An entry-level resume template needs six sections in this order: header, summary, education, experience and projects, skills, and one optional section. Each section should hold quantified, ATS-safe content built from coursework, part-time jobs, or class projects—not blank space, because recruiters and Workday-style parsers both expect a complete, single-column page.
Most entry-level resume advice tells you what to avoid. This one gives you the skeleton to copy, a fully filled-out example for a generic candidate, and the formatting rules that keep the file readable inside Workday, Greenhouse, and Taleo application portals. Paste the structure below into a blank document, swap in your own details, and you have a working draft in under thirty minutes.
If you want the reasoning behind format choices—chronological versus functional, margin sizes, why single-column wins—read the best resume format for entry-level jobs . This post skips the theory and gives you the template itself.
Key Takeaways
- Six sections, in order: header, summary, education, experience/projects, skills, optional
- No experience is not the same as no content—coursework and part-time jobs both count
- Single-column, standard fonts, and plain section headings parse cleanly in Workday and Greenhouse
- Every bullet needs a number attached: hours, dollars, percentage, or people
- One page, no photo, no objective statement, no references line
The entry-level resume template structure: 6 sections in order
Copy this order into a blank document before you write a single word of content. The sequence matters because both human reviewers and ATS parsers expect it—education moves below experience once you have more than one relevant internship, but for a true entry-level candidate with no full-time history, education stays second.
| Section | What goes there | Example line |
|---|---|---|
| Header | Name, city/state, phone, email, LinkedIn URL | Jordan Ellis · Columbus, OH · (614) 555-0148 |
| Summary | 3-4 lines: focus area, top skills, one metric | Marketing graduate with paid-social experience from a 400-follower campus campaign |
| Education | Degree, school, graduation date, GPA if 3.5+ | B.A. Marketing, Ohio State University, May 2026 |
| Experience & Projects | Internships, part-time jobs, class projects, volunteer roles | Marketing Intern, Local Coffee Co. — grew Instagram following 22% in 10 weeks |
| Skills | Hard skills and tools matched to the job posting's language | Skills: Canva, Google Analytics, Excel (pivot tables), HubSpot, copywriting |
| Optional | Certifications, activities, or additional projects | Google Analytics Certified, 2026 |
For a deeper list of which words to place inside the skills and experience sections, see entry-level resume keywords that matter . This template tells you where those keywords live; that guide tells you which ones to pick.
Pro Tip: keep the six sections in this exact order even if a section feels thin—a short Skills line at the bottom still beats reordering the page in a way a recruiter or parser does not expect.
Header and contact info: what to include (and skip)
The header is one line, sometimes two, placed as plain text at the top of the page— never inside a text box, table cell, or graphic banner. Include your full name, city and state (no street address), phone number, a professional email address, and your LinkedIn URL if the profile is filled out. Add a portfolio or GitHub link only if the role calls for one.
Skip a headshot, a street address, a fax number, and the word "Resume" as a title—none of those add information a recruiter needs, and a photo can trigger unconscious bias screening concerns at companies with formal EEO review processes. Keep the email address simple: [email protected] reads better than a handle left over from a gaming account.
Template example: Jordan Ellis · Columbus, OH · (614) 555-0148 · [email protected] · linkedin.com/in/jordanellis
Common Mistake: putting the header inside a table or a colored sidebar box. Workday and iCIMS parsers frequently skip text placed inside table cells, which means the recruiter's system shows a blank name and phone field even though the resume looks complete on screen.
Resume summary for entry-level candidates: 3 lines, no objective
Write three to four lines directly under the header. State your degree or focus area, your two strongest relevant skills, and one measurable result pulled from an internship, a class project, or a part-time job. Do not open with "seeking an opportunity to grow"—that tells the reader nothing about what you offer.
| Before (weak, generic) | After (specific, ATS-safe) |
|---|---|
| Motivated recent graduate seeking an entry-level position to gain experience and grow with a company. | Marketing graduate (May 2026) with hands-on experience in Canva, Google Analytics, and paid social; grew a campus organization's Instagram following 22% in one semester. |
| Hardworking team player with strong communication skills and a positive attitude. | Customer-facing retail associate with 18 months of experience handling 60+ transactions per shift; trained 4 new hires on POS procedures. |
| Recent computer science graduate looking to apply my skills in a software development role. | Computer science graduate with Python and SQL project experience; built a capstone app that reduced manual data entry by 30% for a 12-person student club. |
Notice the pattern: every "after" version names a tool, a number, or both. If you genuinely have no metric yet, use a scope instead—class size, team size, or transaction volume all work as a substitute until you have a percentage to report.
