Welcome to Transfercamp’s resume guide. The objective of this guide is to walk students through the core characteristics of a great resume, provide examples of successful resumes, and help students craft their experiences into captivating bullet points for their resume.
For our resume guide, we’ll walk through my resume which I’ve used to interview at various companies including The Walt Disney Company, Amgen, Pepsico, Riot Games, and Blizzard Entertainment, to name a few. This resume has led to numerous calls for interviews which should be the intent of any resume – to get your foot in the door.
Howard's Example Resume
Because the example resume is something you might expect for someone with a couple years of work experience after graduating, later in this guide, we’ll explore how a resume might look for a student that’s fresh out of high school and in their earlier years of community college.
Now let’s analyze what makes this resume effective!
1. Action Verbs
Resumes should illustrate what you’ve done with effective “action verbs”. Action verbs help readers understand your role in the activity you’ve listed. Did you manage, present, analyze, or collaborate on something? Action verbs help to communicate this.
2. Metrics
Resumes should quantify the impact of your experiences. Metrics help readers understand the magnitude of what you’ve done and your effectiveness in generating results.
3. Breadth
Resumes should illustrate the diverse experiences you’ve had during your role. Demonstrating different and diverse experiences help communicate that you’ve grown and challenged yourself to experience a wide range of responsibilities in your role.
4. Ownership
Resumes should highlight the key areas of responsibility you had during your role. Actively managing a project and leading a team is much more impactful than simply “contributing” to the work your team does. Highlighting areas where you’ve had an active management or leadership capacity helps demonstrate your ability to take ownership over a responsibility.
Structure
You’ve likely heard the statistic that recruiters and hiring managers only spend a few seconds looking through each resume. This is why structure is critical. There are a few commonly accepted formats for resumes that hiring managers are accustomed to. These common formats encourage hiring managers to look at specific areas of the resume to find information about your education, career history, interests, etc. While I’m a huge advocate for trying something different in order to stand out, for resumes, I’d encourage students to structure their resumes to follow the tried and true formats that hiring managers might expect.
TransferCamp's Recommended Resume Format: The Marshall Format
This is the resume format USC’s Marshall School of Business encourages its students to follow. While standard, the Marshall format is well structured, universally accepted by hiring managers, and is applicable for most roles. (Download the template below)
How should your resume look in community college?
As a community college student, it’s unlikely you’ll have the same breadth and depth of experiences outlined in the example resume. So let’s walk through how we can transform common activities, hobbies, and work experiences into compelling bullet points for your resume.
Remember, each bullet point should aim to demonstrate what you did, the scope of your responsibilities, ownership, and meaningful metrics that illustrate your effectiveness on the job.
When you’re fresh out of high school, the expectation is that you won’t have a large list of paid work experiences. That’s ok! Feel free to list volunteer work, projects, and entrepreneurial hobbies as valid work experience.
Check out the following templates for common work experiences in high school and community college:
Food Services
- Managed [XX] tables and [XX] number of customers per shift, representing $[XX] in daily sales
- Coordinated with front of house staff to ensure timely seating of customers, minimizing average wait times to [XX] minutes
- Managed shift rotations for a team of [XX] servers and hosting staff
- Took on shift opening and closing duties including [XYZ]
- Maintained accurate PoS records and organized daily sales information for restaurant management
- Memorized frequent customer names and order preferences to ensure a welcoming restaurant environment
- Awarded distinguished server of the month for achieving [XX] in daily sales
- Resolved any issues with customers with a friendly and calm attitude
- Managed the seating for [XX] tables, representing [XX] customers per shift
- Maintained [XX] active reservations and accurate customer waitlists for [XX] customers per shift
- Coordinated with serving staff to maintain accurate table wait times for customers
- Memorized frequent customer names to ensure a welcoming restaurant environment
- Managed [XX] call in orders per shift and packed togo orders efficiently to ensure order are ready for customer pickup
- Resolved any issues with customers with a friendly and calm attitude
- Took orders for [XX] customers per shift and maintained a warm and welcoming attitude to ensure a friendly restaurant environment
- Memorized frequent customer names and order preferences
- Took orders efficiently and quickly during busy hours, representing [XX] orders per shift without a loss in quality or friendliness
- Managed [XX] call in orders per shift and packed togo orders efficiently to ensure order are ready for customer pickup
- Maintained accurate PoS records and organized daily sales information for management
- Resolved any issues with customers with a friendly and calm attitude
- Greeted customers, memorized customer names, and maintained welcoming conversations with customers to ensure to warm restaurant environment
- Managed [XX] orders per shift, accurately and efficiently to reduce average customer wait times to [XX] minutes
- Resolved and remade drinks to meet customer specifications
- Organized store products and maintained an inventory of [XX] items on store shelves to ensure products are always well stocked
