5 IT Intern Resume Examples & Guide for 2024

The number of available internships in tech has been on the rise for decades, especially as the IT sector continues to see robust growth. But for many IT interns, it feels like there’s endless competition for a limited number of internships.

The challenge might as well lie in how you’re approaching your job search as a whole. Because while IT intern positions don't require years of experience or a lengthy resume, recruiters will still make the hiring decision based on a fair set of criteria.

A well-crafted IT intern resume is what you need to set yourself apart and impress recruiters. Once you have that, you’ll be able to tell your story with confidence and showcase your true potential.

In this IT intern resume writing guide, you’ll learn:

• Unique formatting and layout tricks to capture attention
• The most important sections with different IT intern resume examples
• The best way to showcase your experience in the IT field
• How to highlight the right IT intern soft skills and technical skills
• Best additional IT intern resume sections to outshine the competition

More resume guides related to tech and IT:

• IT intern
• Software Engineer Intern
• Computer Science Internship
• Data Science Intern
• Entry-Level IT

IT intern resume example

Here’s what this applicant does well in their resume:

• Effective team leadership: Demonstrated as Team Leader at the University Coding Club, where they led a mobile app development project and initiated coding challenges, significantly enhancing membership and collaboration.
• Cybersecurity expertise: Highlighted through their role as a Research Assistant in the University Technology Department, focusing on security vulnerabilities and developing a secure file-sharing platform.
• Practical skill application: Showcased by organizing technology workshops for underprivileged youth, emphasizing their ability to apply skills in real-world scenarios to make a positive impact.
• Interpersonal agility: Exhibited outstanding interpersonal abilities and a versatile approach across various contexts — including teamwork, time management, adaptability, and creative thinking.

How to format an IT intern resume

The formatting of your IT intern resume is almost as crucial as the content you’re presenting. The right page format and design can get recruiters excited about reviewing your application and help them easily grasp the ideas you’re trying to convey. With the fierce competition you face for each intern job in tech, it’s vital to make a lasting first impression, highlighting your strengths and skills in a professional manner.

Key IT intern resume formatting tips to accelerate your job hunt:

• Use the reverse-chronological format: Despite your lack of extensive experience, it’s crucial to list your most recent experiences first and work your way backward. This rule should also apply to your education, certifications, projects, etc.
• Craft a captivating Header: A successful IT intern resume begins with a clear header at the top of the page, containing your name and contact information, including a professional email address and a link to your completed LinkedIn profile.
• Include all essential sections: The most essential sections to include in any IT intern resume are education, skills, experience, objective, projects, and certifications.
• Keep your resume’s length to one page: Given the early stage of your career, you must create a concise resume that only includes the most relevant information.

Another crucial aspect of resume formatting is the file format you use to save and submit your resume. Once you have the final draft of your resume ready, PDF is the best option to submit it. This format helps you maintain your resume design and layout across any device. It’s also more compatible with ATS systems and preferred by many recruiters.

How to write your IT intern resume experience even if you have none

The experience section of an IT intern resume outlines your previous internships or relevant jobs, detailing your skillset and achievements. Even as an intern with not much experience to showcase, this section is still crucial as it can demonstrate to potential employers your practical application of skills, work ethic, and ability to contribute to a team or project.

Before we delve into the specifics of writing about your expertise, you may be wondering: how do I make this section interesting if I lack experience?

The good news is that hiring managers don’t expect you to have a decade of experience for an intern job. So, you’re mainly doing this to outshine other applicants and to top their expectations. The trick is to emphasize the projects you’ve completed, include any volunteer work that required relevant skills, and to highlight temp IT jobs or extracurricular activities that demonstrate your commitment and capabilities.

Three rules for crafting an effective experience section:

1. Transferable skills: Emphasize skills from past experiences that are relevant to IT work, such as problem-solving, project management, and technical aptitude.
2. Quantifiable achievements: Where possible, use numbers to quantify your contributions and achievements in previous roles or projects.
3. Action verbs: Start bullet points with action verbs like "developed," "led," or "implemented" to make your contributions clear and impactful.

IT intern resume experience examples:

The first example falls short as it lacks impact and specificity in demonstrating the candidate's contributions and achievements. With a generic job title and project name, it also fails to highlight any relevant skills or measurable achievements that can capture recruiters' attention.

Let's make a few changes based on the three rules shared above and see how it looks:

How to list your hard skills and soft skills on your resume

Given the rapid pace at which technology and business are evolving, it's crucial to showcase a robust set of skills in your resume to stand out from the crowd. The right IT intern skills can demonstrate your readiness to dive into the professional world and highlight your adaptability to any challenges that may arise.

Before we can jump into how to list your skills, it's important first to understand the types of skills there are and how they differ.

Hard skills refer to the technical abilities and specific knowledge you've acquired through education, training, and hands-on experience. For IT interns, most of these quantifiable skills are technical, which includes programming languages, software proficiency, or network configuration.

