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How to Write Work Experience on a Resume

Writing the work experience section

Writing the resume work experience section is one of the most influential and often trickiest resume sections to get right. Some employers will even cut right past the summary at the top of a resume and scan the employers, job titles and work dates to see if the resume is worth reading in detail. How much text you include for each section will also create a significant first impression. A lot can be understood during that mythical 6-second scan.

The work experience/job history on a resume is where past job descriptions and professional experiences give credibility to an application or interview. All the other information and sections on a resume, from hobbies to the personal statement , frame the list of relevant work experience over the last 10 - 15 years. So, how do I describe my work experience on a resume?

This guide will show you everything you need to know about including work experience on a resume, including:

• Why the work experience in cv matters
• What to include (and not include) in work experience on a resume
• The best format to follow for describing your work history
• Examples of work experience in cv across industries
• Practical tips for resume work experience
• How to list your current job and previous positions

The five-word rule. Think about five words that would be sum up your career. How would you describe your experience? Those five words should then come across incredibly strongly in the work experience on a resume. A hiring manager is not going to remember the sentences that you write, but if they stop reading with those five words (or more) in their minds, your resume will have done its job.

Why is work experience on your resume so important?

Before we jump in to the ins and outs of writing work experience on a resume, here is why it matters. A hiring manager or employer looks at a resume to answer one question:

Does this person’s work experience qualify them for this job?

The work experience section of your resume is the foundation that either qualifies you or disqualifies you for an interview or the next step in the hiring process. This resume section uses the last 10 - 15 years of relevant career history to tell a prospective employer whether you have the work experience in your cv that will fit the requirements of the role. The work experience section gives credibility to your application and should compliment every other aspect of your application materials (other sections in the resume, cover letter, portfolio, etc).

Be careful not to write your work experience section like a list of job responsibilities , though. The hiring manager knows what they want you to do. They are far more interested in evidence from your previous work experiences that you have what it takes to perform and take your next employer forward. Focus on offering compelling accomplishments, plenty of context and quantifiable results that your competition will not be able to match.

How do I add experience to my resume: What to include

In most cases, choosing which jobs to include on your resume should depend on your work history and the type of job you’re applying for. In general, work in a backward chronological order (in a resume format often known as reverse chronological format ) starting with your most recent position at the top of the page and include the last 10-15 years of employment history. The backward chronological order works best for most job seekers.

If you have a scattered work history, don’t stress. Job hopping is both more common and more widely accepted today, especially among the younger workforce. Including short part-time stints and side projects is good if those professional experiences directly relate to the job or feature skills that overlap with the position. Be prepared to answer questions about your career choices while considering work experience in cv, have a confident answer about your career path, and be forthcoming about the level of commitment you’re looking for. Once you’ve chosen the positions, let’s dive into the specific bullet points about work experience in a cv. Each one should include:

• Results-focused facts: The hiring manager already knows the basics. These bullet points should focus on how you specifically managed the position with innovation.
• Action Verbs: Strong action verbs hook in the reader. Negotiated! Pioneered! Transformed! This also keeps you away from falling down the adjective rabbit hole.
• Quantitative information: Numbers stand out to a hiring manager. They are specific and tangible. You grew a client’s reader base by 300% or managed 200 silent auction items. Let your accomplishments shine!
• On-Site Training: Weave skills and certifications gained on the job. This shows initiative and otherwise overlooked abilities.
• Awards and honors: If you were called out on the job for great work, go ahead and brag. Your work experience resume examples should be designed to impress.

Ideally, each position should include a mix of free-flowing text and achievement-led bullet points. The bullets will catch the eye, but you can only really tell a deeper story when you are not constrained by the width of the page.

How do I write a student CV? A student CV for a first job should contain full details on your education (as that will testify to your ability to focus and achieve) and ideally also contain details on any student jobs or volunteer work that you have done while you were studying. It doesn't matter how menial this work was, the most important thing is that you understand the responsibility of doing a paid day's work.

Volunteer work can be a wonderful way to feature a variety of valuable skills, Here's a list of how to add volunteer work to your resume.