Key Takeaway: a summary is a highlight reel of what you already have, not a request for what you want—save the "seeking" language for the cover letter.
Education section: how to make it work harder
For a true entry-level candidate, education sits third and does more than list a degree. Include the degree name, school, location (optional), and graduation month and year. Add GPA only at 3.5 or above. Below the degree line, list two or three relevant courses if you lack a matching internship, plus any dean's list, honors, or scholarship recognition worth a single line.
Template example:
B.A. Marketing, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH — May 2026
GPA: 3.7/4.0 · Relevant coursework: Digital Marketing Analytics, Consumer Behavior,
Brand Strategy
Dean's List: Fall 2024, Spring 2025
According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the NACE Job Outlook survey consistently finds that employers rank internship experience and demonstrated skills above GPA alone when screening new-graduate candidates—another reason to keep the coursework line short and put your real weight behind the experience section below it.
Common Mistake: listing every class from four years of transcripts. Three relevant courses signal focus; fifteen courses read as padding and push stronger content off the page.
Experience & Projects: turning coursework and part-time work into proof
This is the section most entry-level candidates leave weak, usually because they only list traditional jobs and skip class projects, volunteer work, and student organization roles. Recruiters reading for skills do not require the word "job" next to an entry—they require evidence you can do the work. Label the section Experience & Projects and include anything with a defined scope and a result.
Each entry follows the same shape: title, organization, dates, then two to three bullets. Every bullet should start with an action verb and end with a number—hours, dollars, percentage, or people affected.
| Before (duty description) | After (quantified, ATS-safe) |
|---|---|
| Helped with social media posts for a class project. | Managed a 6-week social media plan for a class project, publishing 18 posts that grew a mock brand's follower count from 0 to 340. |
| Worked as a cashier and did other tasks as needed. | Processed 60+ transactions per shift as a cashier at a 20-employee retail store; opened and reconciled the register with zero discrepancies over 6 months. |
| Was a member of the student business club. | Served as Treasurer for a 45-member student business club; managed a $2,400 annual budget and cut event costs 15% through vendor renegotiation. |
For a full walkthrough of turning a blank work-history section into interview-ready bullets, read entry-level resume that gets interviews with no experience . That guide covers the mindset shift; this template gives you the fill-in-the-blank structure to apply it in.
Pro Tip: if a bullet has no number after you draft it, ask "how many," "how much," or "how often"—the answer is almost always sitting in your memory even when it was not part of a formal job.
Skills section: hard skills, tools, and keyword matching
List hard skills and named tools, not soft-skill adjectives. "Team player" and "fast learner" do not match against ATS keyword fields; "Excel (pivot tables, VLOOKUP)" and "Google Analytics" do. Pull the exact terms from the job posting whenever you honestly have the skill—if the posting says "Salesforce," write "Salesforce," not "CRM software."
Template example: Skills: Excel (pivot tables, VLOOKUP), Canva, HubSpot, Google Analytics, SQL basics, Python (intro-level), Salesforce, customer service, data entry
Six to twelve skills is the right range. A list of thirty keywords crammed together looks like stuffing to both a recruiter and a parser trained to flag unnatural density. Group related tools together and keep the phrasing plain—no bullet icons, no colored tags, no skill-rating bars, since those graphics frequently fail to parse in Workday and SuccessFactors.
Common Mistake: using a 1-to-5 star rating graphic next to each skill. It looks polished on screen but adds nothing an ATS can read, and some parsers drop the entire line when they hit an unrecognized graphic element.
