How to write it
Education goes first, with substance
This is the one period in your life when your education section is the strongest thing on the page, so give it more than a school name. Expected graduation date, GPA if it is around 3.4 or above, and two or three courses that bear on what you are applying for.
Expected graduation matters more than most people realise. An employer scheduling shifts needs to know when you finish and whether you are around in the summer, and leaving it out creates a question rather than an impression.
Leave the GPA off if it is below that threshold. An omitted GPA is unremarkable; a weak one stated is the first thing a reader's eye lands on in a short section.
What counts as experience
Almost everything you have been dismissing. Babysitting is childcare with responsibility for a minor. Mowing lawns for six neighbours is a small business with repeat customers. Running the concession stand is cash handling and inventory. Being treasurer of a club is budgeting.
The test is not whether it came with a payslip. It is whether you turned up when you said you would, took responsibility for something, and can say what happened as a result — which is precisely what an employer hiring for a first job is trying to establish, and none of it requires a previous employer.
Coursework counts when it produced something. A research paper is not a bullet; a research paper that won a regional prize or that you presented to the school board is.
- Informal and paid work: babysitting, tutoring, yard work, a family business
- Clubs and societies, especially anything with a budget, a team or a title
- Sports, where the argument is years of sustained commitment
- Volunteering, with hours or duration stated — that is what makes it credible
- Projects you finished: something you built, ran, organised or sold
- Certifications: food handler, lifeguard, first aid, a driving licence
Writing bullets when the numbers are small
The pattern is the same as any professional resume — a verb, a scale, an outcome — and the amounts are simply smaller. Small is not weak. A specific small number reads as true, where a vague large claim reads as inflated.
"Worked at the concession stand" tells a reader nothing. "Run the register at home games, serving roughly 200 customers across a three-hour event, and reconcile the drawer at close with no shortfalls across two seasons" tells them you can handle volume and be trusted with money.
"Member of robotics club" is a line. "Treasurer of the robotics club; manage a $2,400 season budget and file the reimbursement paperwork for eight competitions" is evidence, in the same amount of space.
Availability, and why it belongs in the summary
Employers hiring at this level are solving a scheduling problem. They need someone for Friday evenings, Saturday mornings and the December rush, and a candidate who states availability up front is easier to move forward than one who is slightly more experienced but unknown.
So put it in the summary and be specific: evenings, weekends, school holidays, and when you can start. If school or sport limits you, say what you can do rather than leaving it to be discovered at the interview.
The same logic applies to certifications. A food handler card, lifeguard certification or first aid qualification means the employer can schedule you immediately rather than after a training course, and that is a concrete advantage over other applicants.
A job application and a college application are different documents
An employer wants reliability, availability and evidence you can be taught. Lead with work, keep it to one page, and make your schedule and certifications easy to find.
A college or scholarship reader wants depth and trajectory — did you stay with something long enough to get good at it, and did you take on more over time. That version leads with activities and leadership, states years of involvement explicitly, and gives more room to awards and coursework.
Keep one document with everything on it and cut a version for each purpose. That is the same advice given to people thirty years into a career, and it works for the same reason.