What To Put on a Resume

A resume has to do one job: show a hiring manager you can do the work. To do that well, every resume needs your contact details, a short summary, your work history with measurable results, your education, and a focused skills list. Most people also add certifications, and some include languages, awards, or volunteer work when it strengthens the case.

The rest comes down to choices: what to leave off, how to format it, and how to tailor each section to the job you want. The sections below walk through each piece in order, with examples you can copy.

Header and Contact Information

Your header sits at the top and tells the recruiter how to reach you. Keep it short and current, since a typo here can quietly cost you an interview.

Leave off your age, marital status, photo, full street address, and Social Security number. None of these help you get the job, and some can introduce bias or risk. If you are job searching quietly, use a personal email and phone, not your current work contact.

Professional Summary or Objective

Right under your header, you get three or four lines to frame who you are. This is your pitch, and it should match the role you want, not the job you have now.

Use a professional summary if you have a few years of experience. It points at results and the kind of work you want next.

• Marketing manager with eight years leading product launches for B2B SaaS companies. Built and managed teams of up to 12, with launches that grew qualified leads by double digits year over year.

Use a resume objective if you are a new graduate, switching careers, or returning to work. It points at the role and what you bring.

• Recent computer science graduate seeking an entry-level software engineering role. Strong in Python and Java, with internship experience building internal tools for a fintech startup.

Write it last, after the rest of the resume is done. By then you will know which themes to pull forward.

Work Experience

This is the core of your resume and where recruiters spend the most time. List jobs in reverse chronological order, starting with your current or most recent role.

For each job, include the company, your title, location, and the dates you worked there. Then write three to six bullets focused on what you achieved, not what you were assigned.

Compare these two versions of the same bullet:

• Weak: Responsible for sales in the western region.
• Strong: Grew western region sales 25% in six months by launching a new outbound playbook and retraining six reps.

The second one tells the reader what you did, how you did it, and what changed.

Education

Your education section sits below work experience for most people. List your degree, the school, and the year you graduated, with the most recent degree first.

If you are a recent graduate or have limited work experience, put education above your work history and add more detail.

• GPA, but only if it is 3.5 or higher and you graduated in the last three years
• Relevant coursework that maps to the job
• Honors, scholarships, or thesis title
• Study abroad if it is recent or relevant

If you graduated more than 10 to 15 years ago, drop the graduation date. It keeps the focus on your recent work and quietly limits age bias. You do not need to list high school once you have a college degree.

Skills

The skills section gives a recruiter and the screening software a fast read on what you can do. Aim for eight to 12 skills, mixing hard skills and soft skills, and pull the exact words from the job description when they fit.

Hard skills are teachable and specific. Soft skills are how you work with others. A balanced skills list for a project manager might look like this:

• Project scheduling (MS Project, Asana)
• Risk management
• Budget forecasting
• Stakeholder communication
• Agile and Scrum
• Jira and Confluence
• Cross-functional leadership
• Conflict resolution
• Vendor management
• Executive reporting

Skip generic filler like “hard worker” or “team player.” Those words say nothing the rest of your resume cannot show.

Certifications and Licenses

Certifications signal that someone outside your last employer has vouched for your skills. In fields like nursing, IT, accounting, and the trades, they are often required, not optional.

List the credential, the issuing body, and the year you earned it. If it expires, add the expiration date too.

• Registered Nurse (RN), Texas Board of Nursing, 2022 to present
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Associate, 2024
• PMP, Project Management Institute, 2023
• Certified Public Accountant, California, 2021

If a license is required for the job, put it near the top, either in your summary or just under it. Do not bury something the employer has to confirm before they can hire you.

Optional Sections: Awards, Languages, Volunteer Work, and Hobbies

Optional sections work when they add something your work history does not already show. If they are filler, leave them off.

Awards belong on the resume when they are recent and external, not internal “employee of the month” trophies. Name the award, the issuer, and the year.

Languages matter for any role with global customers or bilingual clients. State your level clearly using native, fluent, proficient, or basic. Avoid vague phrases like “some Spanish.”

Volunteer work is useful when it shows transferable skills you do not get from your day job, or when it fills a gap. List it the same way you list a job, with org, role, dates, and bullets.

Hobbies are the most optional of all. Include them only if they map to the role, like competitive chess for a strategy analyst, or marathon training for a fitness brand. Skip anything political, religious, or generic.

What Not to Put on a Resume

Cutting the wrong things off your resume is as important as adding the right ones. Anything that does not help you get the interview is taking up room that could.

Leave These Off

• Photo, age, gender, marital status, or nationality
• Full mailing address (city and state are enough)
• Social Security number or other ID numbers
• Salary history or salary expectations
• References or the line “References available upon request”
• High school, once you have a college degree
• Jobs from more than 15 years ago, unless they are highly relevant
• Reasons you left past jobs
• Personal pronouns like I, me, or my
• Religious or political affiliations, unless the role calls for it
• Generic skills like hard worker or team player
• Your current work email or phone number

References live on a separate page that you bring to the interview or send when asked. Salary talk belongs in the screening call, not the resume.

How AI Screening and AI-Written Resumes Are Changing What to Include

Most mid-size and large employers now run resumes through an applicant tracking system (ATS) before a human sees them. The ATS scans for keywords, job titles, and skills that match the posting, then ranks candidates. This changes what to put on your resume in two ways.

First, the exact words matter more than ever. If the job posting says project manager, do not call yourself a project lead on your resume. Mirror the title and the core skills, as long as they are honest descriptions of your work.

