A High School Student's Guide to Internships

Applying for internships, summer programs, research spots, or competitions in high school feels rough when you've never had a formal job. Here's the part nobody says out loud: almost no one your age has one, and the people reading applications know it. Babysitting counts. The club you actually showed up to counts. The website you built at midnight counts. What you need is a resume that organizes all of that so a stranger can see what you're capable of in about thirty seconds. This guide covers how to structure that resume, which experiences to include, how to write bullet points that show impact, how to format the whole thing, and what to do if the page still looks empty.

How to structure your resume#

Even with no work history, you can build a strong resume out of your education, activities, and personal projects. Most high school resumes use some version of the sections below.

Contact information#

At the top: your name, email, and phone number, plus city and state if relevant. Make sure the email is professional, usually some combination of your name. Straightforward, but essential.

Resume objective (optional)#

A short 1-3 sentence statement at the top that says who you are and what you're aiming for. It's especially useful when you have no work experience, because it puts your skills, interests, and goals up front.

A student might write: "Motivated high school student with strong coding and teamwork skills seeking a summer tech internship. Eager to apply Python and web development experience to contribute to innovative projects." A tight objective shows enthusiasm and tells the reader you actually looked at what they're offering.

Education#

Your school's name, location, and expected graduation date. You can add your grade level, your GPA if it's a strong point (typically 3.5+), and relevant coursework or honors, like AP or honors classes in subjects related to the opportunity. Education usually sits near the top because, as a student, it's one of your main qualifications.

Work and volunteer experience#

You may not have had a formal job, but any work-like responsibility counts: babysitting, mowing lawns for neighbors, tutoring, helping in a family business, volunteering at a local organization. List the organization or employer, your role, the dates, and a few bullet points on what you did (more on writing those bullets below). If you've done an internship or a summer job, even part-time or informal, it goes here. So does volunteering at a food bank, animal shelter, or community center. For a student, that's real experience.

Extracurriculars and leadership#

School clubs, sports, student government, and the rest can live in their own section or get combined with your experience. If you held a leadership role (club president, team captain, scout leader), make it prominent. Even plain membership is worth listing if you were an active contributor. Include the activity's name, any position you held, your years of involvement, and what you accomplished: "Led debate team to regional finals" or "Organized 3 school fundraising events." Leadership and teamwork are exactly what reviewers scan for, because they signal responsibility and initiative.

Projects#

If you've done independent projects or significant school ones, give them their own section. A science fair project, an app or website you built, a research project, a design portfolio piece, a hackathon build. Include the project name, a short description, and the skills or outcome: "Developed a mobile app game in Java with 500+ downloads." On a student resume, a good project can carry as much weight as formal experience.

Skills#

A short list, bulleted or comma-separated. Focus on hard skills: programming languages (Java, Python), software tools (Adobe Photoshop, Excel), spoken languages (Spanish, Mandarin), lab skills. You can name a couple of soft skills like communication or teamwork, but everyone claims those, so it's usually better to prove them inside your experience bullets instead. Tailor the list to the opportunity: coding and CAD software for a tech internship, languages and writing for a communications role. Concrete skills set you apart because anyone can check them, and they're useful anywhere.

Awards and achievements#

Honor roll, National Merit, AP Scholar, science fair or math competition awards, debate awards, scholarships, meaningful certifications. Give them their own section or fold them under Education or Activities. A short list of wins shows you follow through.

Certifications and courses (optional)#

If you've finished an online course, certification, or training program, list it. First Aid/CPR, a programming certificate, a language proficiency exam, a graphic design course. These show you go learn things school never asked you to.

Hobbies and interests (optional)#

Only include hobbies if you have spare space or they're genuinely relevant. The point is to hint at personality or skill: a self-taught photographer, a serious chess player, someone who runs a blog. Make every hobby earn its line. "Photography, won 2 local art contests" beats plain "Photography." If you're short on space, cut the section or fold a key interest into your objective.

One structural rule that applies throughout: within each section, list items from most recent to oldest (the standard chronological format), keep headings clear, and format dates and locations the same way everywhere. Even with no work history, a professional structure makes the whole thing look polished.

What counts as experience#

The trick at this age is recognizing which things you've already done demonstrate useful skills, commitment, and initiative. Here's what admissions officers, internship coordinators, and recruiters actually value from high school students.

School leadership and clubs#

Student government, academic clubs, language clubs, the robotics team, Model UN, debate, honor societies. All of it shows you take initiative and work with other people. Leadership positions (captain, president, committee lead) are particularly impressive, but general membership counts if you were an active contributor. Emphasize what you did: starting a new club, holding an office, leading a major event or project. These experiences show teamwork, leadership, and time management.