Soft skills are the interpersonal attributes that determine your approach in the workplace. They're harder to quantify and are largely dependent on your personality traits. Think of soft skills as those qualities that you leverage to solve problems, communicate with peers, or make progress under pressure.

Here are three simple steps to help you create a captivating skills section for your IT intern resume:

1. Write down all the soft and core skills you possess that are related to the IT intern position.
2. Read through the job description to identify key abilities the company is looking for.
3. Find the overlap between the two lists to make a shortlist of 5-10 of your best, most unique skills.

How to list your certifications and education on your resume

Headhunters understand well enough that as an IT intern, you shouldn’t bring along years of experience or dozens of unique skills to the table. If you’re just starting out in the field, you can get away with not having extensive years of expertise.

But even for IT internships, a recruiter will expect you to bridge the experience gap with a strong foundation of relevant education and certifications. Hiring companies want to see at least your eagerness to learn and your commitment to continuous development in the field.

When hiring IT interns, recruiters typically look for applicants with degrees in relevant fields such as computer science, information technology, or data science. However, degrees in emerging tech fields like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cloud computing can also be attractive.

Here’s how to feature education on an IT intern resume:

1. Start with your highest education degree, and be sure to include the name of the institution and the date of graduation.
2. Mention specific courses that are directly relevant to the internship you're applying for, if applicable.
3. If your GPA is 3.5 or above, highlight it in this section to showcase your academic excellence.

An example of the education section for IT interns:

Certifications are another form of validation for your technical skills and knowledge within the IT domain. A relevant certification serves as tangible evidence of your proficiency and commitment to professional development. In fact, many hiring companies will specifically request certain certifications in the job requirements to ensure candidates meet a baseline level of expertise.

How to write your IT intern resume summary or objective

The resume summary section contains a short paragraph that features your professional expertise and relevant achievements. It’s usually a good option for experienced job seekers to showcase their career highlights and how they can add value to the prospective employer.

The resume objective section, on the other hand, is a concise statement detailing your career goals and emphasizing how you plan to achieve them. It’s particularly suited for anyone newly entering the workforce or in the middle of a career change.

As an IT intern who doesn’t have extensive experience to draw from, an objective statement is more suitable for your resume. It will allow you to focus on your future career goals and demonstrate your eagerness to learn and thrive in the IT industry.

To craft an appealing IT intern resume objective, you must keep in mind the following:

1. Keep your objective clear and concise within 3-4 sentences.
2. Focus mainly on your career goals and interests in the IT field, but keep it relevant to the company’s objectives.
3. Use active, positive language with power words to appeal more to hiring managers.
4. Highlight clearly your willingness to learn on the job and adapt to the company’s culture and values.
5. Feature any relevant skills, coursework, or projects that might qualify you for the internship.

Examples of IT intern objective resume sections:

In this example, the personal statement doesn’t offer much value in showcasing the candidate's skills and areas of interest. It also uses passive language that doesn’t convey any proactive engagement or enthusiasm. Even worse, the entire paragraph appears generic, painting the applicant as unambitious and indifferent.

With a few simple changes, here’s what your IT intern objective statement should look like:

Additional sections for an IT intern resume

The main challenge when crafting an IT intern resume is the lack of professional experience. Because you don’t have many years of experience in the tech field, your resume is likely to seem empty if you mainly rely on the ordinary resume parts.

So, this is where the additional sections come into play! Employers often look for candidates who demonstrate a mix of practical expertise, personal traits, and character-focused elements.

So, you can use additional resume sections to showcase your broader skill set and highlight any qualities that make you a well-rounded candidate.

Best additional sections to put on your resume as an IT intern:

• Strengths: Use this section to highlight any strengths that make you a good fit for the IT industry, such as analytical thinking, attention to detail, problem-solving, etc.
• Technical Skills: Consider adding a separate technical skills section to showcase a wide range of competencies — such as programming languages, software knowledge, as well as hardware expertise.
• Projects: Detail any relevant projects you've worked on, whether as part of your coursework, personal hobbies, or group collaborations.
• Volunteering: Showcase any volunteer work related to technology to demonstrate community engagement as well as your teamwork and leadership abilities.
• Languages: Do you speak any additional languages? In a globalized, ever-evolving tech world, multilingual abilities are always a plus.
• Passions: Sharing your passions — especially those aligned with technology — is an excellent way to give a sense of your personality and interests outside of work.

Key takeaways

Here are some key takeaways to ensure your IT intern resume makes a strong impression on recruiters:

• The reverse chronological order is best for your IT intern resume, highlighting your most recent achievements first.
• The most essential sections for showcasing your qualifications and potential are education, skills, projects, experience, and certifications.
• Leverage academic projects and volunteer work to demonstrate relevant skills and your commitment to the IT field.
• To impress recruiters, you must focus on both technical skills (like programming languages and software proficiency) and soft skills (such as problem-solving and teamwork).
• Your academic background and IT-related certifications are vital for highlighting your knowledge base in IT and dedication to professional growth.
• Use additional sections such as strengths, languages, and passions to enrich your resume, offering a fuller picture of your capabilities and interests.