Second, format choices that confuse the parser will sink an otherwise strong resume. Tables, text boxes, headers and footers, multi-column layouts, and graphics can all break ATS reads.

On the other side, employers are also getting more AI-written resumes, and many can spot the patterns. Resumes full of generic phrases, the same five verbs, and no specific numbers blur together. The fix is to keep the specifics: real metrics, real tools, real project names.

What to Put on a Resume in 2026

• More than four in 10 employers (44 percent) use AI to screen resumes before a person reads them. (SHRM 2025 Talent Trends)
• Recruiters now look closely at resumes that read as fully AI written, so edit any draft in your own voice. (SHRM 2025)
• Job openings fell by about 885,000 over the year through late 2025, so more people compete for each role. (BLS JOLTS 2025)

Using AI to Help Draft Your Resume

AI tools can speed up the boring parts of resume writing, but they cannot replace your judgment. Treat them like a junior assistant: useful for first drafts, never for final copy.

Smart Ways to Use AI

• Brainstorm bullet points from a rough description of what you did
• Rewrite a weak bullet to lead with an action verb
• Pull keywords from a job posting to compare against your resume
• Summarize a long job description into a tight three-line summary
• Check tone and grammar after you have written your own draft

Things AI Should Not Do for You

• Invent metrics, titles, dates, or accomplishments
• Write your full resume from one prompt
• Decide what to leave off (that needs context only you have)
• Replace a real proofread by you or a trusted reader

After any AI pass, read each bullet out loud. If it sounds like a brochure, rewrite it in your own words with a real number or a real project name attached.

Resume Format and Length

A clean, readable resume gets read. A cluttered one gets skimmed and set down.

Pick a font the ATS can read: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, Georgia, or Garamond. Save the file as FirstName-LastName-Resume.pdf unless the posting asks for Word.

If you want a starting point, browse our modern and professional templates and edit from there.

Tailoring Your Resume to the Job Description

A tailored resume beats a generic one every time, even when the generic one is technically stronger. The job posting tells you what the employer cares about, so use it as a checklist.

How to Tailor in 15 Minutes

• Read the posting twice and highlight every required skill, tool, and qualification
• Match those exact words into your summary, skills, and recent bullets when they fit your real experience
• Reorder your bullets so the most relevant ones come first
• Cut or shorten bullets that do not connect to this role
• Update your summary line to name the role you are applying for

Different industries weight different things, so the focus shifts with the field.

• Tech: programming languages, frameworks, shipped products, GitHub link
• Health care: licenses, patient volume, specialties, EMR systems
• Finance: regulations, dollar amounts managed, audit and compliance work
• Education: grade levels, curriculum, student outcomes, certifications
• Creative: portfolio link, named clients, campaigns, software

See more resume examples by role for patterns you can borrow.

What to Put on a Resume by Career Stage

What belongs on your resume shifts as your career grows. The sections stay roughly the same; the order and emphasis change.

Student or recent graduate. Put education near the top. Add relevant coursework, GPA if 3.5 or higher, internships, campus leadership, and projects. One page is plenty.

Early career (one to five years). Move education below work experience. Lead with measurable results from your jobs. Drop the high school and most college clubs. Still one page.

Mid-career (five to 15 years). Open with a strong summary that names your specialty. Show progression in titles and scope. Trim early jobs to a line or two each. One page if you can, two if your scope is large.

Senior or executive. Lead with a summary that names your function and the size of what you have run. Use the top half for strategic wins: revenue, headcount, market expansion, exits. Two pages is standard. Add a board, speaking, or publications section if relevant.

Career changer. Put a strong objective up top that frames the move. Group skills and bullets around what transfers. Add a projects or coursework section if you are reskilling. Volunteer work and certifications carry more weight here.

Full Resume Example

Here is what the pieces look like when they come together. This is a mid-career customer service resume you can use as a structural model.

Notice how each work bullet leads with a verb and includes a number. The skills line mixes tools (Zendesk, Salesforce, Shopify) with people skills (de-escalation, active listening). Nothing on the page is filler.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Most resumes get cut for small, fixable problems. Catching them takes a careful pass and a second reader.

Mistakes That Sink Resumes

• Typos, grammar errors, and inconsistent verb tenses
• Generic bullets with no numbers or outcomes
• One resume sent to every job, regardless of fit
• An unprofessional email address
• Dense walls of text with no white space
• Wrong file type or a file named resume-final-v3.docx
• Lying or stretching dates, titles, or degrees
• Skipping a cover letter when the posting asks for one
• Listing duties instead of achievements
• Including references or salary on the resume itself

After you proofread, hand the draft to someone else. A peer, a mentor, or a coach will catch what you have stopped seeing. Read it out loud once too; clunky sentences sound clunky before they look it.

Your resume is a living document. Update it every few months, even when you are not job searching, so you do not lose track of recent wins. For more help, see our guide to building a strong resume, our resume templates, and our resume builder.

Key Takeaways

• Every resume needs five core sections: contact info, summary, work experience, education, and skills.
• Lead each work bullet with an action verb and a measurable result.
• Tailor your resume to each job posting using the exact words from the description.
• Leave off photos, age, references, salary, and anything older than 15 years that does not move you forward.
• Format for both human readers and ATS software: single column, standard fonts, no graphics.
• Use AI for drafting and editing, never to invent results or replace your own voice.
• Adjust order and emphasis by career stage, but keep the core sections in place.

Andrew Stoner

Executive Resume Writer and Career Coach

Andrew Stoner is an executive career coach and resume writer with 17 years of experience as a hiring manager and operations leader at two Fortune 500 Financial Services companies, and as the career services director at two major university business schools.