# How to write a resume: every section, in order

> How to write a resume from a blank page: which sections to include and in what order, what goes in each, a full worked example and the checks to run before sending.

- Canonical URL: https://jobbie.bot/blog/how-to-write-a-resume
- Topic: [Resumes](https://jobbie.bot/guides/resumes)
- Published by [Jobbie](https://jobbie.bot/) · Updated 2026-10-06 · 10 min read

A resume is a one- or two-page summary of the experience that qualifies you for a specific job. Build it in this order: contact details, an optional headline or summary, work experience, education, skills, then any extra section that adds evidence. Students and recent graduates put education above experience.

Under each job, write three to five bullet points that open with a verb and show what you did and what came of it. Use a plain single-column layout, keep it to one page unless you have ten or more years of experience or an advanced degree, and adjust the wording for every job you apply to.

## Key takeaways

- Put sections in order of importance to the employer: experience first for most people, education first for students and recent graduates.
- Write accomplishments, not duties. Each bullet starts with an action verb and ends with a result or a concrete detail.
- One page is the norm early in a career. Two pages are fine with ten or more years of experience or an advanced degree.
- A single-column layout with standard headings is the easiest for people to skim and for hiring software to file correctly.
- Leave off photos, your age, references and first-person pronouns.
- Keep one complete master resume and send a tailored copy to each job.

## What sections go on a resume, and in what order?

Every resume needs contact details, experience and education. The rest depends on what helps your case.

| Section | What goes in it | Include it? |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Contact details | Name, phone, email, city and state, a LinkedIn or portfolio link | Always |
| Headline or summary | One line, or a short paragraph, on who you are and what you offer | Optional |
| Work experience | Your jobs, newest first, each with bullet points | Always |
| Education | Degree, school and graduation date | Always |
| Skills | Tools, software, languages and other job-specific skills | Nearly always |
| Extras | Certifications, projects, volunteering, publications, interests | Only when they add evidence |

The order is a judgment call with one rule behind it. Harvard’s and MIT’s career offices both tell students to list sections in order of importance to the employer. For someone with a few years of work behind them, that puts experience ahead of education. For a student or recent graduate, the degree is the strongest credential, so education goes first. The guides to a [recent graduate resume](https://jobbie.bot/blog/recent-graduate-resume) and a [resume with no experience](https://jobbie.bot/blog/resume-with-no-experience) show that layout.

Listing jobs newest first gives you the reverse-chronological format, the standard one. [Resume format](https://jobbie.bot/blog/resume-format) compares it with the functional and combination formats.

## How to write each resume section

### Contact details

Put your name at the top in a larger, bold font. Under it, on one line, give your phone number, a professional email address, your city and state, and a link to your LinkedIn profile or portfolio if it is current. A street address is not needed. Type all of this in the body of the page: Greenhouse’s help center lists contact details placed in a header, footer or text box among the reasons its resume parser fails. Whether the profile link earns its place is covered in [should you put LinkedIn on your resume](https://jobbie.bot/blog/linkedin-on-resume).

### Headline and summary

A headline is one line under your name that names your target role and specialty. A summary is a short paragraph that states your experience, your main strengths and one piece of proof. Both are optional, and both are easier to write last, once you know what the rest of the page can back up.

```Example summary: mid-level marketer
Lifecycle marketer with five years in e-commerce. Built the automated email program for a 400,000-subscriber list and raised repeat purchase rate two years running. Skilled in SQL, A/B test design and customer segmentation.
```

There are more in [resume summary examples](https://jobbie.bot/blog/resume-summary-examples) and [resume headline examples](https://jobbie.bot/blog/resume-headline-examples). If you are choosing between a summary and an objective, read [resume objective vs. summary](https://jobbie.bot/blog/resume-objective-vs-summary).

### Work experience

List jobs newest first. Each entry has a header with your job title, the employer, the location and the dates, followed by three to five bullet points with the most relevant one first. Start every bullet with an action verb, then say what you did, at what scale, and what changed as a result.

| Duty | Accomplishment |
| --- | --- |
| Responsible for inventory | Cut stockouts from 14 a month to 3 by introducing weekly cycle counts across 1,200 SKUs |
| Helped with new hire training | Trained 9 new line cooks on prep and food-safety procedures over two seasons |

Each part has its own guide: [the work experience section](https://jobbie.bot/blog/work-experience-on-a-resume), the formula for [resume bullet points](https://jobbie.bot/blog/resume-bullet-points), a list of [resume action verbs](https://jobbie.bot/blog/resume-action-verbs) and prompts for finding your [accomplishments](https://jobbie.bot/blog/resume-accomplishments). If your history is long, [how far back a resume should go](https://jobbie.bot/blog/how-far-back-should-a-resume-go) explains what to shorten.

