How to write a new graduate resume

Structure: what carries the page when Experience is thin

One page, one column. Do not hide the white space in a two-column template. A new graduate’s page not being full is normal; the fix is to write the sections with evidence out fully, not to enlarge the type, widen the leading or add a paragraph of interests. Recruiters see these pages every day and can tell a padded one from across the desk.

One ordering rule: the section that best proves you have finished something goes highest. Within a year of graduating that is Education, the one institutional record you have completed and the first filter a trainee scheme or a Big Four intake applies. Then internships and club roles written as work, then projects, skills, languages. The order moves with the evidence in hand: one substantial internship puts Experience straight after Education; nothing but course projects puts Projects there instead.

1. 1
   Summary

   Three sentences: degree and graduation month, one finished thing with a result (capstone, internship, club), and the first seat you want. Not “motivated and eager to learn”, which opens every new-graduate resume in the pile.

2. 2
   Education

   First, within a year of graduating. School, degree, major and graduation month on one line each; beneath them two or three bullets: a capstone with a result, an award or a competition placing, coursework that maps to the posting. GPA only when it clears the threshold.

3. 3
   Experience (internships, part-time, club roles written as work)

   Reverse chronological. An internship in a permanent job’s shape: employer type, title, dates, three or four bullets with scope and result. A vice-presidency or an events lead goes here too, with headcount and budget; the parser and the eye both look in this section for what you have done.

4. 4
   Projects

   For the reader with no internship this is the main course, placed straight after Education. Two bullets per project: the part you owned, and its result (users, an error reduced, who kept using it). Add the link if there is one.

5. 5
   Skills

   Three groups: programming and tools, coursework that matches the posting, methods. Every term must trace to a bullet above it; a tool touched once in one course does not get listed.

6. 6
   Languages & Certifications

   English in a checkable form: a test score or a CEFR level. Certifications on one line; if there are none, delete the section.

7. 7
   What is not on the page

   High school, a photograph, date of birth, national ID number, marital status, autobiographical paragraphs, hobbies. The reader does not need them, the parser cannot read them, and the space goes back to evidence.

Summary examples by starting point

The summary is the three sentences a recruiter uses to decide whether to keep reading. Three versions for three starting points: no internship, one internship, a master’s. Shared rules: degree and graduation month stated, one finished thing with a place for a figure, and no adjectives.

Five kinds of evidence that stand in for work history

A new graduate’s bullets come from five sources only: projects, internships, clubs and leadership, part-time and service work, competitions and research. The shape is the same as a permanent job’s: a verb, the scope, the mechanism, and an [N] where the figure belongs.

Weak lines, rewritten

The same experience written the usual way and then the credible way. The new-graduate defect is a status written as an achievement (I was a member, I was an intern, I took the course) with no scope, no mechanism and no result.

Skills: keep and cut

A new graduate’s skills section drifts toward every course taken and every piece of software touched. The rule for what stays: each term traces to a bullet above it, or you are willing to be tested on it in the room.

ATS keywords

Trainee schemes and graduate programmes receive the largest volumes, and almost all of them parse before a person reads. These are the terms entry-level postings use most and systems match most, by category. They work best inside a bullet or under Education.

Each term on the page is a promise to answer for it. List SQL and you should be able to write a join on a whiteboard; list a thesis and you should be able to give its topic, data and conclusion in three sentences. A keyword the parser matches and the interview cannot defend costs more than the match was worth.

What a reader opens once the resume has done its job

A new graduate has no former employer to vouch for anything, so the handful of artifacts outside the resume carry more weight here than on any other page. A recruiter does two things: clicks whatever sits in your header, and sends your degree off to be checked before the offer is confirmed. This section is about what they open, where they look once it is open, and the line on the page that points them there.

• The transcript is the one part checked word for word

  Degree title, major and graduation month go on the page exactly as the registrar prints them in English, not as you would rather translate them. Trainee schemes and Big Four intakes make offers conditional: you hand over the transcript and the degree certificate before you start, and someone compares the two documents field by field. A page that says Jun 2026 when you graduate in September is not a rounding error, it is a reason to withdraw the offer. Until the date is settled, write “Expected Jun 2026” and go back later to delete the word Expected. A GPA works the same way: whatever number is on the page has to be findable on the transcript.