Optional sections: certifications, activities, and additional projects
Add one optional section only if it strengthens the application—do not force all three onto a single page. Certifications belong here when they are recent and relevant: Google Analytics, HubSpot Academy, CompTIA A+, or a language-specific coding certificate all count. Activities belong here when they show leadership, consistency, or a transferable skill—team captain, student government, or a 240-hour volunteer commitment.
If your Experience & Projects section is already strong, skip this section entirely and let the page breathe with slightly more white space. A one-page resume with five confident sections beats a cramped page with six thin ones.
Template example: Certifications: Google Analytics Certified (2026) · HubSpot Content Marketing Certified (2025)
Quick Check: if you cannot describe why an optional-section line matters to the specific job you are applying for, cut it and use the space for a stronger bullet in Experience & Projects instead.
Formatting rules: fonts, margins, single column, and ATS platforms
Formatting decides whether your content ever reaches a human. Entry-level applicants overwhelmingly apply through large-company campus portals built on Workday and Greenhouse, along with Taleo, Lever, and iCIMS at other employers—every one of those systems parses single-column, standard-font documents more reliably than a multi-column or graphic-heavy design.
- Font: Calibri, Arial, or Georgia at 10.5–12pt body text, 14–16pt for your name.
- Margins: 0.75 to 1 inch on all sides—tighter margins to fit more content signal poor editing, not more value.
- Layout: single column, top to bottom. No sidebars, no text boxes, no tables used for layout.
- Section headings: plain text labels—Experience, Education, Skills—not creative renamings a parser will not recognize.
- File format: PDF unless the posting requests DOCX; both should be text-selectable, never a scanned image or a design export.
- File name: FirstName-LastName-Resume.pdf, not "Resume_final_v3.pdf."
Before you rely on any template's "ATS-friendly" label, test the actual exported file. Run it through HireFlow's free ATS resume checker to confirm your contact info, dates, and skills extract correctly before you upload the same bytes to a Workday or Greenhouse portal.
Pro Tip: open your finished resume in a plain text editor. If the section order and text still read logically top to bottom with no jumbled columns, it will likely parse the same way in an ATS.
Adapting this template by industry
The six-section skeleton stays fixed; what changes by industry is which content fills the Experience & Projects and Skills sections, and how much weight Education carries.
- Tech and software roles: lead Skills with languages and frameworks (Python, Java, React), and add a GitHub link in the header. Capstone projects with a measurable outcome (users, latency, test coverage) belong at the top of Experience & Projects.
- Marketing and communications: quantify audience growth, engagement rate, or campaign reach. Link a portfolio or writing samples if the posting allows it.
- Finance and accounting: keep GPA visible if 3.5+, list Excel proficiency specifically (pivot tables, financial modeling), and mention any relevant certification progress (CFA Level I, CPA track).
- Healthcare and clinical support: list clinical hours, certification numbers (CPR, BLS), and any EHR systems used during clinicals or volunteer shifts.
- Customer service and retail: quantify transaction volume, customer satisfaction scores, or training responsibilities—these roles reward scope numbers even without a formal title change.
Whatever the industry, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections program tracks which entry-level occupations are adding roles fastest—useful context when you are deciding which skills to foreground if you are applying across two or three adjacent fields rather than one narrow title.
Common Mistake: using one identical resume for every application. Reordering your Skills list and swapping two Experience bullets to match each posting takes ten minutes and meaningfully improves keyword match.
Full filled-out example: entry-level candidate
Here is the complete template filled out for a generic entry-level marketing candidate. Copy the structure, then replace every detail with your own.
Jordan Ellis
Columbus, OH · (614) 555-0148 · [email protected] ·
linkedin.com/in/jordanellis
Summary
Marketing graduate (May 2026) with hands-on experience in Canva, Google Analytics,
and paid social; grew a campus organization's Instagram following 22% in one
semester.
