A recent graduate resume builder designed for the hardest resume to write: your first one. With limited work history, it leads with education, coursework, and projects, then frames internships and activities as evidence of capability. You fill a structured form and a clean, ATS-friendly resume builds live beside it.
The new-grad resume problem — and how to fix it
Most resume templates assume you have three or four jobs to fill the page. A new graduate typically has a degree, maybe an internship or two, and a collection of projects and activities. Applying a conventional template to that situation produces a resume that looks sparse, with big white gaps where experience would normally be.
The fix is not to pad the resume with fluff — it is to reorder it so your strongest assets appear first. For a recent graduate, that usually means education and projects sit above the experience section, not at the bottom. This builder implements that ordering.
How it works
The builder reorders sections to match how new-grad applications are read. Education sits near the top with room for your degree, GPA or honours, and relevant coursework that signals job-ready knowledge. A repeatable projects section turns capstone work, personal builds, and open-source contributions into evidence, each paired with a result. Internships & experience captures any roles you have held, and skills plus activities & leadership round out the picture. The objective at the top states the role you are targeting.
The right panel re-renders the resume as you type. Your draft auto-saves to local storage, and the Copy text and Download .txt buttons export a clean, parseable file.
Making projects count as experience
The projects section is the most important for new graduates, and the most commonly wasted. A project entry needs to answer: what did you build, what technology or skills did you use, who used it or benefited from it, and what was the outcome?
A weak project entry: “Built a mobile app using React Native.”
A strong project entry: “Built a campus event app in React Native used by 400 students across 3 departments; led a 4-person team over 8 weeks and delivered on schedule for the university showcase.”
The second version demonstrates shipping, teamwork, real users, and deadline management — all things employers value in a junior hire, and none of them require formal work experience.
What to do about GPA
Include it if it strengthens your application: generally a 3.5 or above on a 4.0 scale in the US, or a first or upper-second class degree in the UK. Leave it out if it would not help. The GPA field is optional in this builder. If your programme grade was modest but you excelled in directly relevant modules, you can instead list those modules in the coursework field, which often carries more weight for technical roles than an overall average.
Activities and leadership as evidence
Graduate employers use activities and leadership to assess initiative and soft skills. A society presidency shows that people trusted you to represent them. Competitive sports show discipline. Volunteering shows community investment. These are not padding — they are evidence of the kind of person you are, which matters a great deal at the entry level where technical skills are roughly equal between candidates.
Tips
Treat projects as your experience: lead each with a verb and end with an outcome — users reached, bugs fixed, a grade or presentation. Include your GPA only if it helps. Mirror the coursework and skills in the job advert so keyword filters match you. Keep it to one page; depth in a few strong projects beats a long, thin list.
Example
A computer science graduate might lead with a First Class degree and relevant coursework, add a capstone event app (“used by 400 students, led a 4-person team”) and open-source contributions, a summer internship, a skills line, and a coding-society presidency. The result reads as a capable junior engineer rather than a resume with gaps.