Sheets, Google Docs, Canva. English and conversational Spanish. Counting cash at club fundraisers.
That's under 200 words, and half the page is blank. Each line answers a question a manager might have.
What each section tells the manager
A manager hiring a teen has a few questions, and each section answers one.
| Section | The manager's question | What answers it |
|---|---|---|
| Availability | Can you cover the shifts I'm short on? | Days of the week, hours a week, your summer dates |
| Education | Do you already keep a schedule? | Graduation year, GPA if it's 3.0 or better, two classes tied to the work |
| Experience | Has anyone trusted you with something? | Paid or unpaid work, how often, one result |
| Activities | Do you stick with things? | Your role, how long, one detail with a number |
| Skills | What can you do on day one? | Tools you've used, languages at your real level |
The top lines are only for contacting you. List your name, city, one email and one phone number. Leave off a photo, your street address and your birth date. If the store needs your age to plan hours, its form will ask.
Availability is the easiest section to forget. But a manager filling a weekend schedule looks for it first. List the days, how many hours a week and when your summer break starts and ends. Make sure they fit around practice, homework and the law, since promising hours you can't work is worse than offering fewer.
Experience can come from unpaid work too. Babysitting, mowing lawns, tutoring a younger kid and helping at a relative's shop all count, and so does volunteering you've kept up for months. Write each one the way an adult describes a job: what you did, how often and one result. "Booked again by all three families" proves you're dependable better than the word itself.
Never been paid at all? Keep the heading "Experience" anyway, because hiring software looks for it. Fill it with a school role like office aide, regular volunteer shifts or a project you finished. Two entries with dates beat five vague ones, and our resume bullet points guide shows how to add a result.
Activities show you stick with things. Practicing five days a week all season tells a manager you show up even when it's cold and nobody's paying you. And a club treasurer who tracks real money is already doing part of a cashier's job.
Only list skills you could show on the spot. A manager might switch to Spanish in the middle of the interview to check. So write "conversational" instead of "fluent" unless you really are fluent. Skip "hard-working" and "team player": everyone writes them, so they don't help you stand out.
If you're 14 or 15: the hours you're allowed to work
Federal law limits when 14- and 15-year-olds can work in nonfarm jobs, so your availability has to fit inside them. The US Department of Labor's fact sheet sets them:
| Limit | Federal rule |
|---|---|
| School days, Fridays included | Up to 3 hours |
| Weeks when school is in session | Up to 18 hours |
| Days with no school | Up to 8 hours |
| Weeks with no school | Up to 40 hours |
| Time of day | 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.; until 9 p.m. from June 1 to Labor Day |
The hours must also be outside school time. Say a 15-year-old writes "Saturdays, up to 8 hours, plus two weekday shifts from 4 to 7 p.m." That's 14 hours in a school week, under the 18-hour limit, so a manager can schedule it as written.
Your state's rules may be stricter, and the stricter rule wins, so check with your state labor office too. Some states also require a work permit or age certificate before your first shift. The Labor Department keeps a state-by-state table of who issues them.
Once you turn 16, federal law no longer limits your hours. Jobs it lists as hazardous stay off limits until 18, though.
Check your resume the way hiring software reads it
When you apply on a company's website, tracking software may read your resume as plain text before a person sees it. Our free ATS resume checker shows what that text looks like. Here's how to use it on a first resume:
- Upload your resume as a PDF, DOCX or TXT file, or paste the text. It's read in your browser.
- Paste the job ad, or fetch it from its link. A cashier ad might ask for cash handling and customer service.
- Run the check and open the Missing keywords. If you've really done one of them, like counting cash at a fundraiser, use the ad's words for it.
- Read the list of checks. It looks for headings named Experience, Education and Skills. It also treats more than six "|" characters as a sign of columns, which is why the sample uses only two.
The length check will score low, because full marks start at 400 words and a first resume rarely gets there. Don't add filler to chase those points. Save the final file as a PDF unless the form asks for Word. Our guide to ATS resume format mistakes shows layouts that cause problems.
Reuse it for college applications
Keep this page up to date. In senior year, it becomes your notes for college forms. The Common App lets you list up to ten activities, and each gets 150 characters for details, honors and accomplishments. That's characters, not words: about one long sentence.
The form asks for hours per week and weeks per year in separate boxes, so don't use your 150 characters on time. Use them on results: 400 pounds sorted each Saturday, five volunteers trained, a $1,200 budget tracked. Paste each draft into the word counter and watch Characters, which counts spaces. The Common App counts spaces too: its own sample description is 141 characters only with the spaces in.
Four mistakes that get a first resume passed over
- Two pages. One is plenty. Cut middle school awards first; by junior year, they're out of date.
- An email address from sixth grade. Make a simple one from your name before you apply anywhere.
- Praise with no proof. "Excellent leader" means little unless you name the role and what you did.
- A misspelled store name. Read the page out loud once. Your ear catches what your eyes skip.
Keep two references on a separate sheet: a teacher, a coach or a family you babysit for. Ask them first, and write down a phone number that works. The resume doesn't need a "references available" line; employers assume it.
FAQ
Should I put my GPA on a high school resume?
Add it if it's 3.0 or higher, or if the application asks. For a part-time job, your hours and reliability matter more than grades, so a low GPA can stay off.
What goes on a resume if I've never had a job?
Volunteering, school roles like office aide or peer tutor, odd jobs like babysitting or yard work, a sport, a club, or a project you finished. Give each one dates, what you did, how often, and a result with a number.
Can I get a job at 14 or 15?
Yes, in many nonfarm jobs. Federal law caps you at 3 hours per school day and 18 per school week. Most of the year, you can work only from 7 in the morning to 7 at night. Your state may be stricter and may require a work permit.
Do I need a cover letter for a part-time job?
Usually not for an online retail or restaurant application. If you're emailing a library, an office or a small business directly, send three or four sentences that name the job and your availability.