Work experience on a resume: what to avoid

Always assume that your reader — in this case, the hiring manager — doesn’t need anything explained. You also have very little room to ramble on your resume. They will assume more about you than you think - especially if you have worked for a while in their industry.

Free up some space by not including:

• What the organization does: your resume is about you. The hiring manager doesn’t need to hear about the company.
• The basic requirements of your position: this is implied in your job title and will shine through your result-focused bullet points.
• Filler words: For the most part, save space by cutting out words like “I” and “the.”
• Anything irrelevant: If you have smaller responsibilities in a position that do not relate to the new job, leave them out. Every bullet point and every word takes up precious real estate on your resume - make them count.
• Chaired a project team through a change process, trimming 5% of our cost base.
• Outperformed sales team in quarterly new business attraction by 67%.
• Executed the software rollout to twelve departments within two months.
• Resolved a company-record 150 customer complaints a week.
• Rectified a list of outstanding issues that had been dormant for more than a year.

If you are a recent graduate with little or no work experience , you can consider adding your GPA or cum laude on your resume. As you acquire work experience over the years, you should replace your GPA or cum laude with relevant work experience. 

What is the most effective format for work experience on a resume?

On a basic level, the work experience layout typically includes:

• Job title, company name, location of employment
• Month and year started and left the position
• Between three and six bullet points briefly outlining your impact at the company

Work experience/job history on a resume should also include:

• Clear and concise bullet points that demonstrate the positive results of your work
• Powerful verbs
• Clear numbers and facts
• Growth between positions
• Specific keywords pulled from job description

Examples of work experience on a resume

Here are a few examples of work experience on a resume to see the differences between a first draft and the final draft. How do you describe your experience in the most succinct way possible?

Example #1: Work Experience in CV for a Teacher . Let’s say you’re applying to be a middle school science teacher at a popular independent school. The new job description emphasizes the importance of involvement outside the classroom. They specified that they’re looking for teachers looking to grow through professional development throughout their time there.

First Draft:

• I taught 5th-grade science classes
• I advised students outside of class
• I attended a conference on social-emotional learning

Final Draft:

• Developed and carried out a student-driven curriculum in three sections of Earth Science
• Annually advised 20 students to track growth and address individual challenges and strengths
• Invited to attend NAIS annual conference to develop modern social-emotional learning classroom tactics

Example #2: Work Experience in CV for Content Marketing Manager . Content Marketing Managers encompass a very wide range of responsibilities. The recruiter will have a general sense of your job experience — no need to start from scratch — but results-based, specific bullet points will thrive here.

• I manage a team of freelance copywriters at a major NYC marketing agency and ensure they got their work in on time
• I talked to clients and figured out what would be best for their brand
• Before everything was published, I proofread it all
• Oversaw a team of 25 freelance writers and streamlined content pipeline from ideation to publication
• Advised clients on both short- and long-term content strategy tactics while clarifying their personalized brand voice
• Edited and polished copy to maintain content consistency across multiple channels

When you have moved up the career ladder at a previous employer, you should be proud to showcase it on a resume. But how can you display multiple positions for the same company?

Example #3: Work Experience on a Resume for a Waiter . Food service moves quickly. Anything that cut a manager’s search time in half is more likely to land you the job. Be sure to look for keywords in the job posting such as “craft cocktail bartending experience” or “fine dining.” Sure, you can learn — and will learn — on the job, but restaurants have minimal time to train you on the basics. Be confident and clear about your background.

• I waited tables at a busy NYC Midtown restaurant
• Most of the time, I tended bar on nights and weekends
• Trained a few hosts
• Served lunch and dinner for four years in a Michelin-star-rated Midtown brasserie
• Acted as primary bartender during peak weekend and evening hours, specializing in craft cocktail creation
• Managed and streamlined training methods for new hosts and servers

Example #4: Work Experience Resume Example for an Executive Assistant . Personality plays such a large role in calmly managing a busy executive’s schedule and lifestyle. The tone of your resume should be both level-headed and confident in what is expected of an EA. Try to always be a step ahead of what your boss needs before you even begin the job.