• The header link line: three at most, ordered by what you want opened

  Email, LinkedIn, and at most one more, holding the artifact you most want clicked. Engineering and data candidates put GitHub there; someone with a finished report or analysis points a single link at it; with neither, keep two and leave the space empty, which reads better than filler. Write it as one line: “github.com/your-handle · Campus Queue — the queue-position API and cache, my part of a four-person capstone”. The clause after the dash is the whole reason the line works. It tells the reader what to look at rather than dropping them on a profile page to work it out themselves.

• The first thirty seconds inside the repository

  Three things get read. The first three lines of the README: what this does and how to run it. The pin order: the capstone and the thing people still use go at the top, and the dozen repositories from a data-structures course go below them. Then the commit history, which settles who wrote which part of a four-person project and is the first question in the interview anyway. So in the week before you apply, go back and finish the README and fix the pins. That file is easier to edit than any bullet on the resume, and almost nobody edits it.

• Three cases where the link is worse than no link

  A profile holding nothing but coursework and forks you never committed to. A capstone repository with an empty README. A URL that no longer resolves. Each of those hands the reader negative information, and the dead URL is the worst of the three: it takes one click to find, and it puts the bullet above it in doubt as well. Removing a link costs you nothing. Write “report available on request”, or let the bullet carry the result on its own. Put a link on the page only if you assume it will be opened and read one level down.

• Checkable beats claimed: give every credential its lookup

  Name a competition in full, with the organiser and the year, so the results announcement can be found: “Placed [N] of [N] teams, [competition name], [organiser], 2025”. List an online certificate only when it carries a credential ID or a verification link — the Google Data Analytics certificate and its equivalents all issue one, and a certificate nobody can look up reads as self-assessment. Scholarships, a dean’s list place and departmental awards follow the same rule: anything the school published can be stated precisely. Where a placing was never published, give the judging format and the size of the field instead, and have the certificate scanned and ready. Being asked to produce it and having nothing is worse than never claiming it.

• Sponsored projects, private repositories, an unpublished thesis

  Not every piece of student work can be linked. An industry-sponsored capstone usually carries a confidentiality clause; many departments require coursework repositories to stay private under their academic-honesty rules; a thesis under review or under embargo cannot be posted. None of that justifies leaving a URL that returns a 404. State the shape and keep the artifact for the interview: “Private repository (department policy); walkthrough available on request”, or “Thesis under review; abstract available on request”. The bullet still carries scope and outcome — how much data, who used it, [N] points of error removed — without the sponsor’s name or the data itself. Then prepare the version you are allowed to show: an architecture sketch, an anonymised screenshot, the decision you made and the alternative you turned down.

Mistakes that cost new graduates interviews

1. 1
   Pasting the personal statement into the resume

   In several markets the application asks for a personal statement or an autobiographical essay; the English resume is not that document. “I have been interested in numbers since childhood” has no place on a one-page list of evidence. Keep it for the cover letter and the interview.

2. 2
   High school, a photograph, a birth date, an ID number

   The reader does not need them, the parser cannot read them, and in most markets a photograph and a birth date are things a recruiter is not allowed to screen on. Take all four off and give the space back to evidence.

3. 3
   A GPA below the threshold, still on the page

   Big Four intakes and trainee schemes usually state a threshold in the posting. Above it, write it; below it, leave it off. Do not route around it with a “major GPA” or a “final two years” GPA; someone who has read thousands of these sees it at once. An absent GPA costs nothing. A low one does.

4. 4
   A coursework list with no output

   “Relevant coursework” followed by ten course names proves enrolment. Pick the two or three that match the posting and hang an output on each: a project, a placing, a figure.

5. 5
   The internship written as observation

   Learned, was exposed to, observed, assisted: the verbs of a visitor. What you finished in those two months (the report automated, the invoices matched, the posts published) takes a permanent job’s shape: verb, scope, result.

6. 6
   A club role that is only a title

   “Vice President, Student Association” is a title. How many people you led, how many events, how much budget, how many came: that is the scope a reader can size against a trainee intake.

7. 7
   Padding a page that will not fill

   Bigger type, wider margins, a paragraph on interests, ten skills in a row. Recruiters see it daily and recognise it. Half a page of evidence beats a full page of padding. If the page will not fill, go and do one more thing worth writing.

The follow-ups your resume will trigger

An interviewer knows a new graduate has no work history, so they drill into the capstone and the internship instead. Every [N] is a question you set for yourself; before a line stays, ask whether it survives three levels of probing.

FAQ

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