Community service and volunteering#

Volunteering shows empathy, commitment, and a connection to your community. Consistent work, like weekly tutoring or regular shifts at a charity, usually carries more weight than one-off events. A food bank, a hospital, a religious organization, an animal shelter, even virtual volunteering, it all belongs on the resume. Include the impact where you can: "Volunteered 100+ hours over 6 months" or "Helped fundraise $1,000 for the shelter."

Competitions and academic awards#

Science fairs, math Olympiads, hackathons, debate tournaments, coding contests, robotics competitions, writing and art contests. Participation shows passion for the field, and winning or placing shows excellence in it. Being a mathlete, a debate team member, or a science fair finalist signals analytical and competitive skills, and academic teams like Quiz Bowl or Science Olympiad fall here too. List the competition name, the year, and any award or rank.

Internships, jobs, and real work#

Any kind of job is a big plus: a formal internship, a summer job at a store or restaurant, a part-time job during the school year, or informal work like childcare and yard work. Work experience demonstrates responsibility, time management, and basic workplace skills like customer service or handling money. If you haven't had the chance yet, look into short internships or job shadowing, even unpaid. Research experience counts here too, whether that's assisting a teacher or professor on a project or doing a summer research program, and academic programs value it highly.

Personal and school projects#

Side projects show initiative without anyone assigning it. Maybe you built a simple website or app, wrote a business plan for an entrepreneurship contest, made a short film, or ran a self-directed science experiment. Describe what the project was and how it turned out: "Taught myself Java and developed a basic game with 200 downloads" or "Built a robot for a local competition, won 'Most Creative Design' award." Hackathon builds and science fair projects fit here as well.

Online courses and certifications#

Courses from Coursera, edX, Khan Academy, and similar platforms, or certifications in programming, IT, graphic design, or a language, all show you learn on your own time. Completing "Python for Everybody" or earning an Adobe Certified Professional certificate genuinely strengthens a student profile. List the course or certificate name, the platform or institution, and the year.

Sports and team activities#

Sports, dance, and other team activities are worth listing even for academic programs, because they show discipline, perseverance, and teamwork. Varsity athletics, a captain role, or coaching younger students all deserve a line: "Soccer Team, Co-Captain, Most Improved Player 2024." It also signals you can balance school with other commitments.

One warning before you list everything you've ever joined: quality beats quantity. Deep engagement in a few activities reads far better than a dozen clubs you barely attended. Reviewers like commitment, like holding a role for 2-3 years or moving up from member to leader. Include the experiences where you made a real contribution or learned something, and leave the rest off.

Write bullets that prove impact#

Under each experience, bullet points describe what you did and what changed because you did it. This is where resumes get won or lost, so take your time here.

Start with an action verb#

Open each bullet with a verb that carries weight. Not "Responsible for" or "Had to." Try "Led," "Organized," "Created," "Initiated," "Improved," "Managed," "Tutored." Action verbs make you sound like someone who does things: "Organized a school-wide coding workshop" or "Led the fundraising committee."

Be specific about what you did#

Say what you did and, where possible, how. Instead of "Volunteered at library," write "Volunteered as a library assistant, cataloguing books and assisting ~50 patrons weekly." Now the reader knows your actual duties and the scale.

Show the result#

Each bullet should try to answer the question "what did your work change?" Include an outcome wherever you can, especially one with a number in it. Numbers pull the eye and show scale. "Planned and ran a charity bake sale raising $800 for local food pantry" is stronger than "Planned a charity bake sale." If you tutored, mention the improvement: "Tutored 5 students in math, helping raise their grades by an average of one letter grade." When you can't put a number on it, describe the impact in words, like "improved club participation through weekly outreach, more than doubling membership."

Show leadership and teamwork#

If you led something, the bullet should say so. "Led," "mentored," "coordinated," "implemented." You don't need a formal title for this. Maybe you ran one specific project or took charge of an event: "Spearheaded a new student orientation program, leading a team of 10 volunteers to mentor incoming freshmen." Reviewers love evidence that you can organize other people. Collaboration counts too: "Collaborated with 3 classmates on a research project and co-authored a 10-page report on climate change solutions."

Keep each bullet short#

One sentence, one or two lines. No "I," no filler words. People reviewing applications skim fast, so every bullet has to land on the first read.

A weak bullet and a strong one#

Weak: "Member of coding club." Too vague. It shows no contribution and no skill.

