How to Write a Resume
Learn how to write a resume that actually gets interviews. Covers format, structure, work experience, and the details that make hiring managers stop scrolling.
We rewrote our resume more times than we can count before we figured out what actually works. The first version was three pages of every job we ever had, listed in tiny font with bullet points that said things like "responsible for various tasks." Nobody called.
The problem is that most resume advice is vague. "Make it stand out." "Show your value." "Be concise but thorough." None of that tells you what to actually type.
This guide does. We will walk through every section of a resume, from the header to the skills list, and explain exactly what to include, what to leave out, and how to phrase things so a hiring manager can scan your resume in six seconds and want to keep reading. That six-second number is real. A 2018 eye-tracking study by Ladders found that recruiters spend an average of 7.4 seconds on an initial resume screen.
You do not need fancy software or a designer template. A clean, well-organized document with strong content beats a flashy layout every time.
A computer with a word processor. Google Docs, Microsoft Word, or any text editor works. You will also need your employment history, including job titles, company names, dates, and a rough idea of what you accomplished in each role. If you have trouble remembering specifics, check old emails, performance reviews, or LinkedIn for reminders.
Pick the right format
There are three standard resume formats: reverse chronological, functional, and combination. Use reverse chronological. It lists your most recent job first and works backward. This is what 95% of hiring managers expect, and it is what applicant tracking systems (ATS) parse most reliably. Functional resumes organize by skill rather than timeline. They were popular advice for career changers, but most recruiters dislike them because they make it hard to see when and where you did things. The risk with them is that hiding the timeline invites the question of what the timeline would have shown. Combination resumes put a skills section up top followed by a chronological work history. These work well if you have ten or more years of experience and want to highlight specific expertise. For most people, reverse chronological is the safest choice. Use a clean, single-column layout. Two-column designs look sleek in a PDF but many ATS platforms cannot parse them correctly, which means your resume gets scrambled before a human ever sees it. Stick to standard section headings: Summary, Experience, Education, Skills. Creative headings like "My Journey" or "Where I Have Made an Impact" confuse both software and human readers.
Write your contact header
Put your full name at the top in a slightly larger font. Below that, list your phone number, professional email address, city and state (no street address needed), and a LinkedIn profile URL if yours is up to date. That is it. Do not include a photo, your age, marital status, or a personal website unless the website directly showcases relevant work like a design portfolio or writing samples. Your email should be a simple variation of your name. If you are still using the email address you created in middle school, make a new one for job applications. For your LinkedIn URL, customize it through your profile settings so it reads linkedin.com/in/yourname instead of a string of random numbers. A custom URL looks professional and is easier for recruiters to type if they see it on a printed copy.
Write a professional summary
This is a two-to-three-sentence paragraph at the top of your resume that tells the reader who you are professionally and what you bring. It replaces the old "Objective" statement, which was always about what you wanted rather than what you offer. A good summary names your profession, years of experience, one or two key strengths, and the type of value you deliver. For example: "Marketing manager with seven years of experience in B2B SaaS. Specializes in content strategy and demand generation. Grew organic traffic by 140% at previous role through SEO and editorial program development." Notice how specific that is. It tells the reader exactly what to expect from the rest of the resume.
Good to know: Write your summary last, after you have finished the rest of the resume. It is much easier to summarize your resume when it already exists than to write a summary for a blank page.
List your work experience with accomplishments
For each job, list the company name, your title, the location, and the dates you worked there. Below that, add three to five bullet points describing what you accomplished. The key word is accomplished, not "did." Instead of "Managed a team of five engineers," write "Led a team of five engineers that shipped the company's mobile app three weeks ahead of schedule." Instead of "Responsible for social media," write "Grew Instagram following from 2,000 to 18,000 in eight months through a consistent posting strategy and influencer partnerships." Use numbers wherever possible. Revenue generated, percentage improvements, team sizes, project timelines, customer satisfaction scores. Numbers are concrete and easy to compare across candidates. If you cannot quantify something, describe the outcome. "Redesigned the onboarding process, reducing new hire ramp-up time from six weeks to three" is strong even without a dollar figure.
Add your education
List your highest degree first. Include the school name, degree type, major, and graduation year. If you graduated more than five years ago, you do not need to include your GPA unless it was above 3.5. If you did not finish a degree, you can still list it. Write "Coursework in Computer Science, University of Michigan, 2018 to 2020" to show what you studied without claiming a degree you did not complete. For recent graduates with limited work experience, education can go above work experience. For everyone else, it goes below. If you have relevant certifications, licenses, or professional development courses, list them in a separate "Certifications" section or include them under education. Online courses from platforms like Coursera or edX are worth including if they are relevant to the job and from a recognized institution. A Google Data Analytics Certificate or an MIT online course carries weight. A three-hour Udemy tutorial generally does not. Include only coursework that a hiring manager would recognize or that directly matches a requirement from the job posting.
