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What to Include in Your Resume

At a minimum, your resume should include your contact information, work experience, and education. Additional sections for career summary, skills, volunteer work, and additional qualifications can be added if they’re relevant to the job for which you’re applying.

The operative work here is “relevant.” Remember that your resume is meant to quickly highlight the reasons you’re a great fit for the job. It’s not meant to detail every job duty you’ve ever performed. Instead of simply writing your day-to-day responsibilities from past jobs, study the job listing and try to come up with an answer for each requirement listed. This is more likely to get the attention of a recruiter who may only look at your resume for a few seconds. It also optimizes your resume for the applicant tracking system sorting algorithms that help companies identify top candidates.

Below you’ll find which resume sections to include in your resume and how to tailor them to the job you want.

Contact Information

The top of your resume should include the following information:

Name

Phone number

Location (City, State, Zip Code)

Email Address

LinkedIn profile URL

It might seem obvious, but job seekers sometimes forget a key piece of contact information in this section. Double check and make it as easy as possible for recruiters to contact you for a job interview.

Include a personal phone number, never a work number. Add your city, state, and zip code (e.g. “Seattle, WA 98104”). This is important as some applicant tracking systems allow recruiters to filter candidates based on location. Recruiters will always start with local candidates first. If you’re relocating from another area, list both your current location and your future location.

Use a professional-sounding email address. An email address based around your name is ideal, such as [email protected] Your “fun” email address might work perfectly fine in your personal life, but “beersnob88” or “biebersuperfan” might not cast you in the most professional light. Even using an email client that is considered outdated -- like AOL or Hotmail -- could hurt your chances. Consider creating a free Gmail account for your job search.

If a recruiter is intrigued by your qualifications, they will look up your online profiles. All job seekers should create a strong LinkedIn profile and include the URL on their resume. This will make the recruiter’s life a little easier and help them cross check the claims on your resume.





Work Experience

The work experience section is the heart of your resume. Differentiate this section with a clear, to-the-point heading, such as “Work Experience,” “Professional Experience,” or “Employment History.” This will help guide recruiters through your resume as well as ensure it is accurately parsed by applicant tracking systems (ATS).

Under the main heading, list each job in reverse-chronological order. Each job should have its own subheading that includes the following information:

Company

Job location

Your job title

Start and end dates

For example:

ABC Corporation, Seattle, WA

Distribution Manager (01/2017-Present)

The first things a recruiter looks for on your resume are the job titles you’ve held and the caliber of companies you’ve worked with. This format not only makes it easy for them to find that information, but our research has found that this sequence also offers maximum ATS compatibility.

Under each position’s subheading, include responsibilities and measurable results that are relevant to the job for which you’re applying. Remember, you don’t need to include every duty that was part of your day-to-day work. Use your available space to emphasize the skills and experiences that are asked for in the job description. Jobscan helps you determine exactly which skills are being requested and whether or not you’ve highlighted them in your resume.





Anyone can perform a task, so demonstrating that you did it well will make you stand out from other applicants. There is a saying in resume writing, “duties tell, accomplishments sell.” Using numbers, percentages, time, and dollar amounts to quantify your accomplishments will help the recruiter or hiring manager visualize your potential impact.





Education

If you’re a few years into your career, your resume’s education section can be minimized at the bottom of your resume. Unless you’re applying in a career that puts extra emphasis on education (like academia, law, or medicine), most job seekers can get away with providing only the following information on their resume:

Name of Institution

Degree

School Location

Years Attended

If you’ve recently graduated college, your education section goes above your work experience and includes more detail. Skills developed in school are real skills that have value in the professional world. Recent grads can include relevant coursework, societies, organizations, and extracurriculars that strengthen their candidacy.

Skills

98 percent of Fortune 500 companies use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to sort, filter, and search applicants. Some ATS, like Taleo, can automatically rank your resume’s content against the job description, allowing recruiters to focus only on the “best” applicants. Recruiters also search their applicant pool for important resume keywords, like “customer service,” “accounts receivable,” or “Adobe Photoshop.”

Ranking highly or coming up as a search result is all about including the right hard skills and keywords in your resume. The best way to identify skills important to the ranking and search algorithms is by noticing which skills are most prominent in the job description. Matching these skills in your resume, when applicable, increases your chances of being selected for an interview.

Jobscan automates this process by showing you a side-by-side comparison of the skills found in the job description and in your resume. Try it here:

Hard skills should be worked in throughout your resume. Including a skills section on your resume isn’t a requirement, but it can help you have a natural place to list skills that are important to the job for which you’re applying. A dedicated skills section also makes your resume more skimmable for recruiters trying to quickly identify whether you meet their requirements.

If you do use a skills section, remember that simply listing skills and keywords isn’t enough. Add context to these skills throughout your resume so that recruiters believe you. This includes things like the projects in which you utilized skills, number of years experience for a given skill, or your level of expertise.

AWARDS AND HONORS

Some resume formats allow room for a number of optional sections. Only use an awards or honors section on your resume if it makes sense for the job for which you’re applying. Relevant honors will increase your credibility while irrelevant awards might only distract from your best qualifications. For example, list that you earned Employee of the Month or received the highest customer satisfaction rating in your department, but maybe not that you are a go kart racing champion in your spare time.

VOLUNTEER WORK AND AFFILIATIONS

The work you do as an active volunteer can add to your qualifications and skill set as much as any paid experience. Again, the operative word is “relevant.” Highlight volunteer work on your resume that utilizes skills that are also applicable to the job for which you’re applying. Be careful listing volunteer organizations or affiliations that could be polarizing, such as political or religious entities.