Should a new grad resume be one page?

Yes, with rare exceptions for research or clinical records with publications. One page is a filter for editing judgment as much as for length.

Do I list retail or restaurant jobs?

List them. Reliability, customer conflict, cash accuracy, and training others are exactly the traits entry-level employers screen for.

PDF unless the application explicitly asks for .docx. Save the file as Firstname-Lastname-Role.pdf.

For Graduates · 4 min read

What goes on a new grad resume with no work experience?

Last updated August 16, 2026 · Career First Nexus

Short answer

A new graduate resume with no formal experience should run one page in this order: name and contact, a two-line summary naming the target role, education with graduation date, projects with concrete outputs, any paid or unpaid work, and a skills line listing the tools named in the posting. Every bullet should state what was done, at what scale, and what came of it. Leave off objectives, references-available lines, photos, and graphics.

The order, top to bottom

Name, city and state, phone, professional email, LinkedIn URL. No street address.
A two-line summary that names the exact role you're applying to and your two strongest relevant skills.
Education: degree, major, school, graduation month and year. GPA only if 3.4 or above.
Projects or relevant coursework: two to four entries with a deliverable and a result.
Experience: every paid or unpaid job, written with scale and outcomes.
Skills: tools and systems, spelled the way the posting spells them.

Bullets that work with nothing to point to

"Built a 12-week social calendar for a campus club of 240 members; grew event attendance from 30 to 75 per event."
"Cleaned and analyzed a 40,000-row public dataset in Excel and SQL for a capstone; presented findings to a panel of four faculty."
"Trained six new servers on POS and closing procedures during a summer of 20-hour weeks."
"Managed a $4,200 annual club budget and reconciled monthly spend with the student activities office."

What to leave off

Objective statements. They use prime space to say something everyone already knows.
High school, once you have a degree.
"References available upon request."
Photos, headshots, columns, tables, icons, and text boxes — the formats that break screening systems.
Soft-skill adjectives with no evidence attached. "Detail-oriented" is not a claim, it's a mood.

One resume per posting, not one resume total

Keep a master version, then adjust the summary line, the top three bullets, and the skills row for each application to match the posting's language. It takes about eight minutes and is the single highest-return habit in a new grad search. Career First Nexus ships single-column, screening-safe templates and stores each tailored version against the application it was sent with, so you can see later which wording actually drew replies.

The system behind these answers

Career First Nexus is a software, behavioral, and education system that keeps recent college graduates on track from graduation to their first offer: a 40-day daily plan, ATS-safe resume templates, an application and follow-up tracker, and a parent view with weekly check-in scripts. $129 once, lifetime access for both people, 30-day refund.