How to write a resume, section by section

A resume is not written in the order it is read. Start from the job posting, write the experience section, and finish with the summary at the top, which sums up what the rest proves.

1. Read the job posting and note its exact wording: the job title, the required skills, the tools it names.
2. Gather your facts: employers, job titles, start and end dates (month and year), numbers you can stand behind.
3. Pick a format: chronological in most cases.
4. Write your work experience, then education and skills.
5. Write the summary last, in the words of the posting.
6. Check the layout so an applicant tracking system (ATS) can read it.
7. Proofread and save as a PDF with a clear file name.

• Chronological: your jobs from most recent to oldest. It is the format recruiters expect and the easiest to scan.
• Functional: grouped by skill, with dates pushed aside. It can help a career change, but many recruiters read it as something to hide.
• Hybrid: a short skills block on top, then your jobs in reverse chronological order. Useful when your background crosses several fields.

When in doubt, choose chronological. The resume templates all follow that order.

1. Header: your name, the job you are applying for, contact details.
2. Summary: three or four lines on what you bring.
3. Work experience, most recent first.
4. Education, placed above experience if you are a student or a recent graduate.
5. Skills: technical skills, software, languages.
6. Optional: certifications and licenses, projects, volunteer work, if they serve this job.

Keep the section titles standard (“Work Experience”, “Education”, “Skills”): software and recruiters both look for them.

Put your name on the first line, then the job title you are targeting, your city and state (“Columbus, OH”), a phone number, a professional email address and your LinkedIn URL if your profile is up to date. A full street address is no longer needed.

Three or four lines under your header: your role and years of experience, two or three skills the posting asks for, one result with a number, and the job you want. Write it last.

More openings by situation in the resume summary examples.

For each job, give the title, the employer, the city and state, and the dates in month and year. Then three to five bullets, each starting with an action verb, one or two lines long. Use the past tense for past jobs, the present for your current one, and no “I”.

No exact number? Give a volume, a deadline, a budget or a team size you can confirm. An internship, a part-time job or volunteer work counts if it serves the application.

List hard skills and software you actually use, with the exact names from the posting (“Salesforce”, “Excel pivot tables”, “Spanish, fluent”). Soft skills read better proven in a bullet than listed alone. The skills for resume page gives lists by field.

For education, write the degree, the school, the city and the year. Add your GPA only if it is strong, and drop high school once you have a college degree. Licenses and certifications get their own line with the issuing body and the date.

One page for most people with under ten years of experience; two when the second page adds relevant work. CareerOneStop, run by the U.S. Department of Labor, recommends 1 to 2 pages with white space, because a reader typically scans a resume for 15 to 20 seconds. To save space, cut old jobs and bullets without results before shrinking the font.

CareerOneStop notes that applicant tracking systems have become common in U.S. hiring. The software reads your file, extracts names, dates, titles and skills, and lets recruiters search and filter. It can also be set to filter out resumes missing essential criteria, such as a credential or a software skill. To be read correctly:

• a PDF with real, selectable text, not a scan;
• a single column, no tables or text boxes;
• standard section headings;
• dates as month and year;
• the posting's own terms, spelled out and abbreviated (“Registered Nurse (RN)”).

The ATS checker shows how software reads your file and what costs you points.

One resume for every job is the most common mistake. For each application, change the target title, the summary, the order of your bullets and the skills, using the posting's own words where they describe what you have really done.

In Kandiq, tailoring rewrites the headline, summary, bullets and skills in the posting's words; you uncheck what you don't want, and you can keep it as a second resume so the original stays unchanged. It uses 5 AI credits.

Put education first, then show what you have already done: class projects, a part-time or summer job, babysitting, volunteering, a sports team, a club role. Each one becomes a bullet with a verb and a result. One page is enough. See it applied in the resume with no work experience and the high school student resume.

• Proofread out loud, then have someone else read it: spell-check misses company names.
• Check every date and explain long gaps in a line.
• Never exaggerate: each line can come up in the interview.
• Name the file “FirstName-LastName-Resume.pdf”, not “resume_final2.pdf”.
• Follow the posting's instructions to the letter, and send a cover letter when one is asked for or allowed.

Keep the version you sent: it is the one the recruiter will have in front of them during your interview.

The Kandiq editor starts where you are: a blank page, your current resume imported from PDF or Word, or your LinkedIn PDF export. Paste the job posting and the AI suggests each bullet from it, next to your text; it never creates a figure and asks you for the real one. Creating, editing and checking your score cost nothing. PDF download is part of Kandiq Pro, at $2.99 for the first week, then $19.99 a month, or $29.97 every three months.