Week 1: Resume and LinkedIn from your school projects
The ten-second resume test
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A recruiter screening hundreds of fresh grad applications often decides in about ten seconds whether to read further. Your resume must pass that first glance.
What they look for in ten seconds
- Target role: is it clear what job you want?
- Relevant skills: do the skills match the post?
- Proof: projects, OJT or experience that show you can apply those skills.
- Basics: degree, graduation date, location, contact info.
A layout that passes
- 1Header: name, city, mobile, professional email, LinkedIn, GitHub or portfolio link.
- 2Summary: two lines. Example: "BS Information Technology graduate (2026) focused on web development. Built a full-stack enrollment system in PHP and MySQL and a React to-do app. Looking for a junior developer role."
- 3Technical skills: grouped by Languages, Frameworks, Databases, Tools.
- 4Projects: two or three projects with two or three bullets each.
- 5Experience: OJT, internships, part-time jobs, freelancing.
- 6Education: degree, school, year. Latin honors or relevant awards if you have them.
- 7Certifications and activities: only relevant ones.
Common fresh-grad mistakes
- Age, height, weight, religion and civil status. Leave them out.
- A list of every seminar attended. Keep only two or three relevant ones, or none.
- Character references taking up space. "Available upon request" is enough, or omit entirely.
- Skill bars or ratings like "Java 80%". They mean nothing to a reader.
- Claiming a skill you cannot answer basic questions about. You will be asked.
Format
One column, simple font, PDF, file name Firstname-Lastname-Resume.pdf.