- Proactively used down time to maintain a clean and neat store
- Managed a checkout line for [XX] customers per shift and maintained a warm and welcoming attitude to ensure a friendly shopping experience
- Scanned customer items efficiently, averaging [XX] items per minute to ensure a quick shopping experience for customers
- Maintained accurate an accurate cash box and daily sales reconciliation for store management, representing [XX] in daily sales
- Maintained an accurate inventory of store items and managed the stock of [XX] SKUs in store
Entertainment
- Worked as a lifeguard for [XX] beach/ [XX] pool and maintained the safety for [XX] swimmers per day
- Saved [XX] swimmers from dangerous water conditions
- Licensed CPR and first aid professional
- Proactively maintained the safety of swimmers by notifying swimmers of water conditions and dangerous marine life
- Coordinated with county law enforcement to maintain beach hours of operation and beach closure standards
- Managed the box office for [XX] ticket sales per shift, representing $[XX] in daily sales
- Maintained clean up responsibilities for [XX] screening rooms, averaging [XX] minutes to prepare a theater for the next showtime
- Actively introduced movie theater patrons to [Theater’s] reward program, successfully signing up [XX] numbers of program participants per month
- Organized a team of [XX] theater staff to clean [XX] theaters to ensure quick turnover of screening rooms for showtimes
- Maintained accurate headcount of theater patrons per showtime
- Maintained the operating conditions of [XX] machines to ensure a smooth entertainment experience for customers
- Managed the ticketing for [XX] customers per hour
- Restocked and organized [XX items] per hour to ensure a quick check in and check out process for customers
- Proactively introduced customers to [company name] reward programs and birthday party services offered, successfully signing up [XX] customers to programs/services per month
- Managed service offering for fitness center customers and sold [XX] memberships per month
- Maintained the front desk reception area and greeted customers with a warm and friendly attitude to ensure to welcoming fitness center environment
- Proactively followed up with [XX] number of “trial based’ customers and successfully converted [XX]% of follow up calls into annual memberships
- Analyzed a database of customers with expired memberships and coordinated with management to offer special promotional memberships to discontinued customers, successfully converting [XX]% of discontinued customers into membership renewals
- Reshelved and cleaned gym equipment to ensure a clean and safe gym environment for club members
Transportation
- Greeted customers with a warm and welcoming attitude to maintain the [company]’s goal of friendly service
- Managed the delivery routes for [City] and coordinated with [XX] deliver drivers to optimize deliveries to customers
- Delivered [XX food items/packages] per hour and successfully achieved estimated wait times with zero late deliveries
- Carefully analyzed customer requests to ensure delivery specifications were accurate
- Provided ridesharing services for [XX] customers per hour and maintained a [XX] star review on [rideshsare service name]
- Communicated with over [XX]% of customers to provide a friendly and personalized transportation experience for customers
- Maintained a clean vehicle for customers to ensure customer experience a comfortable and safe ride
- Proactively communicated with customers to ensure an accurate and safe pickup experience, achieved zero cancelled rides due to inability to pickup
- Maintained a well stocked vehicle including hand sanitizer, tissues, and mints to provide a unique ridesharing experience for customers
Retail
- Managed and researched the product lines of [XX] items and sold [XX] items per month
- Recommended new store layouts to store management to maximize the sale of [item], increasing [item] sales by [XX]%
- Greeted customers with a warm and friendly attitude to ensure to welcoming shopping experience
- Actively introduced store customers to [store’s] reward program, successfully signing up [XX] numbers of program participants per month
- Restocked and organized store merchandise to ensure a clean shopping experience for customers
- Managed the stockroom for [store name] and maintained accurate inventory of [XX] items per day
- Actively maintained inventory records and notified store management of what items needed to be reordered, minimizing out of stock merchandise by [XX]%
- Accurately labeled returned merchandise to ensure efficient classification of returned items to be resold or returned to [store] warehouse
- Achieved zero lost stockroom items
Other
- Oversaw babysitting services for [XX] families for children [X through X] years old
- Maintained trust and long lasting relationships with babysitting clients, achieving an average of [XX] months/years of babysitting services per family
- Recommended education and enrichment opportunities for parents and worked to educate children during babysitting
- Proactively communicated with parents to notify parents on the status and health of their children
- Maintained accurate notes and requests from parents to ensure children are cared for in alignment with parents’ expectations
- Provided tutoring services for [XX] students ranging from [grade to grade] in [subject 1, subject 2, subject 3, etc]
- Helped students achieve an average grade of [XX] in their classes
- Maintained trust and long lasting relationships with tutoring clients, achieving an average of [XX] months/years of tutoring services per client
- Recommended studying tips and supplemental educational material for students and families to ensure academic success
- Took accurate notes on a student’s performance and develop to inform parents on a student’s progress
Ready for the interview? Check out TransferCamp's interview prep questions curated from industry professionals below:
