A strong resume includes four core sections: a header with your contact information, work experience, education, and skills. Beyond those essentials, you can add optional sections like certifications, projects, or a professional summary to strengthen your candidacy. What matters just as much as which sections you include is how you write them. Every bullet point should earn its place by showing what you accomplished, not just what you were assigned to do.
Contact Header
Your header sits at the top of the resume and gives recruiters what they need to reach you: full name, phone number, email address, and location (city and state are sufficient). This is also where you add a link to your LinkedIn profile, personal website, or portfolio. Developers commonly link to GitHub, journalists to Muck Rack, and designers to a Squarespace or Wix portfolio site. If you include a link, make sure it goes to a polished, up-to-date page. A half-finished portfolio does more harm than no portfolio at all.
One formatting note: avoid placing your contact details inside a header or footer region of the document. Many applicant tracking systems (the software that scans your resume before a human sees it) cannot read text stored in headers and footers, so your phone number or email could be invisible to the system.
Professional Summary
A professional summary is a two- to three-sentence snapshot at the top of your resume that frames who you are and what you bring. It works best when it includes specifics. Compare “Experienced marketing professional seeking new opportunities” with “Marketing professional with 5+ years of experience driving campaigns that increased lead generation by 40% and social media engagement by 50%.” The second version gives a hiring manager a reason to keep reading.
This section is optional, and it replaces the old “objective statement” that used to be standard. If you’re early in your career and don’t yet have numbers to highlight, you can skip the summary entirely and let your experience and education speak for themselves.
Work Experience
This is the section hiring managers spend the most time on. List each role in reverse chronological order (most recent first) with the company name, your title, location, and the dates you worked there. Use a consistent date format like MM/YYYY throughout.
Write Accomplishments, Not Duties
The single biggest upgrade you can make to your resume is rewriting your bullet points as achievements instead of responsibilities. “Responsible for managing a team” tells a recruiter nothing about how well you did the job. “Led a team of 8 to achieve a 20% increase in quarterly productivity” tells them exactly what you delivered.
A reliable formula for strong bullets: start with an action verb, add a specific number or result, and provide enough context to show the scale. Action verbs like “achieved,” “reduced,” “optimized,” “led,” and “implemented” signal impact right away. Then layer in the data. Use percentages to show growth or improvement, dollar values to show financial impact, and raw numbers to show scope. “Spearheaded email marketing campaigns that generated a 25% increase in monthly revenue” is concrete. “Improved customer satisfaction” is not.
A few guidelines keep your metrics credible. Focus on your three to five most impactful results per role rather than quantifying every line. Too many numbers overwhelm the reader and dilute your strongest accomplishments. And never exaggerate. Recruiters frequently verify achievements during interviews, so any inflated claim can undermine your credibility.
Tailor It to Each Job
Sending the same resume to every employer is one of the most common mistakes job seekers make. Read the job description carefully, identify the key skills and qualifications it emphasizes, and adjust your bullet points to highlight relevant experience. This doesn’t mean fabricating anything. It means choosing which accomplishments to feature and which language to mirror. If a posting asks for “cross-functional collaboration,” use that phrase when describing a project where you worked across departments.
Skills Section
List the hard skills (technical abilities, tools, software, certifications) that are relevant to the role you’re targeting. This section serves double duty: it gives recruiters a quick scan of your capabilities, and it feeds the right keywords into applicant tracking systems.
When listing a skill, add context when you can. “Python (5 years)” communicates more than “Python” alone. “Data Analysis: Improved sales forecasting accuracy by 20% using Excel and Tableau” goes even further. For certifications and acronyms, spell out the full name alongside the abbreviation, like “Project Management Professional (PMP)” or “Search Engine Optimization (SEO).” Many ATS platforms search for both the abbreviation and the full term, so including both ensures you’re not filtered out.
Soft skills like “team player” or “strong communicator” carry little weight in a skills list because they can’t be verified at a glance. You’re better off demonstrating those qualities through your experience bullets, where you can show collaboration or communication in action.
Education
Include your degree, the institution’s name, and your graduation year. If you graduated more than a few years ago, your education section can be brief and placed below your work experience. For recent graduates or career changers, a more detailed education section (with relevant coursework, honors, or academic projects) can help fill space while your experience section is still thin.
Degrees no longer need to be the headline act on your resume. For most mid-career and senior professionals, what you’ve done in your roles matters more than where you went to school, so keep this section concise and let your work experience take the spotlight.
Optional Sections That Add Value
Depending on your background, any of these can strengthen your resume:
- Projects: Especially useful for developers, designers, and anyone whose best work happened outside a traditional job. Include a brief description and a measurable result when possible. “Developed a mobile app that reduced customer onboarding time by 30%, receiving a 4.8-star rating on the app store” tells a complete story.
- Certifications and licenses: List these with the issuing organization and, if relevant, the impact. “Certified Digital Marketing Specialist; improved campaign ROI by 35% post-certification” ties the credential to a real outcome.
- Volunteer work: If it’s relevant to the job or demonstrates leadership and initiative, include it. Treat it the same way you’d treat paid experience, with achievement-focused bullets.
- Portfolio or work samples: A simple line with a hyperlink to your online portfolio is enough. You can also create a QR code that links to your portfolio for printed copies of your resume.
What to Leave Off
References don’t belong on your resume. The line “References available upon request” is outdated and wastes space you could use to highlight your qualifications. Employers will ask for references when they need them.
Leave off personal details like your age, marital status, photo, or full mailing address. A headshot is standard in some countries but not in the U.S., where it can introduce bias into the screening process. Similarly, skip hobbies and interests unless they’re directly relevant to the position.
Formatting for ATS and Humans
Most large employers use applicant tracking systems to screen resumes before a recruiter ever reads them. A well-qualified candidate can get rejected simply because the ATS couldn’t parse the document. A few formatting rules keep your resume readable by both software and people.
Use a single-column layout that reads top to bottom. Stick to standard fonts like Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, or Times New Roman. Save and submit your resume as a text-based PDF or .docx file, not a scanned image. Avoid tables, text boxes, multi-column layouts, sidebars, graphics, logos, icons, and decorative shapes. These elements might look polished on screen, but many ATS platforms can’t extract text from them, which means your content effectively disappears.
Use conventional section headers like “Work Experience,” “Education,” and “Skills.” Creative alternatives like “Where I’ve Made an Impact” may confuse the software. The goal is a clean, readable document that lets your content do the work.
How Long Should Your Resume Be?
One page is the standard target for most job seekers, and it forces you to be selective about what you include. If you have 10 to 15 years of experience, stretching to two pages is increasingly accepted, provided every line adds value. Professionals with more than 15 years of relevant experience can justify a third page, but this is the exception. If you’re trimming to fit, cut older roles that are no longer relevant before you cut recent accomplishments.