Teenager Resume Examples: free score, then the gap list
Write a Teenager Resume for a Summer or After School Job
By Mustafa Tarabya, founder of CVBooster · Published · Updated
Teenager resume example and teen resume template for a first job: school hours, babysitting and yard work, and what a manager reads on a first resume.
Sample resumes for a teenager
The same teenager content laid out in three CVBooster templates, so you can see what the finished document looks like before you write a word.
Example Teenager summary
Tenth grade student looking for after school and summer hours in food service or retail. Runs a seven household yard work round with my own scheduling and cash collection, timed lanes at nine weekend swim meets, and holds a Red Cross babysitting certificate. Available after three on weekdays and any hours on weekends and school breaks. Comfortable talking to customers and happy to be trained on a register.
Skills to list on a Teenager resume
- Customer communication
- Cash collection
- Scheduling my own work
- Babysitting and child supervision
- Yard equipment operation
- Time keeping and accuracy
- Cleaning and setup duties
- Following instructions
- Teamwork on a sports squad
- Reliable attendance
- Working outdoors in all weather
- Basic computer and phone use
What actually gets this resume read
- Say your grade and school at the top, because a manager needs to plan around your class hours before anything else.
- Write availability as a grid in words: weekday hours after school, weekend hours, and what changes in the summer.
- Count babysitting, yard work, dog walking and tutoring as jobs, with the number of regular customers you keep.
- Mention a work permit or age certificate if your state requires one, and say whether you already have it.
- Use school activities that show attendance and teamwork, such as a sports season, band or a club role you held.
- Keep it to one page with your school email or a plain personal address, and tell your parents you gave their number.
- Bring a printed copy when you drop it off in person, since many first jobs still start at the counter.
How to write a teenager resume
A teenager applying for a summer or after school job is writing for a reader who has seen a hundred of these pages and knows exactly what is on them. She is not expecting a career. She is checking three things: when you can work around school, whether an adult has ever depended on you, and whether you sound like someone she can put in front of customers without supervising every minute.
The paperwork is part of the picture at this age in a way it never is later. Many states require a work permit or age certificate signed by your school before you can start, and there are rules about how late and how many hours a minor can work during term time. A manager will not ask you about any of that on the phone, but she is thinking about it, and a resume that answers it up front removes the friction.
This guide covers what belongs on a teenager resume when your work history is a lawn round and a volunteer shift, how to write availability around the school calendar, when to apply so you land the seasonal hiring wave, how to describe school activities as evidence, and how to handle the first interview when your parents are the ones driving you there.
Say your grade, your school and your hours in the first block
Start with your name, phone, email, and then a two line block giving your grade, your school and the hours you can work. A manager scheduling a shift pattern has to plan around a school day, so putting that information at the top saves her the guess and marks you as someone who has thought about her problem rather than only about wanting a job.
Write availability three ways, because your schedule changes across the year: term time weekdays, weekends, and school breaks including summer. If a sports season or a school production will take a block of the year, say which months, since a manager who finds out in week two feels misled and one who knew in advance simply schedules around it.
- Grade and school name, with your expected graduation year left off if you would rather not date yourself.
- Term time hours, weekend hours and break availability, each written separately.
- A note on a work permit: held already, or obtainable from your school if hired.
- How you get to work, and whether an adult can collect you after a late finish.
- Any months already blocked by a sport, a band season or a family trip.
Small self run jobs are the strongest thing on a teenage resume
Lawn mowing, snow clearing, dog walking, babysitting and tutoring are not filler. Run properly, they are a business, and a manager reads them as such when you write the operating detail: how many regular customers you keep, how you schedule them, how you collect money, and what you do when it rains and the whole week has to move.
The number that matters most is repeat customers. Anyone can mow one lawn once. Keeping seven households across two seasons means people who did not have to keep hiring you chose to, which is the closest thing to a reference a teenager can put in writing. Say how many stayed with you from one summer to the next.
Include the awkward parts, because they are the interesting ones. Handling cash, quoting a price, telling a customer you cannot come, learning to use equipment safely. A hiring manager is looking for the moment you dealt with an adult in a business context, and these jobs are full of them.
Turn school activities into evidence a manager can use
Sports, band, theater, clubs and school jobs are your attendance record. Write them as commitments with hours: practice four mornings a week for a season, rehearsals until six on weekdays for two months, a concession stand shift at every home game. What you are proving is that you have already been getting up early and turning up for months without being paid.
