A résumé is a selective record of your background—your educational, military, and work experience, certifications, abilities, and so on. You send it, usually accompanied by an application letter, to potential employers when seeking job interviews.
Although résumé structure can vary, in most cases, you should include the following sections in the order indicated:
Positioned at the top of the page. Here, state your name, mailing address, email, and phone number.
Some people list their most important qualifications, skills, and work experience in a summary below the header. Actually, this section is most useful for people who have been in their careers for a while. It’s a good way to create one common spot on the résumé to list those key qualifications about yourself that may be spread throughout the résumé.
In reverse chronological order, list the colleges that you’ve attended, including location (e.g., city and state), degree, area of study, and dates attended. Highlight accomplishments such as a strong GPA, academic awards, etc. Don’t include high school unless you haven’t attended college.
In reverse chronological order, list your work experience, including company name, location, dates of employment, position(s), and responsibilities. Notice the use of present and past verb tenses in the examples below.
You should also consider including some other sections in your résumé.
If you have it, include it:
Include only if relevant to the position for which you’re applying:
According to Mike Markel, “Although applicants in the past added a note stating ‘References available upon request’ at the end of their résumés, many applicants today do not do so because they think the comment is unnecessary: employers assume that applicants can provide a list of references—and that they would love to do so.”
For a good overview of basic design principles, I recommend Robin Williams’ The Non-Designer’s Design Book or Joseph Moxley’s Writing Commons article “Principles of Design.”
The section on résumés in Matthew Butterick’s Practical Typography shares a revised résumé that serves as an excellent example of a well-designed document.
This very brief guide, authored by Erick Piller, uses some language adapted from the following Creative Commons-licensed sources:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.