The format that works
Reverse chronological, one page for under ten years of experience, two pages beyond that. Plain fonts, no columns, no tables, no graphics, no photo. Save as PDF unless the application specifically asks for Word. Fancy formatting breaks in the parsing software that reads it first.
Structure
- Name and contact: phone, professional email, city and state, and a profile link if you have one. No street address needed.
- Target title: the job title you are applying for, as a headline.
- Summary: three lines, tailored to the posting, quantified where possible.
- Skills: a short list of concrete, checkable skills, using the words from the posting.
- Experience: employer, title, dates, then four to six bullets of what you achieved.
- Education and certifications: last, unless you are a recent graduate.
Writing bullets that land
Every bullet starts with a verb and ends with a result. "Responsible for customer service" says nothing. "Handled 60 to 80 customer calls a day with a 95 percent first-call resolution rate" says you can do the job. If you have no numbers, use scale: how many people, how often, how large, how fast.
Gaps and job hopping
Use years rather than months if the gaps are short. If a gap is long, name it briefly and factually: caregiving, education, medical leave, relocation. Do not apologize and do not over explain. Employers care much more about what you can do now than about a gap three years ago.
Getting past the screening software
Applicant tracking systems match your document against the posting. Use the posting's own wording for skills and titles, spell out acronyms once with the abbreviation in parentheses, avoid headers and footers for critical information, and never put text in an image. A clean, boring, keyword accurate resume outperforms a designed one at this stage every time.
Before you send it
Read it aloud. Check every date and number. Have someone else read it for typos, because you will not see your own. Save the file as FirstnameLastnameResume.pdf, not resume_final_v3.pdf.