To get the most out of this guide, you can head over to the resume builder and start building your resume on-the-go as you read this guide.
How to Pick the Right Resume Format?
There are three types of resume formats: reverse chronological, functional or skills-based, and a combination of the two. The choice depends on the type of job you are applying for and your level of experience.
The 3 resume formats are:
2) Functional/skills-based resume format -
3) Combination resume format –
The combination resume is a great choice for job-seekers with a very diverse skill-set. It’s useful if you’re applying for a role that requires expertise in 3-4 different fields, and you want to show all that in your resume. Say, for example, you’re applying for a senior management role, and the requirements are expertise in Management, Sales, and Software Development.
So, which one do you go for?
In 90%+ cases, you’d want to stick to the reverse-chronological resume format. This is the most common one, and most HR managers are used to this. Hence, in this guide, we’re going to focus on this specific format.
If you’re a recent graduate, or possess a diverse set of skills & work experience, you might want to pick one of the other 2 formats. Check out our guide to resume formats to learn how to write either.
What is the Best Resume Layout?
The first thing a job recruiter notices about any resume is the layout.
Does it look organized or cluttered? Is it too short or too long? Is it boring and easy to ignore, or does it scream out “Read me!”?
Here are some of the best practices when it comes to your resume layout:
1. One page in length.
You should only go for 2 pages if you really, really believe that it’ll add significant value. HR managers in big firms get around 1,000+ resumes per month. They’re not going to spend their valuable time reading your life story!
2. Clear section headings.
Pick a heading (H2, for example) and use it for all the section headers.
3. Ample white-space, especially around the margins.
4. Easy-to-read font.
We’d recommend sticking to what stands out, but not too much. Do: Ubuntu, Overpass, etc. Don’t (ever): Comic Sans
5. Pick the right font size.
As a rule of thumb, go for 11 - 12 pt for normal text, and 14 - 16 pt for section titles.
6. As a rule of thumb, save your resume as PDF.
Word is a popular alternative, but it has a good chance of messing up your resume formatting.
One more thing you need to consider in terms of resume layout is whether you’re going for a traditional-looking free resume template or something a bit more modern:
If you’re pursuing a career in a more traditional industry - legal, banking, finance, etc. - you might want to stick to the first.
If you’re applying to a tech company, though, where imagination and innovation are valued, you can go for something more creative.
Resume Content - What to Mention on Your Resume
The most popular sections for a resume are:
- Contact Information
- Professional Resume Summary or Objective
- Work Experience (and Achievements)
- Education
- Skills
- Optional Sections - Languages, Publications, Hobbies, etc.
Below, we'll explore each resume section from top to bottom. We'll explain what to write and how to write it so that you stand out and get the job you deserve.
Contact Information
The most critical section in your resume is the “contact information.” Even if you get everything else right, you’re not going to go far if the HR manager can’t get in touch with you because you misspelled your email.
Make sure to double-check, and even triple-check your contact information section and make sure everything is correct and up-to-date.
Contact Information to be included in a Resume,
Must-have Information
- First Name / Last Name.
- Phone Number.
- Email Address.
- Location - are you located in the area, or will the company have to sponsor relocation?
Optional Information
- Title - Your professional title. It can be your position, word-for-word, or your desired job. Think “Digital Marketing Specialist” or “Junior Data Scientist.”
- LinkedIn URL - If you have an up-to-date profile that can add value to your application, make sure to include the link.
- Social Media - Do you have a published portfolio online? For developers, this would be your GitHub, for a designer Behance or Dribble and for a writer, it could be your personal blog.
- Website / Blog - Do you have an online presence? Maybe a blog that positions you as an expert in your field? If you do, make sure to mention it!
What NOT to Include in the Contact Info Section
- Date of Birth (unless specifically required in the job ad) - The HR manager doesn’t need to know how old you are. It’s not important for their decision-making, and at worst, it might lead to discrimination based on age.
- Unprofessional Email Address - Do: [email protected] Don’t: [email protected]
- Headshot - The HR manager doesn’t need to know what you look like in order to evaluate your application, so there’s no real need to include it.
All clear? Good! Now, let’s examine what a successful example of the contact section looks like:
Resume Summary or Objective
It’s not a secret to anyone that first impressions matter, whether they’re in your personal life, or your career.
If you leave a bad first impression, chances are, it’s there to stay. After all, it’s very hard to change someone’s opinion of you.
The same applies to your job search - the HR manager spends around 6 seconds scanning each resume. Yep, your carefully-worded, hand-crafted resume only gets 6 seconds of attention. Unless, of course, you manage to leave an amazing first impression.
