Your resume is arguably the most important financial document you'll ever own. And before you think, “Yeah – right” let's consider for a moment. Without a resume, you don't get the job, so you can't pay bills, support a family, go to the big game, have that weekend trip, or plan for retirement. Your resume is the doorway to your future, so let's make sure it's perfect.
Part of making it perfect is remembering that it's a targeted career marketing document – not a chronicle of your life. So, how do you write a resume? In this beginner's writing guide, we'll show you how to make a resume and provide examples of what each section should look like.
Grab a cup of coffee and strap in, because you're about to learn everything you need to know about how to make a new resume!
Table of contents:
The most basic purpose of a resume is to sell your skills, achievements, and qualifications to prospective employers. This one document can financially make or break you. Let's take a quick look at what being unemployed costs you per day (assuming a five-day workweek):
Clearly, finding out how to make a resume for a job is critical so that you can properly sell your skills, qualifications, experiences, and achievements to prospective employers.
The job market is tough and highly competitive; you have to stand out in a sea of qualified candidates by creating a compelling narrative that tells a story of value, keeping in mind that your resume is supposed to do a few things for you:
What do you know about applicant tracking systems? Job seeking can be compared to throwing your resume into a black hole. You can go through 100 listings on any job search website and complete the online application with zero results.
Ever had that happen? It's okay, it happens to everyone at some point or another!
The problem is that you're probably not putting the correct keywords into your resume. When you hit “Submit” on an online application, it isn't magically emailed to the hiring manager.
It goes through a computer system that scans your resume for specific keywords that can be found in the job description posted by the company. And, just so you know, approximately 90% of companies use ATS scans, including everything from mom-and-pop shops to Fortune 500 companies.
The companies use these programs because they just don't have time for a human to go through all the resumes they receive. Depending on the job opening, a company can get between 250 and 500 applicants. Can you imagine being the person who has to sift through all those resumes?
Here is where the ATS steps in. It's designed to weed through candidates to narrow the applicant pool, so that the human hiring manager has a more reasonable resume load to go through. It ranks the remaining candidates in order based on how much of a match they are for the position that's open.
Being overlooked by the ATS is one of the number one reasons job seekers get ghosted by companies.
Once your resume makes it through the ATS and gets into the hands of a hiring manager, don't think they're going to sit down and read each one. Who has that kind of time? You should expect that the first round of resume sorting will consist of them flipping through the stack to pick the ones that stand out within about 6 seconds of glancing at them.
PRO TIP: Put your resume on a table, stand up, and look at it from a little distance. Is it eye-catching? Can you tell the position you're seeking just by glancing at it? Set a timer if you have to, but no more than 10 seconds.
Speaking of eye-catching, don't make the same mistake as a lot of your rival job seekers by being too generic with your resume. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that being non-specific will open doors to more opportunities. The problem is that the hiring manager won't be able to tell exactly where you'll fit within their organization.
The first step in winning an interview is being sure that your resume actually makes it into the hands of a human being at the company you apply to. Start by defining what you want to do.
So the first, and most important, step in crafting the perfect resume is to narrow down your target career path. The more specific you are with this first step, the more response you'll receive from hiring managers because they'll be able to tell exactly how you fit within their organization. There are four areas to focus on as you begin to chart your career path:
On the surface, it may seem like these things are only important for the job search aspect of landing a new position, but you have to know what voice to write your resume in, too. Part of that is knowing your audience. When you understand your audience, you can build a personal brand that resonates with what they're looking for in a new staff member.
Now that you've gotten your target career path nailed down, the next step is to brand you. Think of yourself as a product and your resume is the packaging. Companies spend a lot of time on their branding and packaging - you have to do the same thing.
The best place to start is with a career assessment. Taking one of these tests can help you to identify your strengths, what sets you apart from others, and key themes of your professional identity. Just like Nike and Coca-Cola have timeless taglines and catchphrases that succinctly define what they have to offer to consumers, your personal brand has to tell a concise, yet compelling, story. This is where your resume comes in.
Your resume isn't just a piece of paper you give to a hiring manager or upload to a website that says, “I'm interested in this job.” Your resume is a personal marketing tool. You shape that tool with words that describe your experiences and achievements, to impress and grab the attention of the hiring manager.
Unlike Nike's “Just Do It” phrase, your personal brand isn't something you build and forget. It is fluid and should be revisited and refined as you gain new skills, experiences, and achievements. Weave the elements of your brand into every section of your resume.
There is a common misconception that entry-level resumes look different than executive resumes. The reality is that the only difference is how much content is available to write about.
It's not incremental though
Other than the number of pages, your resume should use the same format and layout no matter if you're applying to a job as someone fresh out of college or seeking to be the CEO of a company.
The reverse-chronological is the most popular, traditional, and well-known resume format. Its focus is placed on achievements from your career history and is defined by listing your work history starting with your current or most recent job and working backward 10-15 years.
Employers like this type of resume because it tells them what, when, and where you worked. It's best to use this if your work history is steady and shows growth and development. If you're looking to make a career change, have had frequent job changes, or if you're seeking your first job, this may not be the best format to use.
