Harvard’s Mignone Center for Career Success publishes a simple résumé template for its students — and anyone can use it. The value is not a secret font or Harvard branding. It is the structure.
The template makes it easy for a recruiter to find your education, experience, leadership, and skills without digging through unnecessary graphics or massive paragraphs.
Get the official template
Harvard bullet-point résumé template (official link)
Harvard describes this as a template for building the first draft of your résumé. It will not automatically land you an internship, but it gives you a clean structure for presenting your experience properly.
Step 1: Make your own copy
Open the Google Docs link and select Make a copy. Rename the document:
FirstName LastName – Master Résumé
Your master résumé should contain every relevant experience, project, activity, and accomplishment you might use. Never submit the master version directly.
Before each application, duplicate it and rename the new version:
FirstName LastName – Company – Role
Example: John Corbett – Delta – Government Affairs Intern
This allows you to tailor each résumé without losing your original information.
Step 2: Remove every Harvard placeholder
Replace or delete every example inside the template. That includes:
- Harvard University
- The example Harvard email address
- Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Every bracketed instruction
- Sample organizations and position titles
- Sections that do not apply to you
You are using Harvard’s structure. You should not leave anything that suggests you attended Harvard if you did not.
Step 3: Build a simple header
At the top, include:
- Your full name
- City and state
- Professional email address
- Phone number
- LinkedIn profile
- Portfolio or GitHub, if relevant
You usually do not need your full street address.
Use a professional email address based on your name. Avoid nicknames, random numbers, or an old high-school email you may eventually lose access to. Make sure every link works before submitting the résumé.
Step 4: Complete the Education section
Because you are currently a student, Education will usually remain near the top. Include:
- University name, city, and state
- Degree and major
- Expected graduation month and year
You may also include GPA, academic honors, scholarships, relevant coursework, a thesis, or study abroad.
GPA is optional in Harvard’s template. Include it if the employer requires it or if it strengthens your application. Never round it dishonestly.
Only include coursework that helps prove you are prepared for the position. Do not list introductory classes that every student in your major takes.
If you are early in college, you may keep your high school temporarily when it contains a significant achievement. Once you have enough college experience, remove it.
Step 5: Keep the Harvard section order
Intern Dock uses one fixed order so every tailored resume compiles cleanly and remains easy to scan:
- Education
- Experience
- Leadership and Activities
- Skills and Interests
Relevant projects, volunteering, and campus involvement belong under Leadership and Activities rather than in separate sections.
Step 6: Add your experiences
List your experiences in reverse chronological order, beginning with the most recent. For each experience, include:
- Organization
- Position title
- City and state, or “Remote”
- Starting and ending dates
- Two to four strong bullet points
Internships are not your only valid experience. You can include:
- Part-time jobs
- Campus employment
- Research
- Volunteer work
- Student organizations
- Independent projects
- Freelance work
- Businesses you created
- Relevant class projects
The question is not whether the experience sounds prestigious. The question is whether it proves you have skills the employer needs.
Step 7: Write your bullet points correctly
Harvard’s template gives four main instructions:
- Begin each bullet with an action verb.
- Describe your experience, skills, and resulting outcomes.
- Quantify where possible.
- Do not use personal pronouns such as “I” or “we.”
Use this formula:
Action verb + what you did + how you did it + result
Weak: Responsible for managing the club’s social media.
Better: Increased club Instagram reach by 42% by creating and publishing four short-form videos each week.
Weak: Helped with legislative research.
Better: Researched 14 workforce-development bills and condensed findings into weekly briefing memos for legislative staff.
Weak: Worked on a student survey.
Better: Analyzed 600 student survey responses in Excel and identified three factors associated with event attendance.
Do not copy the example numbers unless they are true for you.
What can you quantify?
Numbers do not have to be revenue. You can quantify:
- People reached
- Customers served
- Applications reviewed
- Events organized
- Articles written
- Posts published
- Data points analyzed
- Team members managed
- Money raised
- Hours saved
- Response time
- Accuracy
- Growth
- Frequency
- Project size
If you do not have a formal result, show the scale or purpose of the work. For example:
Interviewed 12 local business owners and presented findings in a 15-page report on downtown development.
That is still much stronger than saying: “Conducted interviews and wrote a report.”
Never invent a metric. A truthful, specific bullet without a number is better than a fake result.