The way you accomplish this is through either a good resume summary or objective. Both are placed at the top of your resume, right around the contact information section:
So, here’s what you need to know about the two:
What’s a Resume Summary & When to Use it
A resume summary is a 2-3 sentence summary of your career. You should use a resume summary in basically any situation, unless you’re a recent university graduate or switching careers (in that case, you use a resume objective. More on that later!).
In your resume summary, you need to mention:
- Your job and years of experience. E.g.: Customer support representative with 5+ years of experience in the IT industry.
- 1 or 2 top achievements (or core responsibilities). E.g.: Specialized in technical support, customer care, and user retention.
- Desired goal (generally, passion for working at a specific company). E.g.: Looking for new opportunities as a support lead for a SaaS company.
Work Experience
The most important part of your resume is your work experience.
This is where you really sell yourself, displaying your past accomplishments and responsibilities.
If you manage to master this section alone, you’ll know 80%+ of all there is to know about how to make a resume.
There are a lot of best practices for writing your work experience. Before we dive into all the nits and grits, though, let’s start with the basics...
The standard format for your work experience is as follows:
- Job Title/Position - Your job title goes on top of each work experience entry. When the HR manager scans your resume, you want them to know, at a glance, that you have relevant work experience for the job.
- Company Name / Location / Description - Then, you mention the name of the relevant employer, as well as the location of the office you work/have worked in. In some cases, you may also want to briefly describe the company, if the organization is not a famous household name.
- Achievements and Responsibilities - This is the core of each work experience entry. Depending on your field, you want to list either your achievements or responsibilities. We’ll get more into the how’s and why's of this in a bit.
- Dates Employed - The timeframe of your employment in each company. Not sure about the exact dates you worked somewhere? Don’t worry - you don’t have to be accurate by the day, as long as it’s close. The standard format expected by recruiters and employers is MM/YYY (this is especially important when your job application will be parsed by an Applicant Tracking System).
As you can see, the work experience listings should be mentioned in reverse-chronological order - starting with the most recent job, going all the way back into the past.
Now that you know how to list your experience, we’re going to talk about how to write about your experience in such a way that you stand out from the competition.
List Of Achievements When Possible
One of the most common resume mistakes is listing only responsibilities in your work experience section.
Here’s the thing - in most cases, the hiring manager knows what, exactly, your responsibilities were. Let’s say you’re a sales manager, for example. Your responsibilities would be:
- Reach out to potential clients over the phone or email.
- Maintain relationships with existing company clients and upsell relevant products.
- Tracking and reporting on leads in CRM.
Coincidently, this is exactly the same list of responsibilities for every sales manager. 90% of all other resumes probably mention just about the same thing.
So, to stand out, you want to focus on mentioning achievements in your resume instead. Or in simple terms, how exactly you helped the company grow, reach quarterly quotas, and so on.
Keep in mind, though, that in some fields, there aren’t that many achievements you can mention. Let’s say you work in a warehouse. Your day-to-day responsibilities probably involve:
- Loading, unloading and setting up equipment on a daily basis.
- Package the finished product and get it ready for shipping.
- Assist in opening and closing the warehouse.
In such fields, it’s pretty hard to distinguish yourself, so it’s totally OK to stick to responsibilities instead.
How much work experience do you include in your resume?
If you’ve got over a decade’s worth of work experience, you’re probably confused about how much of it you mention in your resume. After all, If you had to list everything you’ve ever done, you’d end up writing a mini-novella.
Or, on the other hand, if you’re a newcomer to the job market, you probably don’t have ANY experience and are wondering what could you even mention.
Here’s how much information you’d mention in your resume, depending on your level of experience:
- Job hunters with no experience - If you don’t have any experience, it might be a bit hard to fill in your work experience section. You can either keep it empty and focus on all the other sections, or fill it up with work experience in student organizations, non-profits, etc.
- Entry-level candidates - List all the work you’ve done up to now.
- Mid-level professionals - ONLY mention work experience relevant to the position you’re applying for.
- Senior professionals - List up to 15 years of relevant work experience, MAX. If your recent experience is as a CEO, no one cares about how you started your career as a cashier in your teenage years.
How to List Education on Your Resume
The next section we’re going to cover is your Education. Let’s start with the basics - how to format the education section & what to mention there. Then, we’ll move on to tips & tricks that’ll help you stand out…
- Program Name. E.g.: “B.A. in Business Administration”
- University Name. E.g.: “New York State University”
- Years Attended. E.g.: “08/2008 - 06/2012”
- (Optional) GPA. E.g.: “3.9 GPA”
- (Optional) Honors. E.g.: Cum Laude, Magna Cum Laude, Summa Cum Laude.
- (Optional) Academic achievements. Any interesting papers you’ve written, courses you’ve excelled in, etc.