Strong: "Co-founded school Coding Club and taught weekly Python workshops for 20+ students, resulting in 3 team projects showcased at the science fair."

The strong version shows initiative (co-founding a club), a skill (teaching Python), and an outcome (projects at the fair), all in one line. Frame your own experiences the same way wherever you can.

Two more things. Tailor bullets to the opportunity: for a research program, emphasize research tasks ("Analyzed data," "Conducted experiments"), and for a leadership camp, surface the moments you led or solved a problem with other people. And don't exaggerate. If you were part of a team, "contributed to" and "assisted with" are honest and still useful. The test is whether you could discuss the bullet in detail if an interviewer asked.

Formatting and length#

The content might be mostly school activities, but the document should still look professional. Here's how.

Keep it to one page#

You shouldn't need more, and a tight single page shows you can prioritize. Recruiters spend seconds on each resume. Only in rare cases, like a long list of significant awards or publications, would a high school resume justify a second page, and usually not even then.

Font and text#

Pick a clean font: Arial, Calibri, Times New Roman, or Helvetica. Skip anything stylized or "fun," since this should read as a formal document. Use around 11 or 12 points for body text and something larger, maybe 14-16, for your name at the top. Keep margins around 1 inch on each side so the page has white space and doesn't feel crowded. If anyone has to squint, the font's too small.

Consistency#

Whatever formatting choices you make, make them everywhere. Bold one section header, bold them all. If entries read Position, Organization, Date, keep that order for every entry. Consistent formatting scans faster and looks more careful.

Bullets and spacing#

Use bullet points under each experience, usually 1-4 per entry depending on how much you did there, and align them neatly. Single spacing or 1.15 is plenty. Leave a clear gap (or a thin line) between sections so each part of the resume stands apart at a glance.

Section order#

A common order: name and contact, objective (optional), Education, Experience (work and volunteering), Activities and Leadership if separate, Skills and Certifications, then Awards and Honors if they're not already covered. Reorder to fit your story. If you're applying to a coding internship with several projects but no job history, put Projects above Experience. The most relevant and impressive sections go toward the top.

Getting past resume scanners#

Some larger organizations run resumes through an applicant tracking system (ATS) before a human sees them. To be safe, keep the layout simple, with no graphics or tables that might confuse the software, and use keywords from the posting where they're true for you. If the posting mentions "Java programming" or "leadership" and you have those, the words should appear on your resume. That said, most student opportunities are reviewed by actual humans, so clarity and content come first.

File format and naming#

If you're submitting online, save as a PDF unless told otherwise, so the formatting survives. Name it something like FirstName_LastName_Resume.pdf. A small thing, but it looks mature and makes your document easy to find.

Common pitfalls#

Keep the tone professional, no slang. Write statements, not first person ("Did X," not "I did X"). Check that your email address and voicemail greeting are presentable. The goofy gamer handle is fine among friends, but applications get a simple address with your name in it. And double-check the obvious stuff. People genuinely forget to include their own contact info.

Proofread carefully#

Typos leave a bad impression. Run spellcheck, then read slowly to catch what spellcheck can't, like "from" versus "form." Ask a teacher, mentor, or friend to look it over, since fresh eyes catch what you've gone blind to, and reading it aloud helps spot awkward phrasing. Check the small consistency details too: if one entry says "Sep 2024 - Present," another shouldn't say "June 2023 to Aug 2023." Details like that quietly prove your attention to detail, which is exactly the quality you're trying to show.

In short, a well-formatted resume is clean, consistent, and easy to read. Picture a busy reviewer holding it at arm's length. The key parts should still stand out.

Real ways to build experience#

If you've read this far and your resume still feels sparse, that's fixable, and high school is honestly the best time to fix it. Everything below strengthens a resume and is worth doing for its own sake.

Take on leadership#

Run for student council, become a club officer, or start a new club if your school is missing one you'd want. Leadership builds teamwork, organization, and responsibility, and it produces great resume lines ("Founded a Photography Club that grew to 30 members"). If no formal positions are open, lead anyway: organize a club event or head up a team competition entry.

Join something and stay#

Depth and longevity count more than breadth. Pick a club or team you actually like, academic (science, math, debate), arts (drama, music, art), or any special interest group, and stick with it. If your school doesn't have what you're into, start it with a teacher sponsor, which doubles as serious initiative. Honor societies and community youth groups like 4-H, Scouts, or the Boys & Girls Club work the same way: structured places to take on projects and show commitment.

