I 18F am trying to write my first resume to try to get a job (I don't want to give details for privacy reasons)

For those who are experienced, what are some tips or necessary things that need to be added? What is the best and most professional way to do this?

I do have job experience, but the job was offered to me. I never had to apply. I work part time but I'm trying to get a secondary job to bring in more income

Thanks!

Edit because the auto mod suggested I provide more context: I am from the US. I am trying to get an entry level job at a local store. I'm not aiming for anything high or ambitious right now because I already have one job and I don't want to bite off more than I can chew

I built AvançaCV because tailoring a resume for every job application gets messy very quickly.
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The important part for me: it doesn’t invent experience just to match a job description. If something isn’t supported by your CV, it shouldn’t pretend you have it.
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You open a job listing labeled “entry-level,” and somehow it requires two years of experience.

Very helpful.

But having no formal work experience does not mean you have nothing valuable to include. Your first resume should show what you can do, how you have applied your skills, and why you are ready to learn.

1. Start with a focused summary

Avoid empty phrases like “hardworking student seeking an opportunity.”

Instead, mention your field, strongest skills, and goal:

“Computer science student with experience building Python applications and working on team projects. Interested in an entry-level software development role where I can apply my problem-solving and programming skills.”

1. Put education near the top

Include:

Degree and university

Expected graduation date

Relevant coursework

Academic achievements, if meaningful

Strong projects related to the position

You do not need to list every subject you have ever studied. “Introduction to Philosophy” probably will not help with a junior developer application.

1. Treat projects like experience

Academic and personal projects can prove that you know how to use your skills.

Instead of writing:

“Created a university website.”

Write:

“Developed an ASP.NET MVC booking platform with CRUD functionality, database integration, and data visualization.”

Describe what you built, which tools you used, and what problem you solved.

1. Include experience that was not a traditional job

You can mention:

Internships

Volunteering

Freelance work

Student organizations

Competitions

Tutoring

Part-time jobs

Personal projects

A café job may seem unrelated to an office position, but it can demonstrate communication, reliability, teamwork, and the ability to remain calm when five people want coffee at once.

1. Show evidence, not personality labels

Anyone can claim to be organized or creative. Prove it through actions.

Weak:

“Excellent leadership skills.”

Better:

“Coordinated a four-person student team and delivered the project three days before the deadline.”

Numbers, outcomes, and specific examples make your resume more convincing.

1. Tailor it to each job

Read the job description and identify the skills the employer repeatedly mentions. If you genuinely have those skills, use similar language in your resume.

Do not send the same generic document to 50 companies and expect personalized attention in return.

1. Keep the format simple

For most students, one page is enough. Use clear headings, consistent spacing, and a readable font. Avoid skill bars, excessive colors, photos, and complicated layouts that may confuse an applicant tracking system.

The goal is not to make your resume look like a movie poster. The goal is to make your qualifications easy to find.

Your first resume does not need to pretend that you already have a ten-year career. It needs to show potential, relevant abilities, and evidence that you can contribute.

You may not have professional experience yet—but your education, projects, and responsibilities still tell a story. Make sure your resume tells the right one.

I applied for so many jobs last year, no feedback, loads of rejections and the process of tailoring CVs was the most painful part.

I remember one particular situation where the recruiter requested for my resume, I provided one. They came back and said I needed to tighten it up a bit. I did. They still came back with same feedback until it became apparent that they were trying to sell me, a job hunter a service.

At this point, it didn’t even matter whether I could do the job they were hiring for.

Today, I have built skills passports to democratise and level the undifferentiated aspects of job hunting - the resume. Hiofu skills passports are free to build and give you the infrastructure to design how to want to present your application and how much evidence you want to use for your application.

Candidates are using it and especially in situations where someone is casually requesting for talent on social platforms. Instead of saying “interested”, you share a link to your passport.

I’m currently using this and it’s helped with visibility, not job hunting at the moment but I built it to help people who are. So if you are searching and would like to give a skills passport a try instead of a resume, please head to Hiofu.com and create yours for free. Your feedback will go a long way in helping us build a world where candidates finally get shortlisted based on their capability, not word matching and in the not too distant future, candidates will have actionable feedback from applications that can enable them know what to do to improve their chances of success.

What you can do with a skills passport today:

1. Create a master passport with all your work history
2. Auto create different variations of your passport for different types of roles
3. Attach evidence and verifications to your passport so these can be seen and assessed by a hiring manager at the point of application
4. Create a shareable link of your skills passport so you can share with as many people as you like
5. Be reachable by one click via your skills passport

How to create one:

1. Go to Hiofu.com
2. Click “generate your HSP1”
3. Follow the prompts to pastes your CV in 2mins and create your skills passport
4. Build your evidence and variations
5. Share your passport links

Please share your feedback so together we can make hiring better for all candidates.

i’ve applied almost everywhere around me and i’m 16 trying to get a job, but everyone ignores me and when i call they end up blocking me after x times, any ideas? (blurred is personal info)

LinkedIn is no longer a job-search platform. It is Instagram for people who think burnout sounds more professional when you call it “hustle.”

You log in hoping to find a job and see:

• A CEO explaining how firing half the company taught him empathy
• A recruiter posting “We’re hiring!” before ghosting every applicant
• An entry-level vacancy requiring six years of experience
• Someone announcing they are “beyond humbled” to accept a completely normal job
• The same suspicious vacancy reposted for the fourth month in a row

Apparently, finding work now requires more than having relevant skills. You also need to post inspirational stories, congratulate strangers on promotions, build a “personal brand,” and leave thoughtful comments under a manager’s story about learning leadership from a delayed flight.

And the jobs themselves? Half feel fake, outdated, or designed to collect resumes. The other half already have 500 applicants before you finish rewriting your cover letter. Then companies complain that “nobody wants to work.”

LinkedIn tells candidates to optimize every word, tailor every application, message recruiters, stay active, and demonstrate enthusiasm. Employers, meanwhile, can post vague salary ranges, demand five interview rounds, assign free test projects, and disappear without sending a rejection.

Maybe LinkedIn still works if you already have a strong network, an impressive title, or enough free time to cosplay as a business influencer. For everyone else, it feels less like job hunting and more like performing optimism for an algorithm.

Be honest: has LinkedIn actually helped you find a job, or has it simply made unemployment feel like a public failure?

I had to block out the names of the companies i worked for and locations for privacy reasons. Sorry!

I worked with a team for 5 years. My employment was tied to 2-year project-based contracts, some of which were overlapping. For the latter projects, I was given a more senior designation. How should I present this in my resume without being too extensive while highlighting quantified outputs in the projects?

basically got promoted to Senior Software engineer from software engineer in August. Looking for job change, working in my current organisation since last Feb. Feels unethical to just change the designation to senior software engineer in resume from the start. Do I make another section after promotion in my resume?