Your first resume can feel empty. It is not. You spent four years doing things employers care about: finishing a degree, working through an OJT, building a thesis or capstone, and running events. The job of your resume is to show those things clearly on one page.
Put education first
When you have no full-time work yet, Education goes near the top, right after your contact details and a short summary. Include:
- your degree and school,
- your graduation month and year,
- honors, if you have them, such as cum laude or dean's lister,
- a few relevant subjects, only if they match the job.
A short summary above it helps a recruiter place you. Two or three sentences are enough: what you studied, your strongest skill, and the job you want. Write it last, after the rest of the resume is done.
Your OJT is experience
Treat your OJT or internship like a job. Give it its own entry under Experience with the company, your department, the dates, and the number of hours if you like.
Then write what you did, starting each line with a verb:
- "Assisted the HR team in screening applicant files and scheduling interviews."
- "Encoded and checked supplier invoices in the accounting system."
- "Answered walk-in customer questions at the branch front desk."
Be specific about the task. "Did clerical work" tells the reader nothing. "Filed and scanned 2019 to 2022 payroll records into the new document system" tells them you can be trusted with records.
Part-time jobs, freelance work and family business work count too. Service crew, tutoring and online selling all show reliability and dealing with people.
Projects, thesis and org work
Your thesis or capstone is often the most impressive thing you have done. Give it a line or two: what you built or studied, the method or tools, and what came out of it.
- "Capstone: built a barangay clearance request system in PHP and MySQL with three teammates."
- "Thesis: surveyed 200 Gen Z shoppers about online buying habits and presented the results to the department."
Organization roles belong here as well. Say what you ran, not just your title. "Organized a seminar for 120 students as org secretary" beats "Secretary, Business Society".
Skills you can prove
List skills that the rest of your resume backs up. If you write "Excel", your OJT or thesis should show where you used it. Useful categories:
- software you actually use, such as Excel, Canva or a programming language,
- languages you speak and write,
- trainings or certificates, such as a TESDA NC II.
Skip vague traits like "hardworking" and "fast learner" as skills. Show them in your bullets instead.
Leave these out
- Your full street address. City is enough.
- High school details, once you have a college degree, unless the employer asks.
- A generic objective such as "to find a challenging position in a stable company". Use the short summary instead.
- Personal details like height, weight and religion, unless the posting specifically asks. We cover this in our post on photo, age and civil status.
- References. "Available upon request" is understood. Keep the space for your work.
One page is enough
A fresh graduate resume should fit on one page. If yours runs over, cut the weakest bullets rather than shrinking the font. Recruiters skim, and a full, clear page reads better than a crowded one.
Start or check yours
No resume yet? Build one step by step with the fresh graduate layout, which puts education, OJT and projects in the right order. Already have one? Check it against a job post.