Last updated: February 26th, 2026
You’re a fresh college graduate, looking for your first job. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, you need a professional resume that will help kick-start your career.
Resume writing experts are everywhere, each offering you an endless stream of resume writing tips.
But you can’t afford them. You’re a freshly minted graduate, after all.
Not to worry. Here are three guiding principles that will teach you 90% of what you need to know.
(Related: Finance Director Resume Examples & Writing Guide).
1. What Is The Correct Length Of Your First Resume?
One page, two pages or more? Opinions differ, and if you listen to each one you may never feel confident that you’re doing the right thing.
Here’s the correct answer – your resume should be as long as it needs to be to communicate its message.
You may be able to tell a potential employer everything they need to know about you in under one page – and that’s perfectly OK.
However, if you’ve had quite a few sporting, extra-curricular and work experience-related commitments, you may find that a longer (2-page) is the better option.
(Related: Executive Resume Templates For CEOs & Senior Leaders).
2. How To Impress Recruiters & Hiring Managers?
You’re young. You don’t have much work experience under your belt.
You fear that you don’t have enough selling points to fill even a quarter of a resume page. It’s not like you’ve had a stellar career with 7 jobs across 20 years, right?
I get it.
Most people who are writing resumes for the first time face this dilemma.
Expert Tip.
Employers fully understand your situation, and don’t expect you to have a lot of work experience at your age.
They are interested in knowing what makes you different from your other classmates.
It’s important to remember that employers don’t necessarily want to know about the activity you’ve done. They’re interested in how this activity could transfer to improved on-the-job performance.
Let me give you a few examples:
- Were you a school captain or a prefect? (Tell the employer about your leadership skills and ability to solve ‘people’ problems).
- Did you compete in any sports? (Tell the employer about the discipline and rigour you’ve had to develop in order to manage your sporting and school commitments.
- Did you study abroad? (Tell the employer about the flexibility and emotional intelligence you’ve had to develop to operate in another culture successfully.
- Do you like to play the violin? (Tell the employer about your innate sense of curiosity).
Important!
You can craft construct an impressive first resume even if you don’t have any work experience to brag about.
3. Why Many Graduates Fail.
Here’s my final, and possibly most important, piece of advice for you –
Think of your social media accounts as an extension of your resume. Expect potential employers to check them during the screening process, so make sure they contain no evidence of:
- Political slander (unless you’re applying for a position with Democratic Party or GOP)..
- Partying behaviour (no, they won’t be impressed by your 2am bar crawl)
- Revealing outfits.
- Trolling of other internet users (there’s a difference between a debate and a trolling crusade – make sure you understand what it is).
- Ranting blog posts.
- Complaining.
- Self-indulgent diatribes.
Final Word About Writing Your First Resume.
After you’ve implemented all of the tips in this guide, I suggest that you read this article to familiarise yourself with another 5 fundamental resume writing rules.
All the best in your career.
Ireme
