What counts as experience
Internships, paid part-time work, significant freelance gigs, and structured volunteer shifts all belong in Experience with real names and dates. Class projects belong in Projects or Education unless they mimicked a job scope for a client.
If you truly have no work history, lead with Education and Projects. Do not invent a company to fill space — empty is better than fiction.
Verum will not generate employers you did not list.
Education-first layout
Degree, school, expected graduation or completion date, relevant coursework line if GPA is strong or coursework matches the job. Clubs and leadership go in one bullet if they produced outcomes — organized event for 100 attendees, not just “member.”
High school: include only if you are in your first two years of university or have no higher education yet.
Projects that replace internships
Title the section Projects. Each entry: project name, your role, date range, stack, one bullet on what you built and who used it. Link GitHub or demo if available.
Capstone and hackathon work is valid when described precisely. “Built a Next.js job board with Postgres auth for 50 beta users” beats “full-stack project.”
Skills and keywords
List tools you used in projects and courses. Match the posting spelling. Skip expert-level claims on tools you touched once.
Soft skills appear through bullets — “Presented weekly to class of 30” not a bullet list of adjectives.
Length and expectations
One page is enough. 300–600 words is typical. Use the word counter to avoid a half-empty page or an overstuffed one.
Apply to internships and “junior” or “associate” titles. ATS scores will be lower against senior ads — that is expected; pick appropriate listings.
Internship and campus recruiting timing
Campus cycles start months before graduation. One polished resume beats five sloppy variants — update projects each semester rather than rewriting from scratch.
Career centers often want one page in a specific format; Verum export still respects ATS rules while fitting office templates when you paste plain text.
Follow application instructions exactly: some programs reject PDF; export DOCX when asked.
References and recommendations
Do not list references on the resume. Prepare a separate sheet with professors, internship managers, and project clients who agreed to speak for you.
LinkedIn recommendations can inform bullet wording but stay off the PDF unless quoted with permission.
Professors as references: ask before applying and tell them which roles you listed them for.
Building proof while studying
Open-source contributions, hackathons, and freelance for local businesses accumulate faster than waiting for a brand-name internship. Document each with dates and stack.
Student clubs matter when they produced measurable outcomes — events, budgets, tools — not passive membership.
Part-time jobs unrelated to your field still show reliability; one bullet on schedule adherence and customer volume is enough unless the job is your main proof.
First resume review checklist
Ask a career advisor or trusted peer to read for clarity, not flattery. Fix typos in company names and course titles — parsers are unforgiving on spelling.
Ensure email and phone are current; use a professional address. Remove outdated objective lines from school templates.
Save PDF and TXT copies with the date in the filename so campus portals always get the latest version.
When GPA is strong, include it once; when average, omit and let projects carry credibility instead.
Applying without internships
Target roles labeled intern, associate, junior, or new grad. Filter out senior requirements you cannot meet yet — keyword tools help you see the gap early.
Use faculty research, lab work, and class team projects as Experience when they had deliverables and deadlines, not just attendance.
Follow up applications with a concise LinkedIn note to recruiters — the resume still must stand alone if they never reply.
Track rejections and interview requests in the job tracker to learn which project bullets resonate.
Sample layout for students
Header with name, email, phone, city, and LinkedIn. Summary of three sentences targeting the role. Education with relevant coursework. Projects with stack and links. Skills aligned to the posting.
Experience section includes part-time jobs and internships when present; otherwise omit rather than padding with hobbies.
One page, 500–700 words, exported as PDF with a filename that includes your name and the word resume.
Ask career services to review once per semester — incremental edits beat rewriting from scratch before each fair.