Pro Tip: You could also get lost in the ATS if your resume is over-designed. Many resume writers will tell you that you need to stand out in the sea of sameness by adding some personality to your resume through design. While that's true, you need to avoid heavily formatted resumes which are often rejected by computer scanners as being illegible.
This resume type focuses more on skills and experiences rather than on your work history. It's more of a “what you know and how you apply that knowledge” than a simple list of where you got the knowledge. It plays down gaps in work history and makes frequent job changes less noticeable. If it isn't done properly, though, it can be confusing for the hiring manager to read and understand. There's also a bit of a stigma behind it, because employers know that job seekers use this style to downplay job-hopping. So, the first thing they do when they get a functional resume is check employment dates. If you can avoid using this style, it's best to do so.
There is another resume format that focuses on skills first and then experience last. It's the combination resume, which is sometimes called a hybrid resume. This is the most complex resume type and the best resume for mid-career professionals who are transitioning into another career or for people who have special skills and a strong track record of accomplishments. These types of resumes do take a long time to read and some hiring managers won't take the time unless they're looking to fill a hard-to-fill position.
Curriculum Vitae (CV) is Latin and means “course of life.” It's a little different from a resume, but some positions require a CV over a resume. The first thing you would notice is that a CV is significantly longer than a resume. A resume is a self-branding document meant to portray your experience and achievements in a concise and easy-to-read format. A CV goes much further into the depth of your education and accomplishments (think publications, awards, and honors) and even has a section for you to include "Areas of Interest."
The best way to describe a CV is that it's a career biography. The biggest significant difference is that a CV is arranged chronologically in a way that gives a complete overview of your full working career. It also doesn't change based on the career or position for which you're applying.
To make things easier for the hiring manager to digest the content of your resume, it should be laid out in a specific way to ensure that the right information is in the right place.
Hiring managers don't READ resumes. They skim through until they find something that piques their interest and then they stop to read
Since the reverse-chronological resume is the one that the majority of people will use to apply for jobs, and because it's the format that hiring managers want to see, we'll focus this article on showing you how to make a resume using that style.
Location | Phone | Email | LinkedIn | Portfolio (if applicable)
Your contact information should be the very first thing on the page. Do not, for the love of resumes, bury it in the footer or even set it as a header. ATS scans often cannot parse information from a header or footer. Make it the first thing and make it part of the document.
You can be creative and use bold font in your contact information and even put a border under it to separate it from the body of your resume.
Do you want a hiring manager to be able to tell immediately what type of candidate you are? Put a title at the top of your resume. Center the text on the line, put it in bold font, and put a blank space above and below. The white space and the small amount of words will help it to jump off the page and immediately be noticed. It will also be the first step in helping you stand out in the sea of sameness.
Also, be sure the title on your resume mirrors the title on the job description that you're applying to, but add a bit of panache to it so that it's not too boring. For example, instead of writing “Financial Services Associate,” write “Client-Centric Financial Services Associate Dedicated to Customer Engagement and Revenue Growth.” Just remember to keep it on one line.
The very next thing on the page should always be your Professional Summary. But how do you write a summary for a resume?
It's a three to five-sentence statement about you. Where you've been in your career, where you're going, and how you'll use your experience to get there.
While the professional summary is sometimes referred to as the resume objective, you must remember that the days of writing a resume objective are dead. Never, ever include an objective on your resume. They are a waste of space and don't relay any information that markets you as the best candidate for an open position.
Let's take a look at an example of each:
Sales Representative seeking a challenging position that will use my skills and provide opportunities for growth in a dynamic and rewarding company.
As you can see, the objective is very inward-facing and only talks about what you want out of your career. It provides no value to the hiring manager and eliminates any possibility for them to be able to tell what you bring to the table for them.
Ambitious sales professional offering 10+ years' experience in customer retention and aggressive revenue growth. Conquers goals and quotas through a keen awareness of the human buying motive that allows for quickly overcoming objections. Used historical data and consumer trends to reach new customers and grow territory by 24%. Innate ability to work independently or as a member of a cross-functional team.
The best use of resume space is to write a summary of your career. The effectiveness of this summary comes from the fusing of three things:
With this professional summary, the hiring manager will be able to tell in an instant what you have to offer their team.
Even though the skills section of your resume is small, it packs a powerful punch! The skills you list in this section highlight your key abilities and show potential employers what you bring to the table.
It should contain approximately 12 ATS-friendly keywords and phrases that align with the keywords in the job description. Meaning, this is a fluid section that will need to be tailored to every job that you apply to. Technically speaking, your entire resume should be customized to align with each job description. That's one thing that will help you get past the ATS.
Be sure to include a good mix of hard and soft skills because prospective employers not only want to know that you can perform the tasks related to your job (hard skills), but they also want to gain a clear understanding of how you'll fit within the culture of the company (soft skills).
