Building a Resume as a High School Student with Lawn Care Experience

I'm a high schooler who's done some lawn care work, and I'm now looking for a different job. How should I include this experience on my resume to make it appealing to future employers? Any tips?

Sure, that's a great question! Lawn care work can certainly be included in your resume, and there are several ways to frame it, to highlight various skills and experiences that can be valuable in other settings. Here's how you should structure it:

1. Job Title and Description: Start with your job title, which can be something straightforward like "Lawn Care Specialist" or "Landscaping Assistant." Then, provide a brief description of the type of work you did. This could include mowing lawns, trimming hedges, planting, fertilizing, or even troubleshooting and repairing lawn equipment.

2. Highlight Transferable Skills: What you want to focus on are the transferable skills you gained during this experience, such as punctuality, teamwork, customer service, mechanical skills (if you repaired equipment), etc. For example, you might mention that you provided excellent customer service by interacting directly with clients, taking their specific needs into account when providing lawn care services.

3. Accomplishments: Highlight specific accomplishments that you've achieved in this role. Did the customers give you particularly positive feedback? Did you take on additional responsibilities over time? Maybe you even had a few repeat customers who were impressed with your work ethic.

4. Dates of Employment: Make sure to include the dates of your lawn care work. This lets potential employers see how recent and how long your experience was.

Here's a concrete example of how you could list your experience on your resume:

"Lawn Care Specialist - (May 2023 - Present)

In independently managing a regular clientele list for gardening and lawn care, I demonstrated strong organizational skills, punctuality, and a high level of self-motivation. I was responsible for lawn mowing, edging, planting, and customer service. Earned consistent 5-star ratings and repeat business from 70% of customers."

Remember, every job experience teaches you something, and those lessons can often apply to the next job in unexpected ways! Good luck with your job search.