Where you held a role, describe what you were trusted with rather than the title. Equipment manager means the gear was your responsibility and something went missing if you forgot. Timing at swim meets means an official result depended on your accuracy. Tutoring a younger student means an adult trusted you unsupervised with a child. Those are the sentences that make an employer comfortable.
Leave off anything from middle school and skip the interests line unless it directly supports the job. An interest in baking is worth a line on a bakery application. A list of video games and music genres is not, and it takes space you need for availability.
A teen first job resume, written out top to bottom
A teen first job resume fits on half a page, and that is fine. Here is one written out for an invented 15 year old in Australia, Mia Collins, applying to a supermarket and a cafe with no paid job yet. Copy the order, not the details, and replace every line with something true about you.
The same layout works in the US, the UK and Canada, where a first job resume is just as short; a US teen writes 10th grade instead of Year 10 and references instead of referees. Leave out the work permit line if your state or country does not ask for one, and check your local rules on hours for your age before you write your availability.
- Header: Mia Collins, phone, email, suburb or town.
- About me: Year 10 student looking for weekend and school holiday shifts. Reliable, early to every training session, and comfortable talking to customers.
- Availability: Saturday afternoons after netball, Sundays all day, and full days during school holidays.
- Experience: Babysitting for three neighborhood families, two evenings a month for a year, including bedtime routines and calling parents if anything came up. Canteen volunteer at school sports days, taking cash and keeping the counter stocked.
- Activities: Netball team, training twice a week and a match every Saturday morning for three seasons.
- Certificates: First aid course completed; food safety course if you have done one.
- Referees: a coach or a family you babysat for, with their permission, never a relative.
Apply at the right time, then go to the interview alone
Seasonal hiring runs ahead of the season. Summer crews are usually chosen in the spring, holiday retail staff are hired weeks before the rush, and pool and camp jobs fill before school lets out. Applying the week you want to start puts you behind candidates who applied a month earlier, so work backwards from when you want to be working.
Apply online where the employer requires it, then follow up in person during a quiet part of the day, mid afternoon rather than at a lunch rush. Bring a printed copy, ask for the person who handles hiring by name if you know it, and be ready to answer when you can start. For a lot of first jobs, that short in person moment is what turns a form into an interview.
Go into the interview alone. A parent can drive you and wait outside, but a parent who comes to the counter changes what the manager sees, and she is trying to picture you handling a customer without help. Bring your own copy of the resume, your permit paperwork if you have it, and the availability you already wrote down so your answers match the page.
Expect to be asked why you want the job and what you would do if you could not handle a task. Answer the second one honestly: you would ask. Managers hiring teenagers are not looking for someone who knows everything. They are looking for someone who will ask before guessing, and saying so is a better answer than any confident claim.
- Spring applications for summer work, and early autumn applications for holiday retail.
- A printed copy handed over in a quiet hour rather than during a rush.
- A short answer prepared for when you can start and how many hours you want.
- A voicemail greeting set up, since a manager calling twice will move on.
- A note of every place you applied, with the date, so you can follow up once.
Teen resume template to copy
A teen resume template is the same five blocks every time: contact details, a short about me line with your grade and hours, any work or informal jobs, school activities, and skills or certificates. Copy the template below and fill each line with something true. Delete a block entirely rather than leave it half empty, and keep the whole thing to one page.
For a summer job, put your available dates in the about me line. For an after school job, put the days and the hours. A manager hiring a teen is filling a schedule first, so the template puts availability before experience.
- Name, phone number, email address you check, and your town or city.
- About me: [Grade] student at [school] looking for [weekend, after school or summer] work. [One thing you are good at that the job needs].
- Availability: [Days and hours during the school year] or [summer start and end dates].
- Experience: [Babysitting, yard work, pet sitting, family business or volunteer role], [dates], with one line on what you did and how often.
- Activities: [Team, club, band or school job], [dates], with one line on what you did or were trusted with.
- Skills and certificates: [Languages, computer skills, first aid, food handler card if you have one].
- References: a coach, teacher or family you worked for, with their permission, never a relative.