Hackathons and coding events#

Hackathons and coding competitions welcome high schoolers, often including total beginners. They're time-boxed, usually 24-48 hours or a series of weekends, and you build a tech project in a team. Win or not, you walk away with something listable: "Participated in XYZ Hackathon and developed a prototype mobile app for tracking recycling." Robotics competitions and STEM fairs offer the same kind of hands-on, collaborative problem-solving.

Science fairs and academic competitions#

A science fair project teaches research and presentation skills, and might earn an award for the resume. Math and science Olympiads, quiz bowls, engineering challenges, and writing competitions all work the same way. Placing high is a headline. Just entering still shows you go looking for challenges beyond the classroom.

Volunteer#

The most accessible experience there is. Find local organizations behind causes you care about: animal shelters, food banks, hospitals, libraries, charity thrift stores, community gardens, senior centers. Go regularly if you can, every weekend or every summer, and take on more responsibility over time, like coordinating other volunteers or leading a drive. School service clubs and honor societies often organize volunteering, so join those to find openings. Remote counts too: translating documents, contributing to Wikipedia, tutoring kids over Zoom, running social media for a nonprofit. What matters is being able to describe what you did and what it added up to: "Volunteered 3 hours/week at local food pantry, serving 50+ families per week" or "Mentored 2 middle school students in math through online tutoring sessions."

Internships and job shadowing#

High school internships are competitive, but they exist, especially in summer. Talk to your school counselor about local internship and research programs, and have a look at our list of internship programs for high school students, which covers programs run by companies, universities, and nonprofits. If a formal internship doesn't happen, ask to shadow a professional instead: spend a day or a few following a doctor, engineer, or teacher to see what they actually do. It shows initiative, gives you material for essays and interviews, and can sit on the resume as an experience entry ("Job Shadow at XYZ Clinic, observed and learned about healthcare administration"). Pre-college summer programs and research workshops count too, listed as educational experiences.

Start a personal project#

You don't need anyone's permission for this one. If you code, build a simple website or game. If you write, start a blog or contribute to a school or local newspaper. If you draw or design, put together a digital portfolio. If you make music, organize a small community concert or produce tracks at home and share them. The entrepreneurial version is a tiny business, selling crafts or offering a service, and even a summer gig is experience. Personal projects show passion and give you concrete things to talk about in applications and interviews: "Wrote and self-published a 50-page e-book on local history, downloaded 200+ times" or "Designed a personal portfolio website to showcase my photography."

Take an online course#

Coursera, edX, Udemy, Codecademy, and Khan Academy offer courses free or cheap, in coding, graphic design, digital marketing, languages, and more. Finish one with a certificate, like a Google Analytics certification, a Coursera certificate, or a Microsoft Office Specialist exam, and you've got a concrete line for your Certifications or Skills section, plus proof you have the discipline to learn on your own.

Look outside school#

Some towns run youth advisory councils where students weigh in on local issues. There might be an environmental advocacy group, a coding club at the library, or a religious or community group where you can take an active role. Family responsibilities count for something too. If you help in a family business or care for younger siblings, that can be framed honestly as experience, something like "Assisted in managing household and childcare for younger siblings," which speaks to reliability and time management.

One filter for all of the above: pick things that genuinely interest you. If you join activities purely because they'll look good, you probably won't stick with them, and you definitely won't talk about them well in an interview. Students who go deep on one or two real interests usually end up with stronger resumes anyway, because depth produces the kind of results that fill a page by themselves.

A few last things#

Tailor each application. Keep a general resume, but adjust it for each opportunity, since a research program, a volunteer position, and a competitive summer camp each care about different parts of your background. Small tweaks, like reordering sections or swapping which projects get the spotlight, make the resume feel written for that specific reader.

Never fabricate, and don't undersell either. Maybe you haven't worked a "real job," but steady volunteering or an app you coded in your free time says just as much about what you can do. Describe it honestly and confidently and that comes through.

Use the help that's around. Sample high school resumes and templates are easy to find online and great for inspiration (don't copy achievements that aren't yours, obviously). Many schools have a career center or guidance counselor who'll give feedback, and there are free resume workshops and tutorials built specifically for students.

Last, treat the resume as a living document. Update it whenever something new happens (a certification, a finished project, an end-of-season award) so you're not reconstructing your life from memory a year later. Rereading it now and then also shows you where the gaps are. No leadership roles yet? Now you know what to go get next semester.

Every professional you'll ever meet once had a one-page resume with a few school activities on it. Present the best version of what you have today, keep adding to it, and each application gets easier than the last.