How long should a resume be?

One page for most people, two if you've got years of directly relevant experience that earns the room. Recruiters skim, so tight and sharp beats long and complete. Academic CVs are the exception, where length is normal and expected.

What do I put on a resume with no experience?

Lead with education, projects, coursework, volunteering, and transferable skills. A projects section can carry an entry-level resume on its own: describe what you built or organized and what came of it, exactly the way you'd write up a job. You can reach a complete, exportable resume without any formal work history.

Should I include a photo?

In most of the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, no. It invites bias, eats space you need for content, and some parsers handle it badly. In parts of Europe and Asia a photo is standard, so follow the local norm rather than the internet's default answer.

Do I really need a different resume for every job?

You don't rewrite it each time, but you should re-aim it. Adjusting the summary and making sure the posting's real keywords are present takes a few minutes and consistently beats firing the same file at everything.

What file format should I send?

A PDF with real, selectable text. It holds your formatting on someone else's machine and stays readable to both people and software. Send a Word file only when the application specifically asks for one.

Resume guide

How to write a resume, step by step

How to write a resume that gets interviews: the sections to include, how to turn duties into achievements, and how to tailor and export it. A practical, step-by-step guide.

9 min read

You've got a blank page and a job you want. This covers what goes on the page, in what order, and how to write the lines that actually do the work. Give it an afternoon and you'll have something you can send.

Worth saying up front: a resume isn't your autobiography. It's a short argument that you can do one particular job, and nearly every decision below follows from that. Cut anything that doesn't serve the argument, even the parts you're proud of.

Start with the sections people expect

Use the standard sections, in roughly the standard order. Getting clever with structure almost never pays off: at best the reader has to hunt for what they came for, at worst the parser mangles it. Keep the frame conventional and let the content be the interesting part.

Contact details: your name, a professional email, phone, city, and one relevant link (LinkedIn, GitHub, or a portfolio).
Professional summary: two or three lines framing who you are and what you're aiming at.
Experience: your roles in reverse order, each with a few bullets about what you achieved.
Education: your degrees or qualifications, with the institution and dates.
Skills: the tools and competencies the job actually asks for.

Turn duties into achievements

This is where most resumes are won or lost. A duty tells the reader what you were assigned. An achievement tells them what changed because you did it. Lead with a plain, accurate verb, then attach a number wherever you honestly can.

Compare "Responsible for managing social media accounts" with "Grew the company's following from 4,000 to 22,000 in a year and lifted referral traffic 35%." Same job, completely different signal, same amount of space. If you don't have exact figures, estimate honestly and give a range. Don't invent precision you can't back up, because you'll be asked about it.

A word on skills sections

Here's a take not everyone shares: your skills list is mostly keyword bait, and that's fine. Its real job is making sure the terms a screener looks for appear somewhere on the page. It isn't where you prove anything, so don't agonize over the wording, and don't pad it with tools you'd panic about being asked to use. List what's true and relevant, then put the effort into your bullets, which is where the proving actually happens.

Write the summary for this job, not for everyone

Your summary is the most valuable few lines on the page, so don't spend them on "hard-working team player." Say what you do, at what level, and one or two things you're genuinely strong at that this posting cares about. If you're changing fields, this is where you explain the pivot, because your job titles won't do it for you.

Keep it readable to software as well as people

Your resume usually gets parsed into fields before a human sees it, which means the boring choices are the safe ones: standard headings, real selectable text rather than words baked into an image, and a layout that doesn't fight the parser. A well-built template handles this for you. Every design in the editor exports as real vector text, so picking a look you like isn't a gamble on whether it survives the screener.

Tailor a version for each application

The resume written for the specific posting beats the general-purpose one, reliably. That doesn't mean starting over every time. Read the description, make sure the skills and terms it leans on appear on yours where they're genuinely true, and re-aim the summary. In the editor you can keep a separate tailored copy per job, so you're never overwriting one master file to chase an application.

Proofread, then export a PDF

Typos and drifting date formats quietly cost interviews. Read it out loud, keep your tenses and dates consistent, and check that every claim is one you'd happily defend in an interview. Then export a PDF so the formatting is locked exactly as you see it.

One honest exception to most of the above: academic CVs play by different rules. If you're applying for research or faculty roles, length is expected, publications and grants matter more than punchy bullets, and the advice about cutting ruthlessly mostly doesn't apply to you.

Quick steps

1
Pick a clean template
Choose a design with standard headings that exports as real text. Your details carry across every template, so you can change the look later without retyping anything.
2
Fill in the core sections
Contact details, experience, education, skills. If you've already got a resume, import it and start from what's there.
3
Rewrite your bullets
Go line by line and turn each duty into a result, led by a plain verb with a number attached where you honestly have one.
4
Tailor it to the job
Paste the job description, close the keyword gaps that are true of you, and re-aim the summary at the role.
5
Proofread and export
Check spelling, tense, and dates, then export a clean PDF. Keep the tailored copy so you're not redoing this next week.

Frequently asked questions

How long should a resume be?: One page for most people, two if you've got years of directly relevant experience that earns the room. Recruiters skim, so tight and sharp beats long and complete. Academic CVs are the exception, where length is normal and expected.
What do I put on a resume with no experience?: Lead with education, projects, coursework, volunteering, and transferable skills. A projects section can carry an entry-level resume on its own: describe what you built or organized and what came of it, exactly the way you'd write up a job. You can reach a complete, exportable resume without any formal work history.
Should I include a photo?: In most of the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, no. It invites bias, eats space you need for content, and some parsers handle it badly. In parts of Europe and Asia a photo is standard, so follow the local norm rather than the internet's default answer.
Do I really need a different resume for every job?: You don't rewrite it each time, but you should re-aim it. Adjusting the summary and making sure the posting's real keywords are present takes a few minutes and consistently beats firing the same file at everything.
What file format should I send?: A PDF with real, selectable text. It holds your formatting on someone else's machine and stays readable to both people and software. Send a Word file only when the application specifically asks for one.

Keep reading

Resume examples by role Resume tips that get interviews Common resume mistakes to avoid Tailor your resume to a job Browse resume templates