Include a focused skills section
Add a short section listing your relevant hard skills. These are specific, teachable abilities like programming languages, software tools, foreign languages, or technical certifications. List them in a simple comma-separated format or a clean grid. Prioritize skills mentioned in the job posting. If the posting asks for Excel, Salesforce, and SQL, those three should appear in your skills section, assuming you actually have them. Do not list soft skills like "teamwork" or "communication" here. Every applicant claims those and they cannot be verified from a resume. Your work experience bullets should demonstrate soft skills through examples instead.
Heads up: Never list a skill you cannot back up in an interview. If you took one Python tutorial three years ago, do not list Python as a skill. Interviewers will ask about anything on your resume, and getting caught exaggerating a skill is worse than not listing it at all.
Tailor it for each application
Read the job posting carefully and identify the top three to five requirements. Then adjust your resume to reflect those priorities. This does not mean lying or inventing experience. It means rearranging your bullet points so the most relevant ones come first, using the same terminology the posting uses (if they say "project management" do not write "project coordination"), and making sure your summary reflects what this specific employer is looking for. This step takes ten to fifteen minutes per application and dramatically increases your callback rate. Applicant tracking systems scan for keyword matches, and hiring managers skim for relevance. A tailored resume gives both what they are looking for. Save your tailored versions with the company name in the filename so you can reference them later. If you get an interview, you will want to review the exact resume that got you in the door. It also helps you track which phrasings and bullet point orderings led to callbacks versus silence, which makes each subsequent application stronger.
Proofread and check the formatting
Export your resume as a PDF before submitting. Word documents can render differently on other computers, and formatting that looked clean on your screen can break on someone else\'s. PDFs preserve your layout exactly as you designed it. Before sending, read the entire resume backward, starting from the last line. This forces your brain to read each line independently instead of skimming past errors because it knows what the sentence is supposed to say. Check for consistent formatting: same font size for all body text, same bullet style, same date format throughout. If one job uses "Jan 2022 - Mar 2024" and another uses "January 2022 to March 2024," pick one and apply it everywhere. Run a spell check, but do not rely on it. Spell checkers miss correctly spelled wrong words like "manger" instead of "manager" or "form" instead of "from." Have someone else read it if possible. Fresh eyes catch things you have looked at too many times to see.
That is the entire process. A clear format, a strong summary, specific accomplishments with numbers, and a version tailored to the job you actually want. The biggest mistake people make is writing one generic resume and sending it everywhere. The second biggest is listing duties instead of results. Fix those two things and you are already ahead of most applicants. Keep your resume as a living document. Update it every few months, even when you are not job hunting. It is much easier to add an accomplishment while it is fresh than to reconstruct it two years later when you suddenly need it.
Questions we get asked about this
Answers from experience, not a textbook.
One page if you have less than ten years of experience. Two pages if you have more than ten years or are in a field where detailed project descriptions matter, like engineering, academia, or healthcare. Never go to three pages. If your resume is longer than two pages, you are including too much detail or listing jobs that are no longer relevant. Cut anything older than fifteen years unless it is directly relevant to the role you are applying for.
No. Do not include references, and do not write "References available upon request." Employers know you will provide references if asked. That line wastes space and has not been standard practice for over a decade. Keep a separate reference list ready in case an employer asks for one, but it does not go on the resume itself. Prepare three to five references with current contact information and a brief note about your relationship to each person. Give your references a heads-up before listing them so they are not caught off guard by a call.
Be honest but strategic. If you took time off to care for a family member, travel, go back to school, or deal with a health issue, you can note it briefly. Something like "Career break for family caregiving, 2022 to 2023" fills the gap without inviting unnecessary questions. If you did freelance work, volunteering, or skill-building during the gap, include it. Employers care less about gaps than they used to, especially after 2020. What they care about is that you can do the job now.
You need a tailored version, not a completely different resume. Keep a master document with all your experience, accomplishments, and skills. For each application, copy it and adjust the summary, reorder bullet points to match the job requirements, and make sure the keywords from the posting appear naturally in your resume. This takes about fifteen minutes per application, which is worth it. A generic resume sent to fifty jobs gets fewer callbacks than a tailored resume sent to fifteen.
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