FirstPlacement Resume Template

$12.00

5.0/5

Kickstart Your Career With This Standout Graduating Student Resume Template

Designed for graduating students, this premium MS Word graduating student resume template empowers you to create a professional resume that captures the essence of your academic achievements and budding career potential. With built-in guidance and ATS-friendly formatting, it simplifies the daunting task of crafting your first professional resume.

  • Premium templates designed by an award-winning, nationally recognized resume expert.
  • Results-proven, recruiter-approved, and created for real-world use.
  • Leave the generic-looking templates to others. Quickly create a resume as unique as you are. Nobody will ever guess you used a template!
  • Fast and easy to use. Flexible and simple to customize. Multiple color options. Video tutorials and pro tips & writing prompts included.
  • Yes, unlike most templates, Distinctive Resume Templates follow all modern best practice "rules" and are ATS-friendly! (This is SO important!)

$12.00

Save 10% on Coordinating Templates

FirstPlacement Career Templates

Elevate your job application with our template bundle designed for graduating students. This set includes templates for a resume addendum, professional bio, cover letter, and references list, all crafted to complement the FirstPlacement Resume. Easily customizable in MS Word, these templates help you create a cohesive and impressive application package that showcases your academic accomplishments, skills, and career potential.

ATS-FRIENDLY...EASY TO USE & CUSTOMIZE...EYE-CATCHING, MODERN FORMATS

FOR GRADUATING STUDENTS, CREATE A JOB-WINNING RESUME IN MINUTES

Graduating Students, Ignite Your Career Potential With This Easy-to-Use Resume Template

As you stand on the threshold of your professional life, armed with a degree and brimming with potential, the FirstPlacement Resume Template is your passport to the world of career opportunities. This isn't just another resume template; it's a carefully crafted tool designed to translate your academic journey into a compelling professional narrative.

See the real difference made by using the FirstPlacement Resume Template to graduating student resume:

Before RedesignExample graduating student resume from template

Why the FirstPlacement Graduating Student Resume Template Stands Out:

Tailored for the Transition: Bridging the gap between academia and industry can be challenging. Our graduating student resume template is specifically engineered to help graduating students showcase their potential, even with limited work experience. It's structured to emphasize your academic achievements, internships, projects, and extracurricular activities in a way that demonstrates your readiness for the professional world.

ATS-Friendly Design with Visual Appeal: In today's digital-first job market, your resume needs to impress both automated systems and human recruiters. The FirstPlacement template strikes the perfect balance – it's optimized to sail through Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) while also catching the eye of hiring managers with its sleek, professional design.

Guided Resume Building Experience: We understand that creating your first professional resume can be overwhelming. That's why we've integrated smart prompts and expert tips throughout the graduating student resume template. These guiding elements help you identify and articulate your strengths, ensuring you don't overlook any valuable experiences or skills.

Flexible Format for Diverse Experiences: Your college journey is unique, and your resume should reflect that. Whether you've gained experience through internships, part-time jobs, volunteer work, academic projects, or leadership roles in student organizations, our flexible format allows you to showcase these varied experiences effectively.

Customization Made Simple: Your individuality is your strength. Created in Microsoft Word, this resume template offers easy customization options. Adjust resume colors, resume fonts, and resume layouts to align with your personal brand or target industry while maintaining a professional appearance.

Emphasis on Transferable Skills: As a graduating student, you might worry about limited industry-specific experience. Our template is designed to highlight transferable skills – those valuable abilities you've honed through your academic and extracurricular experiences that are highly relevant in the professional world.

Future-Focused Presentation: Your first job can significantly influence your career trajectory. The FirstPlacement template helps you present not just who you are, but who you can become. It's structured to showcase your potential and learning agility, key attributes that employers value in fresh graduates.

Industry-Agnostic Design: Whether you're stepping into tech, finance, healthcare, education, or creative industries, the FirstPlacement Resume Template adapts to your needs. Its versatile design ensures you can tailor your resume presentation to various career paths.

Confidence Booster: Entering the job market can be intimidating. With this professionally designed template, you'll approach your job search with confidence, knowing you're presenting your best self to potential employers.

The FirstPlacement Collection goes beyond the resume. It includes an optional bundle of coordinating templates to create a comprehensive application package. These additional MS Word templates include a resume addendum template, professional bio template, cover letter template, and references list template

See the full collection:

Easily Change the Color Scheme of All Our Resume Templates

graduating student resume color schemes

Investing in the FirstPlacement Resume Template is more than just preparing a document – it's about equipping yourself with a powerful tool to launch your career. In a competitive job market where first impressions are crucial, ensure you're putting your best foot forward.

Don't let your potential go unrecognized. With the FirstPlacement Resume Template, you're not just applying for jobs; you're opening doors to opportunities that align with your skills, passions, and aspirations.

Microsoft Word is required to use all our templates. Due to the digital nature of this template, all sales are final. For more information on licensing rights, please review our licensing terms.

The FirstPlacement Resume Template is one of the specialized student resume templates in the Student Resume Writing Toolkit.

Frequently Asked Questions

Unlike the generic, one-size-fits-all templates you’ll find elsewhere, Distinctive Resume Templates were created by an award-winning, nationally recognized resume expert—Michelle Dumas, a multi-certified professional resume writer with over 25 years of experience and 10,000+ success stories.

Here’s what sets them apart:

Results-Proven & Recruiter-Approved: Every design is based on real-world resumes that have helped job seekers land interviews and job offers—across all career levels and industries.

Modern, ATS-Friendly Formatting: Unlike many flashy but dysfunctional templates, ours follow all current best-practice rules for Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), so your resume gets noticed by both robots and humans.

