Who should use a chronological resume format?
- Anyone who is applying for an executive-level position.
- Job seekers who have 10+ years of experience in the same industry.
- Applicants who want to show off an impressive career progression.
Learn how to make a resume that showcases your unique strengths by following this step-by-step writing guide, advice and tips.
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Every job advertisement receives around 250 applications on average, meaning a professional resume is crucial.
If you want to get a callback for an interview, check out this step-by-step guide on how to make a resume that stands out to recruiters and gets you that coveted interview.
Our detailed step-by-step resume guide will include the following:
However, if time is of the essence and you want to apply for a job ASAP, head to our Resume Builder, which writes a personalized and professional resume for you in minutes.
Writing a great resume is the key to impressing hiring managers and getting interviews. Here, we show you how to make a resume for a job that gets noticed!
STEP 2
Employers must know how to contact you, especially if you’ve secured an interview.
Share your essential contact information in the header section of your resume.
Contact information you should include:
STEP 3
A resume headline is an optional section that states your most attention-grabbing qualifications and your intentions as a job seeker.
This section should be high in your resume, ideally between the contact information and resume summary.
Check out these examples of resume headlines to get a better idea of what to include in one:
Efficient Administrative Assistant with Exceptional Organizational Skills and Project Management Certification
3x Award-Winning Educator with MS in Educational Leadership Recognized for Empowering Diverse Student Populations
LPN with 11+ Years of Experience in Patient-Centric Care and Proven Clinical Excellence
STEP 4
Recruiters spend around 7 seconds scanning your resume, so include a brief but impactful opening statement. It should only be a few sentences long and show employers your resume matches the role.
You can opt for a resume summary or a resume objective. But what’s the difference between them, and which should you use?
The resume summary, also called a summary statement or professional summary, is the recommended approach because it concisely summarizes characteristics that make you ideal for a specific job.
Your resume summary should include some of your most job-relevant skills and feature at least one career achievement. Include keywords from the job description and use action verbs; avoid phrases with “I” or “my” pronouns.
Formula to write a resume summary:
Resume summary examples
Graphic designer resume summary:
“Creative graphic designer with seven years of experience creating brand identities for over 15 clients. Experienced in creating logo typography and color palettes using Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and After Effects. Created augmented reality (AR) graphics for a mobile smartphone game application which reached an audience of 2 million people.”
Accountant resume summary:
“Diligent Accountant with three years of experience working in the public and private sectors. Adept at creating detailed financial reports and establishing and maintaining budgets. Provided strategic financial planning consultations to corporate clients like Unilever and Walmart.”
In need of a stronger resume summary? Have our Resume Builder suggest a resume summary for your desired role.
The resume objective, or career objective, communicates your goals for a job and the skills and education you have to achieve them. This statement is ideal for less experienced candidates, such as students and those relocating or changing careers.
This paragraph should contain two or three sentences mentioning job-relevant qualifications and skills that compensate for your lack of formal experience.
Formula to write a resume objective:
Strong resume objective examples
Blogger resume objective:
“Blogger with experience in fashion, beauty and lifestyle writing for personal blogs and digital publications seeking affiliate writer position at Teen Vogue to provide engaging and informative shopping advice with excellent copywriting, research and trends analysis. Possess social media management skills and basic graphic design abilities.”
Physical therapy aide resume objective:
“Physical therapy aide certified by Borough of Manhattan Community College seeking physical therapy assistant job at HD Physical Therapy Clinic to offer my PTA services in recordkeeping, equipment setup and data monetization. Self-motivated, organized and responsible PTA that works with initiative.”
STEP 5
Hiring managers will pay close attention to your work history section, so a big part of your success will lie in your work experience.
Your work history section will include the bulk of your professional achievements.
You must organize this section in reverse chronological order so employers first see your most recent or current job.
When you’re listing each job, include:
We are hiring a dynamic and motivated sales associate for our new location in Altamonte Mall.
You will be responsible for various tasks on the sales floor, cash registers, fitting rooms and stockroom.
Key Responsibilities:
Qualifications:
Once you’ve noted all the keywords in the job ad, pick the ones that accurately describe your professional experience and skill set. Check out how to use the keywords when describing your work history:
Sales associate work history example:
Work History
Sales Associate | Urban Outfitters – Tampa, FL
November 2021 – Current
Cashier | AVO Boutique – Tampa, FL
August 2019 – November 2021
Sales Associate | The Gap – Tampa, FL
January 2019 – August 2019
Start sentences with strong action verbs when you begin to write your work history. For example, “Developed new social media strategy” has more impact than “Was responsible for our social accounts.”
Make sure you use different action verbs throughout your work history. If you need inspiration, check out this list:
STEP 6
Your skills section should include a bulleted list of six to eight skills describing your expertise for the desired role. Add a variety of soft, hard and technical skills that show you’re a well-rounded candidate.
STEP 7
Your education section will communicate that you have the academic training to perform your job. Always list your education, even if you don’t have a college degree.
