Build a professional resume that gets interviews.

Your name, target job title, email, phone, and location. Add LinkedIn and portfolio if they strengthen your case. Use a professional email address. Include the city and country if applying internationally. Skip the full street address.

• Name: larger than anything else, no nicknames unless you always use one.
• Title: match the role you are applying for.
• Email: firstname.lastname@ pattern.
• Phone: include country code for international applications.
• Location: city and country. Remote should be stated in the summary, not as a city.
• Links: LinkedIn and portfolio, both short and clickable.

Two to four lines at the top of the resume. Say who you are, what you do best, and the strongest evidence you have. Do not summarize your life. Summarize your fit.

Strong summary pattern: [Title] with [years] of experience in [domain]. Specializes in [two or three skills]. Delivered [one or two quantified outcomes]. Looking for [target role].

Example: "Product Manager with seven years in B2B SaaS. Specializes in platform strategy and pricing. Took a $4M product line to $11M ARR in eighteen months. Seeking a senior PM role in developer tooling."

List roles in reverse chronological order. For each role give the company, job title, location, and dates. Under each role, write three to six bullets. Lead each bullet with a strong action verb and include a measurable result wherever possible.

Bullet formula: Action verb + what you did + how you did it + the measurable outcome.

Example: "Reduced deployment time from 45 minutes to 6 minutes by migrating the release pipeline to containerized builds, cutting hotfix cycles from 12 to 2 per quarter."

Skip responsibilities. Keep accomplishments. Recruiters know what a job description looks like; they want to see what you specifically changed.

Degree, institution, location, graduation date, and any honors or relevant coursework. For experienced professionals, keep this short. For students and recent graduates, expand it and put it above work experience.

• Degree name as it appears on the diploma.
• Institution with city and country.
• Graduation month and year.
• GPA only if it is above 3.5 or the employer explicitly requests it.
• Relevant coursework only if it maps to the role.

Group skills into categories. Common groups include technical, tools, and soft skills, or languages and frameworks for engineers. Prioritize skills that appear in the job posting.

Do not use proficiency bars, star ratings, or percentages. They are subjective and often unreadable to ATS. Use plain text: "Python, Go, PostgreSQL, Kafka, Docker, Kubernetes."

Include both the acronym and the spelled-out version of any important term, so both forms match keyword search: "Search Engine Optimization (SEO)".

Especially valuable for engineers, designers, and candidates without formal work history. Each project entry should have a name, a one-line description, the technology or tools used, and one or two bullets describing the outcome or scale.

Link to a live demo or repository if the project is publicly viewable. A working link is worth more than a longer description.

List certifications with the issuing body, the full name, and the date earned. If the certification expires, include the expiration date. For example: "AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate, Amazon Web Services, March 2024."

Place certifications high on the resume if the role requires a specific credential, such as nursing licenses, CPA, or PMP.

Include awards that are competitive, selective, or field-relevant. Skip generic recognition that every employee receives. State the award name, the awarding organization, and the year.

Examples: "Employee of the Year, Acme Corp, 2023", "Best Paper Award, IEEE Symposium, 2022", "Dean's List, University of Washington, 2019-2020".

List languages with a proficiency level. Use a widely understood scale: Native, Fluent, Professional working proficiency, Limited working proficiency, Basic. Avoid vague terms like "conversational" without a reference point.

Only list languages you can use in a work environment. Do not list languages you studied in school but do not speak.

Volunteer experience counts, especially if it demonstrates leadership, project delivery, or relevant skills. Write bullets the same way you would for paid work: action, task, result.

Keep this section short for senior candidates. It becomes more important for students, career changers, and candidates returning after a break.

For academic and research roles, list publications using a consistent citation style. Include authors in the same order they appear on the paper. Bold your own name so reviewers can find it quickly.

For non-academic roles, only include publications if they directly support your candidacy, such as an engineering blog post that was widely cited in the industry.

Optional. Include only if the interests are relevant to the role or the company culture, or if they humanize an otherwise dry resume. Three to five items maximum. Avoid controversy and politics.

Good examples for certain roles: open-source contributions, marathon running, published photography, competitive chess. Skip generic items like "reading" or "traveling".

Do not list references on the resume by default. Employers will ask when they need them. Use the space for content about you.

If a specific job posting asks for references, prepare a separate one-page reference sheet with name, title, company, relationship, and contact information. Ask each reference for permission before submitting.

Some careers need a section that does not map to the standard set. Examples include Patents, Speaking Engagements, Board Positions, Media Appearances, Grants, Clinical Trials, or Coursework.

Use custom sections sparingly. Two or three maximum. Name them clearly so an ATS can categorize them, and use the same bullet format as experience.