• I made travel plans on behalf of executive team
• Budgeted for the office and managed expenses
• I trained other assistants and helped with hiring
• Managed complex domestic and international travel for five, C-level executives
• Decreased expense management costs by 35% and perfected expense tracking system for all office management accounts
• Hired, trained, and guided a team of five team assistants including a seasonal team of sales interns

Example #5: Work Experience Resume Sample for Sales Rep . Provable facts and figures are your largest asset as a sales representative. Did your last position measure your personal or team sales growth? Dig up these numbers to work them into your work experience section. Then, explain the methods you applied in the job itself to make it happen. This work experience resume example offers some ideas:

• Grew sales revenue every month
• I signed several new clients
• I changed the way we talked about our product
• Exponentially increased monthly sales revenue, surpassing 150% growth for the department after just 6 months
• Developed and signed 10 new key clients by researching previously undiscovered corners of our industry
• Redeveloped brand voice and sale representative script for efficient and personalized customer care

What skills do I put on a resume? when you are considering the work experience in a resume, you should aim to make the best possible use of space. There will always be a separate skills section where you can list one-word hard and soft skills , so make sure that this is related to the experience that you have mentioned with each employer, but it should add to the overall picture rather than simple repeat it. If you add an interesting skill that you have not mentioned in the work experience section, an employer is bound to ask about it at interview.

Grammar tips for listing job history on a resume

Do you write sentences? Phrases? Declarations? Writing resumes for first job? Here are some nitty-gritty grammar rules for writing your work experience bullet points.

• Write in phrases, often beginning with a strong verb. No need to write “I” to start off the sentence — that is implied and work experience in a CV is often conveyed in the third person as this is more professional.
• Tense : If you are still at your current position completing the work described, use present tense. For past positions or completed projects, choose past tense.
• Don’t be afraid to break out the thesaurus — especially for synonyms of “lead, managed and trained” — but stick to words you’d use yourself. No need to ace the SAT verbal section.

Filling your resume with exclusively truthful statements about your career is harder than you might think. Lying on a resume can take many forms. Don’t give in to temptation.

Tailoring job history on a resume for each application

Instead of mass applying to every job ad on the internet with the same resume, take the time to tailor it. The work experience section might require the least tailoring (as it will tick the boxes of most jobs if you are targeted in your approach), but there may be a few accomplishments that you may want to include for certain roles and exclude for others. View yourself as a meticulous editor cutting and pasting your career story to make it as attractive as possible.

Besides the fact that 36% of hiring managers throw out resumes that don’t seem personalized for a particular role, a tailored resume and application:

• Shows the hiring manager you took the time to apply and their job wasn’t one of 50 different places you sent your resume.
• Get past the automatic keyword filtering larger companies might use to automatically screen candidates in their Applicant Tracking System (ATS) . Your work experience samples need to be scanned by the machines first.
• Tweak diverse experiences to focus on the most relevant experience for a particular job. For example if you’ve ever had a job “wearing many hats” unless you’re applying for another “many hats” position, this strategy gives you a chance to focus your work experience on the hats that are most relevant for the new role.

Restarting this process every time you apply for a new job may seem excessive. Ideally, the more time you put into tailoring your resume, the less jobs you’ll need to apply to.

• Ignited a fire under the management team to deliver an extra $950k sales.
• Scrutinized the market and doubled market share by launching a new product.
• Implemented a new software solution that shrunk build time by 34%
• Initiated a recruitment drive that hired fifteen people within three months.
• Minimized surgery wait times by 15 mins, increasing patient satisfaction by 25%

How far back should your resume work experience go?

Your resume work experience should contain every piece of information that is relevant to you securing the role. This will dictate the amount of work experience in a CV that you might include. 

If you have a 30-year career, you might choose simply to list the employers for the first 10-15 years and use your precious resume space to describe the most recent resume experiences. However, if your career is 15 years or less, you should definitely include resume work experience about everything. 

In terms of the amount of work experience on your resume, try to give more information on the more recent roles. Make use of bullet points and solid text after your have listed the employer and date details - as you can see in our many resume samples .

Including a list of roles that were more than 15 years old might be possible, but only include the headlines. It is interesting for some business leaders to see where a senior manager spent their early career, so while you may not be asked about this much during an interview, it does add a certain depth to your application.