Step 8: Add projects when you lack experience
If you do not have multiple internships, create a Projects section. Format projects like jobs:
Project Name — Tools Used | Month Year
Then add two or three bullets explaining:
- What problem you addressed
- What you created
- How you created it
- Who used it
- What happened as a result
Projects can include a research report, a Substack related to your field, a data dashboard, a website, a policy memo, a financial analysis, a marketing campaign, a documentary or podcast, interviews with professionals, or a redesign of an existing process.
A finished project is evidence that you can do the work. Treat it like real experience.
Step 9: Complete Leadership and Activities
Include organizations where you made a real contribution. For each activity, add:
- Organization name
- Role
- Dates
- One or two bullets if the experience is relevant
Focus on leadership, ownership, and results. Do not fill the section with memberships that required no participation. If an activity is more relevant than one of your jobs, move it higher on the résumé.
Step 10: Complete Skills and Interests
Harvard’s template divides this section into categories such as technical skills, languages, laboratory skills, and interests. Only list skills you could discuss or demonstrate in an interview.
- Technical: Excel, PowerPoint, Google Analytics, Figma, Python, SQL
- Languages: Spanish, professional working proficiency
- Laboratory: PCR, gel electrophoresis, microscopy
- Interests: Minnesota sports, hiking, historical biographies
Avoid unsupported soft skills such as hardworking, leadership, communication, team player, or problem-solving. Your bullet points should prove those qualities.
Interests are optional, but a few specific interests can create an easy conversation during an interview.
Step 11: Tailor the résumé to every internship
Do not send the exact same résumé everywhere. Before applying:
- Read the entire job description.
- Highlight the five most important skills or responsibilities.
- Identify which of your experiences prove those skills.
- Move the most relevant information higher.
- Rewrite three to six bullets around the position.
- Use the employer’s terminology when it truthfully describes your experience.
- Remove information that takes space without supporting your application.
For example, if the posting repeatedly mentions research, writing, and stakeholder communication, those abilities should be obvious in the top half of your résumé.
Do not dump keywords into a skills section. Prove them through your experience.
Step 12: Keep the formatting simple
For most college students and early-career applicants, aim for one page. Harvard’s résumé guidance says one page is the norm for most BA/BS, MA/MS, and MBA candidates, while longer résumés may make sense for people with extensive experience or doctoral backgrounds.
Keep the original template’s basic formatting:
- One readable font
- Consistent font sizes
- Clear section headings
- Consistent date formatting
- Important information on the left
- Locations and dates on the right
- Simple black text
- Enough spacing to scan the page quickly
Avoid:
- Headshots
- Multiple colors
- Graphics
- Skill-rating bars
- Large paragraphs
- Decorative icons
- Text boxes
- Multiple columns
- Tiny text
- “References available upon request”
- An objective statement that says nothing specific
Your résumé is not supposed to win a design award. It should make your value obvious within seconds.
Step 13: Export it correctly
When the résumé is complete:
- Run spell-check.
- Read every bullet out loud.
- Confirm that all dates use the same format.
- Test every hyperlink.
- Remove comments, bracketed notes, and placeholders.
- Export the résumé as a PDF unless the application requests another format.
- Open the PDF and confirm that nothing moved onto a second page.
- Copy the PDF’s text into a blank document to check whether the reading order still makes sense.
Use this file name:
FirstName_LastName_Resume.pdf
Or, for your own organization: FirstName_LastName_Company_Role_Resume.pdf
Avoid names such as ResumeFinal.pdf, NewResume2.pdf, or ResumeFinalFINAL.pdf.
Final résumé checklist
- The résumé is tailored to this specific internship.
- The most relevant information appears near the top.
- Every experience is listed in reverse chronological order.
- Every bullet begins with a strong action verb.
- Most bullets show a result, scale, or purpose.
- Every number is accurate.
- There are no personal pronouns.
- There are no long paragraphs.
- The formatting is consistent.
- There are no Harvard placeholders remaining.
- The document fits on one page when appropriate.
- The PDF opens correctly.
- The file has a professional name.
- Your email, phone number, and links are accurate.
The most important rule
Simple formatting gets your experience seen. Strong bullet points make it valuable.
Use the Harvard template for the structure, then tailor the content around the internship you actually want. Once you finish your first draft, compare it directly against one target internship and make the three most relevant skills impossible to miss.
Source: Harvard University Mignone Center for Career Success. Intern Dock is not affiliated with or endorsed by Harvard University.