Graduting with no experience? Follow these 3 student resume steps.

Your diploma, unfortunatly, isn’t a ‘get a job free’ card. All to often graduates have no clue what to include on your resume and cover letter. Unless you have a few extra-curricular activities under your belt, the only things you can list are common part time jobs which most likely involved absolutely nothing relevant to the position you want.

Often the question that comes up is if you are applying for a full time career position, how do you create a resume for a full time career if your only previous experience in the workforce was at a clothing store or fast food joint? It shows you have experience but is it the experience they are looking for? Follow the quick three step guide in this first installment of Student Week at ResumeBucket.

1. Make the layout professional

• Don’t go overboard with fancy fonts, graphics, or a confusing structure. While you may think this makes you look good, it’s painful to read for the employer.
• Keep it simple and easy to read. You can find resume layout examples in our database of sample resumes.

2. Content is key

• Employers and Recruiters don’t care about any part type job you had in high school or college. Unless you moved up to a management/supervisor position, omit this information.
• Instead include any type of extra-curricular activities you may have been involved in on campus, this includes sports, clubs, student body government. Anything to show you were more than just a body who showed up to class then left.
• Write a 2-3 short and concise introduction about yourself and your goals, be careful and don’t make it to wordy. Tailor this to suit the job you are applying for.
• Finish it with any references you have. Many people lie here and get caught. Employers DO check. Make sure to use reputable people and not friends or family remembers.

3. Clean up

• Keep it to a one page. Employers who are looking at a fresh resume don’t expect you to have that much experience in the work force. Padding your resume with trivial information is a turn off to hiring manager reading your resume.
• Most likely your name will be Googled by employers. Make your Facebook or any other social sites that may come up private. You don’t want them seeing your pictures from Friday and Saturday nights. Instead build out a Linkedin.com profile, sign up and post your resume on ResumeBucket.com. Google yourself and see what comes up and work from there.

Post up your comments! We love to help out our users with any questions they have, and if you really want an outstanding resume check out our top tier resume writer.