Teenager resume summary examples
First application, no jobs yet
Ninth grade student looking for weekend and school break hours in food service or a store. Timed lanes at nine weekend swim meets, arriving an hour early each session to set up. Available Saturdays and Sundays and full days during breaks. Willing to be trained on anything.
Sophomore with a small business
Tenth grade student seeking after school and summer hours. Runs a seven household yard work round with my own scheduling and cash collection, and kept every customer from the first summer into the second season. Holds a Red Cross babysitting certificate. Available after three on weekdays and all weekend.
Junior with a real work record
Eleventh grade student with two summers as a pool concession attendant, handling a register through 200 transactions a day and closing the stand alone. Holds a food handler card and a lifeguarding certificate. Available weeknights after five, all weekend, and full time through the summer.
Work experience bullets: before and after
Before: I mow lawns in the summer for money.
After: Mow, edge and clear leaves for seven regular households on a fixed weekly rotation, handling my own scheduling and cash collection by text.
Customer count, a rotation and collecting your own money describe a business rather than a chore.
Before: Volunteered at swim meets.
After: Timed lanes at nine weekend swim meets, recording splits and handing sheets to the scoring table, and arrived an hour before each session to set up timing pads.
Accuracy under an official result, plus arriving early, is exactly the reliability a manager wants.
Before: Play on the school soccer team.
After: Practiced four mornings a week from August through November with the school soccer squad and missed no sessions across the season.
Early mornings sustained for a full season is an attendance record in everything but name.
Before: Babysit for a family down the street.
After: Care for two children aged four and seven every Friday evening, including dinner, bedtime and handling a parent contact number for emergencies.
Naming the ages and the routine shows unsupervised responsibility that an adult chose to repeat.
Before: Available whenever you need me.
After: Available after three on weekdays during term, all day Saturday and Sunday, and any hours through summer break, with a ride available for late finishes.
A real grid can be built into a rota, and the ride note answers a worry about closing shifts.
Hard skills
- Cash collection and making change
- Register and card terminal basics
- Scheduling my own customers
- Yard and garden equipment operation
- Babysitting and child supervision
- Timing and score recording
- Cleaning, setup and breakdown duties
- Restocking and counting stock
- Basic computer and phone use
- Food handling basics
Soft skills
- Turning up early without being reminded
- Talking to adult customers politely
- Asking a question instead of guessing
- Sticking with a season to the end
- Handling being told to redo something
Certifications worth listing
- Babysitting Basics (American Red Cross)
- Lifeguarding (American Red Cross)
- Adult and Pediatric First Aid, CPR and AED (American Red Cross)
Mistakes that cost teenager candidates the interview
- Leaving grade and school availability off the page when a school schedule is the first thing a manager must plan around.
- Treating lawn work, dog walking and babysitting as too small to list, when they are the strongest entries you have.
- Writing sports and clubs as memberships rather than as seasons with hours behind them.
- Applying the week you want to start, after the seasonal crew has already been picked.
- Bringing a parent to the counter when the manager is trying to picture you serving customers alone.
- Promising every shift and then discovering a season, a rehearsal block or a trip that blocks half of them.
- Filling space with middle school achievements and a list of hobbies instead of hours you can work.
Teenager resume questions
What can a teenager put on a resume with no formal work history?
Self run work like mowing, babysitting, dog walking and tutoring, plus volunteering, sports seasons and any school role you held. Write each with dates, hours and a count of the people or customers involved so it reads as commitment.
Do I need a work permit before I apply?
Many states require a permit or age certificate signed by your school for workers under a certain age, and the employer usually starts the paperwork after offering the job. Mention on your resume that you can obtain one, which tells the manager you know the process exists.
How many hours can I say I am available during the school year?
Offer only what you can genuinely sustain with homework and any season you are committed to. There are limits on hours and late finishes for minors during term time, so a manager will build your rota around school and expects an honest number rather than an eager one.
Should my parents help with my resume or the interview?
Let them read the page for typos, then go to the interview by yourself. A parent waiting in the car is normal and sensible. A parent at the counter answering for you removes the one thing the manager came to assess, which is you.
Is there a teen resume template I can use?
Yes. Use five blocks: contact details, an about me line with your grade and the hours you can work, any jobs including babysitting or yard work, school activities, and skills or certificates. Keep it to one page, put availability near the top, and delete any block you cannot fill with something true.