Professional Look—Without Looking Templated: These are custom-crafted, high-impact designs that help you stand out—without ever looking like you just filled in a generic form. Your resume will look like you had it professionally designed.

Flexible & Easy to Use: Change colors, reorder sections, add or remove pages—no design skills required. You’ll also get video tutorials, pro tips, and built-in writing prompts to make customization fast and stress-free.

In short: These are templates designed by professionals, for professionals. Whether you’re a job seeker or a career industry expert, Distinctive Resume Templates will help you create a polished, personalized resume with ease and confidence.

Yes—ATS compatibility is one of our top priorities. While no template can be guaranteed to work perfectly with every single applicant tracking system (there are hundreds!), our templates follow current best practices and work well with most systems.

There’s a lot of outdated and incorrect advice out there. Our resume designs are the result of decades of experience, ensuring they’re not only ATS-friendly, but also visually impactful to human readers.

To learn more, I encourage you to read the many articles about resume design and applicant tracking systems on our blog.

Yes. All templates are built in Microsoft Word (.docx) and require the desktop version of Word for full functionality.

While other tools like Canva, Google Docs, or Apple Pages may seem convenient, they often break formatting, introduce ATS compatibility issues, and don’t display resumes correctly across devices and systems.

If you don’t have Word installed, it’s available for as little as $9/month, and is well worth the investment—it’s still the industry standard for resume writing and submission.

📚 Read more on why Word is the best format here.

Yes, they’re fully compatible with Microsoft Word on both Mac and PC. Just be sure you’re using the desktop version of Word, not the online version, for full functionality.

Absolutely. These templates are designed to be highly flexible and fully customizable. You can:

  • Change the color scheme with just a couple of clicks
  • Reorder or rename sections
  • Add or delete pages and content based on your experience
  • Easily tailor them for different roles or industries

We include step-by-step video tutorials to walk you through everything—no design experience required.

If you would like, you may even download an example free resume template and see for yourself how easy our ATS-friendly resume templates are to use.

Immediately! As soon as your purchase is complete, you’ll receive an email with your download links. You can start customizing your resume within minutes.

You have lifetime access. Use them as often as you like—for job changes, promotions, side gigs, or freelance roles. Many customers keep the templates as a go-to resource throughout their careers.

There’s no need to wait! You can prepare your resume now so you’re ready when the right opportunity appears. Many people also use the templates to build a “master resume” they can pull from when tailoring for specific jobs later.

Yes! Our templates are trusted by hundreds of career professionals.

We even offer a special Insiders Program that provides:

  • Fresh template collections each month
  • Priority access to new releases
  • Personal support in using the templates with your clients

Learn more about becoming an Insider here.

We’ve got you covered. Every purchase includes:

  • Step-by-step video tutorials
  • Helpful written guides
  • Email support for technical issues or product questions

We’re here to make sure you succeed.

Because these are digital products with instant access, all sales are final. However, we’re committed to your success and satisfaction.
If you run into any problems or need assistance, don’t hesitate to reach out:

📧 info@distinctiveresumetemplates.com

Yes! In addition to offering DIY resources, we also offer personalized, professional resume writing services. If you’d rather have an expert take the reins, we’re happy to help. You can learn more here. Another option is to schedule an expert resume consultation with Distinctive Resume Templates creator, Michelle Dumas.

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USER REVIEWS

WHAT OUR TEMPLATE USERS SAY

Insiders
Appearances matter, even with the written word, and how a document looks can make an immediate impact on the decision to read it or toss it aside. I train and mentor many excellent resume writers who have mastered the art of crafting highly effective resume content, but who lack the basic MS Word skills to create eye-catching, ATS compatible and uniquely branded documents. Distinctive Templates are the perfect solution for easily transforming well-written content into works of art that capture attention, generate interest, and motivate the recipient to read every word.
Norine Dagliano, NCRW, NCOPE, CPRW, CFRW/CC
Phil Hurd
While I primarily write resumes from scratch for each of my clients, I have also used Michelle’s templates and received great feedback. I find the templates are especially helpful to organize my thinking for those clients who have an overabundance of important information that still must fit in an ATS-friendly, 2-page format without looking cluttered or disorganized.
Phil Hurd, NCRW, NCOPE, CPRW, www.catalystresumes.com
alison
When I was starting out with resume writing a little over a year ago, one of the most intimidating aspects was visual design of resumes. I didn’t want to have to learn graphic design to stand out—and with these templates, I didn’t need to! I was a little hesitant at first because I thought the templates might be too rigid or generic. In actuality, they are incredibly flexible and easy to play around with. I can customize any template with my client’s favorite colors in just two clicks—which means they never look exactly the same, even if I use them for multiple clients. Using the templates means I can just do what I do best—write—and then plug the text right into the appropriate section. It saves me literal HOURS of work and hassle. One of the best parts about purchasing from Michelle is that she is extremely responsive to questions. There’s a private Facebook group where she records screen share tutorials about how to switch up certain elements in the templates, and she's always been responsive to my emailed questions. My clients are completely thrilled with the unique, modern design of their resume, and I’m thrilled that I'm saving time and don’t have to learn graphic design!
Bob Janitz
I love Michelle’s resume templates! The designs are eye-catching and easy to use. I highly recommend these templates for anyone who finds that designing a creative, contemporary formatted resume is a challenge. They’re a huge time-saver.
Bob Janitz, NCRW, www.janitz.com
amber f
I used the “Pivot” template to create a combination functional/chronological resume for my first big client. Her words when she saw the finished product: “THIS IS AMAZING!” I’m a writer, not a designer. My resumes aren’t unprofessional, but they needed a “wow” factor – and now they have it. Thank you, Michelle, for offering such affordably priced tools!
Amber Fernandez, Freelance Writer

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