Education
B.A. Marketing, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH — May 2026
GPA: 3.7/4.0 · Relevant coursework: Digital Marketing Analytics, Consumer Behavior
Experience & Projects
Marketing Intern, Local Coffee Co., Columbus, OH — Jun–Aug 2025
Grew Instagram following 22% in 10 weeks by publishing 3 posts weekly and tracking
engagement in Google Analytics.
Treasurer, Student Business Club, Ohio State University — Sep 2024–Present
Manage a $2,400 annual budget for a 45-member club; cut event costs 15% through
vendor renegotiation.
Skills
Canva, Google Analytics, HubSpot, Excel (pivot tables), copywriting, social media
scheduling
Certifications
Google Analytics Certified, 2026
Notice every section is short. Nothing here requires more than one page, and every bullet has a number attached. That is the entire formula—repeat it with your own details.
Key Takeaway: a filled-out template should look almost boring—no design flourishes, just clear labels and quantified content a recruiter can skim in under ten seconds.
Pre-send checklist before you submit
- Six sections present, in order: header, summary, education, experience/projects, skills, optional.
- Every bullet has a number—hours, dollars, percentage, or people.
- No objective statement, photo, street address, or references line.
- Single-column layout with no tables, text boxes, or icon-based skill ratings.
- Font is Calibri, Arial, or Georgia; margins between 0.75 and 1 inch.
- Skills section mirrors 6–12 exact terms from the job posting.
- File named FirstName-LastName-Resume.pdf, saved as text-selectable PDF or DOCX.
- Resume fits one page with room to spare, not crammed to the margin.
- Parse-tested on the actual exported file, not just the on-screen preview.
You can build directly from this checklist inside the HireFlow free resume builder or start from a pre-formatted layout in the resume templates library if you would rather begin from a designed file than a blank page.
Quick Check: if item 9 fails after you export, fix the file before you apply—a checklist you skip on the final step defeats the purpose of using one.
Frequently asked questions
A working entry-level resume template needs six parts: a header with contact links, a three-to-four-line summary, education, an experience or projects section built from coursework and part-time jobs, a skills list matched to the posting, and one optional section such as certifications or activities. Skip an objective statement, a photo, and a references line—none of those help an ATS parser or a recruiter skimming for seven seconds.
One page. Recruiters and campus recruiting teams reviewing high application volumes rarely read past the first page for candidates with under two years of experience, and a single page forces you to keep only quantified, relevant bullets. Two pages become reasonable only after several years of full-time work, multiple internships, or a portfolio of publications that genuinely needs the space.
Use a summary, not an objective. A summary states what you already offer—your major, your strongest skills, and one measurable result from an internship, class project, or part-time job. An objective only states what you want from the employer, which wastes the top third of the page on something the cover letter or application form already covers.
Relabel the section Experience & Projects and fill it with class projects, capstone work, volunteer roles, part-time or retail jobs, and student organization leadership. Treat each entry the same way you would a job: one line of context, then two to three bullets with a number attached—hours volunteered, dollars raised, people managed, or a percentage improved. Recruiters read for evidence of skills, not for a job title match.
Only if it stays single-column with no text boxes, icons carrying information, or tables for layout. Many free Canva templates use graphic sidebars and icon-based contact rows that Workday, Greenhouse, and iCIMS parsers either skip or scramble into the wrong fields. A plain single-column DOCX or PDF with standard section headings parses far more reliably than a visually elaborate template.
Mirror the exact keywords from the job posting in your skills and experience sections, use standard section headings the parser expects (Experience, Education, Skills), and avoid headers, footers, and columns that hide contact information from the extraction engine. Upload the finished file to an ATS checker before you submit it through the employer's actual portal, since a template that looks fine on screen can still fail extraction.
Include GPA only if it is 3.5 or higher, and drop it once you have six months of relevant full-time experience. Relevant coursework is worth two or three course names when you lack a matching internship—list only classes that map to the job posting's required skills, not your full transcript.
A reverse-chronological or combination format works best. Pure functional resumes that group skills without dates read as experience-hiding to recruiters and often confuse ATS parsers that expect a dated work history block. A combination format— summary and skills up top, dated experience and education below—gets you the best of both without the parsing risk.