### Education

List your most recent degree first: the degree and major, the school, and the month and year you graduated or expect to. Add honors, a strong GPA or relevant coursework only while you are early in your career. [Should you put your GPA on a resume](https://jobbie.bot/blog/gpa-on-resume) covers when to include it. Once you have a college degree, leave high school off.

### Skills

Keep this section to skills someone could test: software, tools, programming languages, spoken languages, equipment and methods. Penn’s career office advises listing only objective, measurable skills. Traits such as “hard-working” or “team player” belong in your bullets as evidence, not in a list. Take the terms from the posting where they honestly apply. [Skills to put on a resume](https://jobbie.bot/blog/skills-for-resume) and [resume keywords](https://jobbie.bot/blog/resume-keywords) show how.

### Optional sections

Add a section only when it gives the employer another reason to interview you: [certifications](https://jobbie.bot/blog/certifications-on-resume) the job asks for, projects, volunteer work, publications, or [hobbies and interests](https://jobbie.bot/blog/hobbies-on-resume) that relate to the role.

## A worked example: a one-page resume

This is an invented candidate with six years of experience, applying for a customer success manager role.

```Worked example: one-page resume, mid-level
DANA REYES
Columbus, OH | (555) 010-0142 | dana.reyes@example.com | linkedin.com/in/[your-url]

Customer Support Team Lead | B2B Software | Team of 8, 600 Accounts

SUMMARY
Customer support lead with six years in B2B software, the last three leading a team of eight. Cuts response times and turns recurring tickets into product fixes. Works daily in Zendesk, Salesforce and SQL.

EXPERIENCE
Support Team Lead
Northgate Software, Columbus, OH | Mar 2023 – Present
- Lead eight agents handling about 1,900 tickets a month for 600 business accounts
- Cut median first-response time from 5 hours to 70 minutes by rebuilding the triage queue
- Wrote 40 help-center articles that now answer one in four questions without a ticket
- Raised customer satisfaction from 88% to 94% in 12 months

Customer Support Specialist
Northgate Software, Columbus, OH | Jun 2020 – Mar 2023
- Resolved 45 to 60 tickets a day across email, chat and phone
- Traced 300 tickets a quarter to one billing-sync defect and worked with engineering on the fix
- Trained 11 new hires; promoted to team lead after 33 months

Front Desk Associate
Lakeview Fitness, Dayton, OH | Aug 2018 – May 2020
- Sold memberships and answered billing questions for a 2,400-member club
- Reduced month-end billing disputes by keeping a shared log of promised credits

EDUCATION
B.A. in Communication, Wright State University, Dayton, OH | May 2018

SKILLS
Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud, Jira, SQL (reporting queries), Looker, Spanish (conversational)
```

## How should a resume be formatted?

- **One column.** Greenhouse lists tables, columned layouts, headers and footers, graphics and photos among the causes of an unsuccessful resume parse. A plain page avoids all of them.
- **Standard headings.** “Experience,” “Education” and “Skills” are what people and software look for.
- **Readable type.** A common font at 10 to 12 points, with margins between half an inch and an inch. That is the range MIT’s resume checklist gives.
- **Consistent details.** The same date style, punctuation and order of title, employer and location in every entry.
- **The right length.** One page early in a career, two with ten or more years of experience or an advanced degree. See [how long a resume should be](https://jobbie.bot/blog/resume-length).
- **A text-based file.** Save it as a PDF unless the application asks for another format, and put your name in the file name.

For choosing or testing a layout, see [resume templates](https://jobbie.bot/blog/resume-templates) and the rules for an [ATS-friendly resume](https://jobbie.bot/blog/ats-friendly-resume).

## What should you leave off a resume?

University career offices in the United States are consistent about what does not belong:

- A photo, your age or date of birth, or your gender.
- References, or the line “References available upon request.” Prepare them separately, as described in [job references](https://jobbie.bot/blog/job-references).
- First-person pronouns. Write “Managed a team of six,” not “I managed a team of six.”
- Paragraphs of duties copied from a job description.
- Words that claim a quality without showing it. [Resume buzzwords to avoid](https://jobbie.bot/blog/resume-buzzwords-to-avoid) lists replacements.

