How Do I Write a Resume?

Writing a resume feels harder than it should. You know your own experience, but turning it into a document that gets interviews is a different skill entirely. Here is how to do it well.

Start With the Basics

Every resume needs these sections at minimum:

• Contact information — name, email, phone, city and state, LinkedIn URL
• Work experience — job titles, companies, dates, and bullet points describing what you did
• Education — degree, school, graduation year
• Skills — technical skills, tools, languages, certifications

That is it. Everything else — summary, projects, volunteer work, publications — is optional and should only appear if it strengthens your application for the specific role.

Write Your Work Experience First

This is the section that matters most. For each role, include:

• Job title — use the title you actually held
• Company name and location — city and state is enough
• Dates — month and year for start and end
• Bullet points — three to five per role, describing what you accomplished

How to Write Good Bullet Points

The biggest mistake people make is describing responsibilities instead of accomplishments. Your bullet points should answer "what did I do and what happened because of it?" not "what was I supposed to do?"

Weak: "Responsible for managing social media accounts."

Strong: "Grew Instagram following from 2K to 18K in eight months through a content strategy focused on behind-the-scenes product development."

The formula is simple: action verb + what you did + measurable result. You will not have metrics for everything, and that is fine. But wherever you can quantify, do it.

Good action verbs to start with: built, launched, reduced, increased, designed, led, automated, negotiated, implemented, migrated, streamlined.

How Far Back to Go

Generally ten to fifteen years. For most people, that means three to five roles. Older positions can be listed with just the title, company, and dates — no bullet points needed. If a role from twenty years ago is not relevant, leave it off entirely.

Write a Skills Section That Adds Information

List hard skills — tools, technologies, methodologies, languages, certifications. These are the keywords that ATS systems scan for and that recruiters use to quickly assess fit.

Good skills section: Python, SQL, Tableau, Google Analytics, A/B Testing, Agile, JIRA

Bad skills section: Communication, Leadership, Problem Solving, Detail-Oriented, Team Player

Soft skills do not belong in the skills section. They are too generic to differentiate you and impossible to verify at a glance. Show them through your bullet points instead.

Add a Summary Only If It Earns Its Space

A professional summary is two to three lines at the top of your resume. It is optional. A good summary quickly frames who you are and what you bring. A bad summary wastes prime real estate on vague adjectives.

Skip the summary if you are early in your career or applying to a role that is a natural next step — your experience section will speak for itself.

Include a summary if you are changing careers, have a non-obvious background, or want to frame your experience around a specific strength.

Weak: "Results-driven professional with a proven track record of success in fast-paced environments seeking to leverage my skills in a challenging new role."

Strong: "Data analyst with five years in e-commerce, specializing in customer retention modeling. Built the churn prediction system at Acme that reduced annual attrition by 14%."

Choose a Clean Format

Use a single-column layout with clear section headings. Reverse-chronological order — most recent role first. Standard fonts. No graphics, no icons, no headshots, no color blocks.

This is not about being boring. It is about being readable — by humans scanning quickly and by ATS software parsing your resume into structured fields. A resume that looks creative but confuses the parser is a resume that never gets seen.

Save as PDF unless the posting specifically requests Word.

Tailor Every Time

A generic resume is a weak resume. Before you send it, compare your resume to the job description:

• Do the keywords match? If the posting says "project management" and your resume says "managed projects," adjust the phrasing
• Are your most relevant experiences at the top of each section?
• Does anything on your resume have nothing to do with this role? Cut it

This does not mean lying or fabricating experience. It means selecting and emphasizing the parts of your real background that are most relevant to this specific job.

The Checklist Before You Send

• One page (two if you have 10+ years of relevant experience)
• No typos or grammatical errors
• Consistent formatting — same font, same date format, same bullet style throughout
• Every bullet point starts with an action verb
• Contact information is current and professional
• Saved as PDF with a clear filename like "Jane-Smith-Resume.pdf"
• No personal information that does not belong — no age, no photo, no marital status

Start Building

The hardest part is getting started. Open a blank document, list your last three jobs, and write three bullet points for each one. You will edit them later. The first draft does not need to be perfect — it needs to exist.