- (Optional) Minor. “Minor in Psychology”
Tips on perfecting your education section:
- If you don’t have any work experience, mention your education section first.
- Mention your latest educational entry on top.
- If you have a university degree, don’t mention your high school at all.
- ONLY mention GPA if you had a very impressive academic career (3.5 GPA plus).
Make sure to NEVER lie about your skill levels. Otherwise, it’s going to be pretty awkward both for you and your employer.
Emphasize Your Know-How with the Skills Section
Another must-have section in your resume is the “Skills” section. Here, you want to mention all your know-how that makes you the perfect candidate for the job.
There are 2 types of skills you can include when writing your resume:
Hard Skills (Measurable abilities). This can be anything from coding in Python to knowing how to cook Thai cuisine.
Soft Skills (Personal skills). These are a mix of social skills, communication skills, personal traits, career attributes, and so on. Leadership, critical thinking, management, and communication, just to name a few.
A good resume should cover both.
Languages
Are you bilingual? Or better, multilingual? You should ALWAYS mention that on your resume!
Even if the position doesn’t require you to know the specific language, it can still come in handy at some point. At the end of the day, it’s always better to know more languages than less.
To list languages in your resume, simply write them down and assign them the appropriate level:
- Native
- Fluent
- Proficient (Enough knowledge to pass by in a professional environment)
- Intermediate
- Basic
As a given, you should never lie about your language skills. You never know, your interviewer might turn out to be fluent in the language, or even be a native speaker!
Hobbies & Interests
Want to add some spice to your resume? The hobbies and interests section, while not a game-changer, can help show who YOU are as an individual. Who knows, maybe you and your interviewee have some hobbies in common?
If you end up with some extra space in your resume, don’t hesitate to show off your personality with a hobbies/interests section.
Volunteering Experience
If you’re the type of person to use your free time helping others, while expecting nothing in return, chances are that you’re the type of employee who’s in it for more than just the money. It leaves the impression that you’re a devoted, loyal employee.
Several studies show that you can boost your chances of getting hired simply by listing your volunteering experience. This holds especially true if you’re a student with next to no work experience.
Certifications & Awards
Do you have any awards that make you stand out in your field? How about certifications from industry experts?
Whichever the case is, as long as it’s relevant for the position you’re applying for, feel free to add it to your resume.
Let’s say, for example, you’re a Microsoft Cloud Engineer. Assuming you specialize in Microsoft Technologies, you’d definitely want to include all essential certifications, such as the Azure Solutions Architect Expert one.
Publications
Are you a freelance writer? Maybe a distinguished academic?
If you have any published works (online, or in an academic journal), you might want to include them in your resume. Make sure to include a URL, so the HR knows where to check your work!
Projects
Working on side projects can really show off your passion for your field. Whether they’re university class projects or part-time entrepreneurial endeavors, they’re both equally relevant.
Let’s say, for example, you worked on a mock software product as part of a competition in university. You went through every step of product creation, from ideation to creating a marketing strategy.
You can mention the project in your resume and stand a better chance at landing that business internship!
Or on the other hand, maybe you manage an Etsy store, selling hand-made arts & crafts to customers online. Mention all of it!
Hiring managers love employees who do cool work in their free time.
Next Steps After Your Resume
Now that we’ve covered everything you need to know about how to create a resume, let’s talk cover letters & interviews.
After all, your resume is only the first step in your job search. To really land that job you deserve, you also need to craft a killer cover letter, and ace that upcoming interview.
How to Write a Convincing Cover Letter
Every job application consists of 2 parts - the resume and the cover letter. Now that we’ve covered the first, let’s briefly explain the latter.
Most job-seekers flinch when they hear that they have to write a cover letter. What do you even mention in a cover letter, anyway? If you were good at writing cover letters, you’d be applying for a writing job!
In reality, though, writing a cover letter is pretty simple, if you know its purpose.
You should think of a cover letter as a direct message to the hiring manager. You get to briefly explain why you’re such an awesome fit for the position. When we put it that way, it doesn’t sound as hard, does it?
Here’s a format you could follow:
- Introduce yourself (and leave an impression) - As a start, give a brief run-down on your work experience and mention why you’re interested in working for the company you’re applying for. You can also mention 1-2 of your top professional achievements to leave a good first impression.
- Explain how you’d excel on the job - Identify the top 3 requirements in the job ad. Then, dedicate one paragraph to explaining how you fulfil each requirement. So for example, if the requirement is “Facebook Advertising Experience,” mention how you have done Facebook ads in the past and how you’ve excelled at it.
- Wrap it up and say thanks - Thank the reader for reading your cover letter and propose the next steps. For example, “If you’d like to know more about my experience with Project XYZ, I’d love to chat!”
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