Here is a sample Core Competencies list that contains both hard and soft skills:
Project Management | Data Analysis | Cross-Functional Collaboration | Digital Marketing Strategy | Python Programming | Customer Relationship Management (CRM) | Negotiation | Team Leadership | Business Development | Financial Modeling | Articulate Communication
This section is meant to show how your career history lends itself to the skills you have that make you the perfect candidate for a given job. There are some general rules of thumb on how to make a resume with a great professional experience section:
The 10-15 years of experience is the most relevant – you can list more than that, but avoid using bullet points for roles over 10 years old. Begin by listing your most recent position first and work your way backward to your oldest position, within that 10-15-year range. If you have 30 years of experience, you can use achievements or skills you learned during that time as talking points during the interview. Listing those older experiences on your resume will only dilute the content.
As you write out your bullet points, keep two words in mind: “so what?” The hiring manager is going to be thinking it, you might as well be thinking it, too. Every time you write something on your resume, think, “So what? Why am I writing this? What value will it bring to my new employer? Will this be THE THING that lands me an interview?"
Remove “Responsible for…” from your resume-writing vocabulary. That's because it's crucial that you talk about what you achieved, instead of just what your responsibilities were. Let's face it, there are a lot of things that people are “responsible for” that never get done. So, be sure to talk about things you actually accomplished, as that will be the proof the hiring manager needs to take the next step and call you for an interview.
1. Use numbers whenever possible
The best way to call attention to your career accomplishments is to use numbers. Numbers add credibility to your claims and provide a clear picture of what you bring to the table.
Don't write this:
Write this instead:
The latter makes an unmistakable assertion that you had a positive impact, not only in your role but on the company as a whole. You can take it a step further and talk about things like problem-solving skills and how you addressed challenges to lead to team success. These types of soft skills are highly valued by employers and could be the thing that lands you an interview.
PRO TIP: Use the CAR method for building achievement statements into your resume.
2. Use action words to convey accomplishment
A lot of people make the mistake of copying bullet points from the job descriptions of the roles they've held. This practice makes you sound detached from achievements and focuses more on responsibilities. Using passive language is too generic and doesn't allow a hiring manager to see what you'll be able to accomplish in the new role.
It's better to use action language to show that you're an achiever rather than a doer. Here are some examples of action words you can use on your resume:
There's a formula for writing your professional experience section in a way that focuses on achievements. You'll start by asking yourself these questions about every job you've had:
When you put all of that together, it should look like this:
Company Name | MM/YYYY to Present
Balanced competing priorities on multiple and concurrent projects and program management initiatives using data-driven strategies in Agile environments. Managed key accounts, onboarded new accounts, and oversaw organizational process adoption for nursing facilities, emergency departments, and pharmacies.
Many people will create separate sections for education history and certifications. That's not necessary. You can include all of it in one section. You can also include extras like relevant coursework, projects, and achievements. These extras can be truly beneficial for your application if you have little to no work experience.
There are some general rules of thumb for the education section:
Here's what a regular education section looks like:
EDUCATION AND CREDENTIALS
Master of Business Administration (MBA) | ABC University
Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) | XYZ University
Six Sigma Black Belt | Council for Six Sigma Certification
If you don't have a lot of experience and need to include some relevant coursework or major projects to inject relevant keywords into your resume, then this is what that would look like:
EDUCATION AND CREDENTIALS
Master of Business Administration (MBA) | ABC University
Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) | XYZ University
Six Sigma Black Belt | Council for Six Sigma Certification
You can include educational information about a degree program even if it's still in progress. Here's what that would look like:
EDUCATION AND CREDENTIALS
Master of Business Administration (MBA) | ABC University
It is important to list what you do outside of work and school. It helps to demonstrate that you're a well-rounded person.
All of these extras allow prospective employers a sneak peek into your life outside of work. They can also go a long way to breaking the ice during an interview, especially if something you do outside work is important or interesting to the hiring manager.
Keep in mind to list only those volunteer positions, projects, or affiliations that are related to your career goals.
If you're going to use the resume wizard that MS Word has, you can slap your information together in a day or two. It will get to employers. The bad thing is that it probably won't get a whole lot of attention.
The "just right resume" can take weeks, because of how much background work goes into it. You'll write it, rewrite it, and write it again, and may even have multiple versions. Ultimately, the exact amount of time that goes into putting your resume together depends on your level of experience, how complex your history is, and the specificity of the job you're applying to.
While the time spent can seem like a lot, if you're truly marketing yourself for that “just right” position, do you want your resume to say “This was thrown together in a couple of hours using a template” OR do you want it to say “I know this document is important and a significant amount of time was spent on it to make it perfect?”
The first and foremost thing that will get your resume tossed in the garbage can are typos. The number of resumes with errors that are turned in every day to employers across the globe is so astounding that it bears discussing.
The major problem with typos and grammatical boo-boos is that your eyes will read what you intended to type. So, after you've read through your resume a few times and think it's perfect, get a friend to read it. Make sure the friend is one of those brutally honest types. It's better to get it back marked all over with bright red ink so you can fix it before you send it out, than to send it out and then realize there's a mistake in it.
PRO TIP: You can check to see how to make your resume better! Have it checked against an ATS and get a free, personalized, and professional resume review.
It's one thing to have someone tell you how to make a resume, it's another thing to see an example – proof that all of this information can come together in a practical way that makes sense.