Lincoln High School
Dallas, TX – June 2019
High School Diploma
GPA 4.0
General Educational Development Diploma (GED)
San Diego, CA – 08/2019
If your degree is older than five years, consider removing the graduation date to avoid unfair hiring bias from employers determining your age.
STEP 8
You don’t have to limit your resume’s content to these sections!
Once you’ve mastered these five main resume sections, you can customize your resume with additional sections. In fact, including these extra resume sections is one of the many easy and quick ways to update your existing resume.
Some examples of additional resume sections are:
Some jobs like nurse, EMT or physical therapist require a license to practice legally.
You can create a separate section to list any licenses or certifications you possess.
Example of licenses on a resume:
Example of certifications on a resume:
You can add an honors or awards section for any academic or professional recognition you’ve received.
“Honors” relates to academic achievements, whereas “awards” refer to academic and professional accolades.
Example of an honors resume section:
Honors
Example of an awards resume section:
Awards
You can add a section in your resume to showcase any large-scale projects you’ve led or participated in your company or even personal side projects.
Example of a projects resume section:
Projects
If you’re a writer or an academic investigator, showcase any publications you’ve written during your career.
For a long list of publications, you might be better off with a curriculum vitae (CV) instead of a resume. If so, we can also show you how to write a CV.
Example of a publications resume section:
Publications
Sharing volunteer work in your resume is a great way to show you mesh well with a company’s culture and have developed skills to help you professionally. Volunteer work can also be a gread addition to you resume if you’re an inexperienced candidate. You can learn more about this in our article How to Make a Resume With No Experience.
Example of a volunteer work resume section:
Volunteer Work
Digital Marketing Volunteer
Habitat for Humanity-Restore
East Bay/Silicon Valley, CA
02/2022 – 03/2023
Including your fluency in various languages in your resume can be an excellent asset for customer service, retail and health care positions.
Writing this section is as straightforward as listing the languages you can speak. However, you can add extra information, such as your fluency level.
Example of a languages resume section:
Languages
English: Fluent
Spanish: Native language
Portuguese: Conversational
Including a section for internships is a great addition to your resume if you’re a new job seeker just starting your career.
Example of an internships resume section:
Internship
Full-stack Developer Intern | Onyx, Miami, FL
01/2023 – Current
Software Testing Intern | DEF Software Solutions, Miami, FL
08/2022 – 11/2022t
Include additional sections if they showcase relevant skills and experience for your desired job. Don’t overstuff your resume and extend it beyond two pages with information that won’t benefit recruiters.
STEP 9
Double-check information like dates and the spelling of company or school names, and ensure your contact information is accurate and current.
It won’t matter if you’re the most qualified candidate in the world if your resume contains spelling and grammatical errors.
Check each of your resume sections for typos and formatting errors. Read the page from top to bottom, run it through an online spell-checker like Grammarly or have a copyeditor friend review it before deeming it ready for recruiters.
Take advantage of our Resume Builder which has a built-in spell-checker that revises your grammar and syntax as you write.
Now that you’ve learned each step of the resume writing process, the result should be a perfect resume.
Check out these resume examples for various jobs and career scenarios to help you visualize how yours should look.
A cover letter helps you sell yourself to the employer by providing more context to the career accomplishments showcased in your resume.
We already covered how important it is to tailor your resume for every job application to increase your chances of getting hired.
The same goes for the cover letter, another document you should continually customize to show different employers how you can fulfill the role’s specific demands.
Don’t know how to make a cover letter for a resume? Our Cover Letter Builder writes full-page letters according to your desired job, matches your working style, and accounts for any gaps in your work history in mere minutes.
Let’s review the major steps for how to write a resume and the most important tips for a successful job hunt:
When writing a resume for your first job, choose a functional or combination resume format which focus on your skill set instead of work history. Boost your education section by adding honors or relevant coursework, and include additional sections like Certifications or Projects to compensate for a minimal work experience.
Here are the most important tips for writing an ATS-compliant resume:
You should aim to include all the relevant work experience in your resume since there’s not exactly a limit. The general rule is to have one page for every ten years of experience. You can leave out any early jobs that don’t relate to your career.
When you’re writing a functional resume, the skills section becomes the place where you’ll share details about your career achievements. You will pick three core skills and for each one you’ll share a few bullet points describing achievements that pertain to that specific skill.
The summary of qualifications is an additional section that’s exclusive to functional or combination resumes. This section goes underneath your career objective and consists of a bulleted list of phrases describing relevant skills within the context of your target role. You can learn more in our combination resume format guide.
You can easily make a resume for free by following the advice on this comprehensive resume-writing guide. If you’re in need of a free resume template, you can find a few on our resume templates library.
Google Docs offers an easy and free way to make a resume. With a Gmail account, you may access GDrive and GDocs, where you’ll be able to choose from a library of resume templates you can fill out. For more details check out our Google Docs resume templates page.
A resume is the standard and most popular job application document in the U.S. It consists of a summary of your academic background, work experience and professional qualifications.
More resources for writing your resume
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