Should I put seminars on my CV? Typically, a one or two-day seminar would not be included on work experience in a CV. If the training or educational event has a certain prestige or lasts more than a week, then you might consider including it in the education section, but as anyone can attend a seminar, it will not give a huge indication as to your individual level of suitability for the role. You will certainly have more important information to share.

Your transition out of the military requires a resume that expresses your talents in a way that civilian employers will understand. The blog below offers tips for making the most of your service in your post-military resume.

Key takeaways

• Focus on results of your job history in the past. Only list work experience on a resume that is relevant to the job you’re applying to.
• Stand out with strong action verbs
• Get specific: use numbers, facts, and figures
• Speak in the past tense when the job is complete, present when you’re still doing the work.
• Cut out unnecessary filler words or adjectives.
• Align your job history bullet points to match the job description.
• Make sure that the work experience in CV goes back an appropriate amount of time

Work experience on a great resume helps employers know in 10 seconds or less if you are qualified for the job. It should sound a lot like the description in the job post. If the work experience in CV doesn’t sound like the job description or follow these rules, be prepared to pull out some creativity to get noticed. For example, use a resume builder to build a perfect resume in the exact format potential employers are looking for.

Your Step-by-Step Guide to Making the Perfect Resume (With Examples!)

Your resume is arguably the most valuable piece of paper for your career. But this document can be daunting for many. Maybe you’re not sure how to fit in all your information onto one page. Maybe you’re not sure about the right way to format and write your resume. Maybe you don’t even know what the heck a resume is!

Whatever your concern, we’ll break down everything you need to know about making the perfect resume, from scratch.

What Is a Resume?

What are employers looking for in a resume.

• Pick Your Format
• Start With Your Basic Information
• Add in Your Work Experience
• Consider Including Volunteer Work or Other Experience
• Don’t Forget Your Education
• Top It Off With Some Skills and Interests
• Write a Resume Summary Statement (if Relevant)
• Tailor It to the Job (and the ATS)
• Edit and Refine It

What Are Some Examples of a Good Resume?

A resume is a summary of your career, whether yours is just getting started or has been going on for years. Coming in at around one page in length (two only under specific circumstances), it showcases the jobs you’ve held and currently hold, the responsibilities you’ve taken on, the skills you’ve developed, and the qualities you bring to the table as an employee. Together, those things make it super easy for any hiring manager to see your qualifications and fit for a role.

For all the work you may put into writing one, hiring managers actually spend very little time—mere seconds in many cases—looking at your resume. But despite this sad fact, it’s safe to say that creating a great resume (rather than hastily throwing one together) still matters.

“If you miss the mark, your resume may never be read. Even worse, you might be removed from the applicant pool by a computer before a human even knows you exist,” says Muse career coach Heather Yurovsky , founder of Shatter & Shine. So you want to get it right because, as she explains, isn’t the goal to “spend less time looking for a job and more time in a role you love?”

You might be wondering if you can lean on your LinkedIn profile instead of writing a resume. The answer, sadly, is no. Most hiring managers still expect you to submit a resume, even if they also look at your LinkedIn. Even if you don’t need a resume for a job you’re applying for now, you’re going to need one at some point in your career—they’re not anywhere close to going out of style. So it’s best to always have one at the ready should an opportunity pop up.

And although LinkedIn has plenty of benefits, a resume has one clear advantage: While your LinkedIn is usually a broader picture of your career trajectory, your resume gives you the opportunity to tailor your career story to a specific role or company (more on that later).

Oh, and you’ve probably heard of something called a CV? It’s slightly different from a resume , and usually more common with academics and job seekers outside the U.S.

Hiring managers look for three things on your resume, “What did you do? Why did you do it? And what was the result?” says Muse career coach Martin McGovern , owner of Career Therapy. “If you can answer all three of these questions in...your resume bullet points, you’re going to be on the right track.”

Clear, easy-to-understand language is key. “The truth is that most resumes make no sense. They are stuffed with jargon, they are too technical, and they are filled with redundancies. Try to read a resume that isn’t yours and you will quickly realize that it feels like an alien wrote it,” McGovern adds. Put yourself in the shoes of a recruiter who has no idea how your role works—how can you make your resume accessible to them?