## How to tailor your resume to each job

Keep a master resume with everything on it. For each application, make a copy and adjust it:

1. Mark the requirements the posting lists first or repeats.
2. Reorder your bullets so the ones that prove those requirements lead each job.
3. Use the posting’s wording for skills you really have. If it says “accounts payable,” do not write only “AP.”
4. Rewrite the headline and summary to name the role.
5. Cut what does not help for this job.

The full method is in [how to tailor your resume to a job description](https://jobbie.bot/blog/tailor-resume-to-job-description).

> **With Jobbie:** Jobbie parses the resume you upload into a profile, and Resume Tailor generates a role-targeted resume from that profile as a PDF. The profile is only as good as the resume you start from, so get the content right first. [See how resume tailoring works](https://jobbie.bot/features/resume-tailoring).

## Which resume guide fits your situation?

| If you are | Start with |
| --- | --- |
| Changing fields | [Career change resume](https://jobbie.bot/blog/career-change-resume) and [transferable skills](https://jobbie.bot/blog/transferable-skills) |
| Explaining time out of work | [Employment gaps on a resume](https://jobbie.bot/blog/employment-gap-resume) |
| In engineering, data or IT | [Technical resume](https://jobbie.bot/blog/technical-resume) |
| Freelancing or contracting | [Freelance work on a resume](https://jobbie.bot/blog/freelance-work-on-resume) |
| Unsure your title describes your job | [Job titles on a resume](https://jobbie.bot/blog/job-titles-on-resume) |
| Applying for academic or overseas roles | [CV vs. resume](https://jobbie.bot/blog/cv-vs-resume) |

## Final checks before you send it

1. Read it aloud for typos. Spelling and grammar errors are first on Harvard’s list of the top five resume mistakes.
2. Confirm your phone number and email address are present and correct. Missing contact details are second on the same list.
3. Check that every bullet starts with a verb and that the first bullet under each job is the most relevant one.
4. Make dates, punctuation and spacing consistent.
5. Copy all the text into a plain-text editor. If it comes out complete and in order, that is a good sign software will read it in order too.
6. Ask someone else to read it, then compare it against the common [resume mistakes](https://jobbie.bot/blog/resume-mistakes).
7. Save it as a PDF with a clear name, such as `Dana-Reyes-Resume.pdf`, and move on to the [cover letter](https://jobbie.bot/blog/cover-letter).

## Frequently asked questions

### What are the main sections of a resume?

Contact details, work experience and education are required. Most resumes also have a skills section, and many open with a short headline or summary. Add certifications, projects, volunteering or interests only when they give the employer another reason to interview you.

### How long should a resume be?

One page for students, recent graduates and most people in the first decade of a career. Two pages are reasonable once you have ten or more years of experience or an advanced degree. At any length, put your strongest and most relevant material in the top half of the first page.

### What is the best format for a resume?

Reverse-chronological: your jobs listed from newest to oldest, each with bullet points, in a single column with standard headings. It suits almost everyone. A combination format, which adds a skills summary above the same job history, can help career changers.

### Should a resume include a photo?

Not in the United States. University career offices, Harvard’s among them, tell candidates to leave off a picture along with age and gender. Conventions differ in some other countries, so check local practice if you are applying abroad.

### Do I need a different resume for every job?

You need one master resume and a tailored copy for each application. The facts stay the same. What changes is the order of your bullets, the wording of your skills and the headline or summary, so that the requirements in that posting are easy to find.

## Sources

- [Harvard FAS Mignone Center for Career Success: Harvard College Guide to Creating a Strong Resume](https://careerservices.fas.harvard.edu/resources/create-a-strong-resume/): resume language, the top five resume mistakes, what to leave off and ordering sections by importance.
- [MIT Career Advising & Professional Development: Resume checklist and worksheet](https://capd.mit.edu/resources/resume-checklist/): one page versus two, font size, margins, section order and starting each phrase with an action verb.
- [University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education Career Center: Writing a Resume](https://careercenter.education.wisc.edu/prepare-apply/resume/): what goes in the header and in each experience entry, three to five bullets per role, and saving as a PDF.
- [Penn Career Services: Write a Resume/CV](https://careerservices.upenn.edu/channels/resume/): education in reverse order, listing only objective and measurable skills, and converting to PDF.
- [Greenhouse Support: Unsuccessful resume parse](https://support.greenhouse.io/hc/en-us/articles/200989175-Unsuccessful-resume-parse): the layout features that stop a resume parser from reading a file.