The hiring manager also cares about more than just you and you alone—they care about you in relation to them. “Hiring managers want to see if a candidate matches the requirements” of the role they’re hiring for, Yurovsky explains. “Your resume should paint this picture so the hiring manager not only knows what day-to-day responsibilities you can handle, but why you, above other[s], bring value to their organization.”

How Do You Write a Resume?

Whether you’re someone who’s never written a resume in your life, or you need a nice, thorough refresher on the process of creating one, follow these steps to go from a blank page to a complete—and dare I say beautiful—document.

Related: This Free Worksheet Makes It Easy to Create (or Update) Your Resume

1. Pick Your Format

Before you start typing one single thing, you have to decide what you want the overall resume to look like.

Resume builders can be helpful for this step—they’ll take all your basic information and organize it for you, eliminating some of the legwork. You can also use a pre-made outline, such as one of these free Google Docs templates .

But it’s often safest to start with a clean slate all on your own and eventually upgrade to a more advanced layout. (If you'd still like a place to write all the relevant information before you get started, check out our resume outline .) This allows you to course correct, edit and re-edit, and choose a resume format that best fits your particular situation (after all, not everyone has a career trajectory that’s easy to compartmentalize).

In general, you’re most likely to cover and/or include sections on the following:

• Your work experience
• Your non-work experience, including professional organizations, community involvement, or side projects
• Your education and certifications
• Your skills (specifically hard skills) and interests

So how do you format and organize all of that information?

By far the most common (and safest, if you’re not sure which route to take) option is reverse chronological order . This means you organize your experiences from most recent to least recent. So your work experiences would go above your education, and your current role would go above previous roles you’ve held. This of course has its exceptions—maybe you went back to grad school between jobs, or your most recent role is irrelevant to the job you’re applying for. So the whole page may not be exactly in reverse chronological order depending on your situation. It’s just a guideline.

There’s also something called a functional or skills-based resume . This is used pretty rarely, mainly with career changers and those with limited or complicated work histories. It gets its name because it’s primarily about listing your skills rather than experiences, and showcases them above your work history and education.

You can also opt for a combination resume , which is a mix between a reverse chronological resume and skills-based resume. It highlights your skills at the top, but allows just as much room below to cover your job and school experience.

Use caution when choosing these two formats: “Combo and skills-based [resumes] can be hard to follow, because [they force] the reader to hunt for connections between your skills and experience, and [don’t] provide the full context of your work,” says Muse Career Coach Angela Smith , founder of Loft Consulting. “I’ve also heard a lot of recruiters say that they automatically discount skill-based resumes because they feel the candidate is trying to hide something. I don’t necessarily believe that, but I think it’s important for job-seekers to know that perception is out there.”

2. Start With Your Basic Information

Your contact information should always go at the top of your resume. In this header you’ll want to include anything that could be helpful for a recruiter to get in touch with you. Usually, this means adding in:

• Your full name (preferably the name you use across the web)
• Your phone number
• Your personal email address

You might also choose to include other basic information, such as your LinkedIn or personal website URL, your GitHub (for technical roles), your social media profiles (if relevant to the job), or your address. If you’re looking to move for a job, you may choose to leave out your address or write “open to relocating” to better your chances of getting an interview.

The key is to make this part as clear as possible. If a hiring manager can’t reach you, there’s no point in perfecting the rest of your resume.

3. Add in Your Work Experience

This section will most likely be the bulk of your resume. Even if you’re changing careers, employers still want to see where you’ve worked, what you’ve done, and the impact of that work to get a sense of your background and expertise.

Your “Work Experience” might be one entire category, or you might choose to break it up into “Relevant Experience” and “Additional Experience” to highlight the jobs that are most important for hiring managers to focus on. Either way, you’ll almost always want to have your most recent experience at the top and your older experience down below.

Within your work experience, you’ll want to include each official job title, the company (and possibly its location), and the years you worked there. Below that, you’ll add in two to four bullet points explaining what you did in that job, the skills you built and exercised, the tools you used, and the results of what you did. If you accomplished a lot during your time there, focus on the responsibilities that made the most impact or you’re the most proud of, as well as the ones that best align you with the job you’re applying for (more on that in the following sections). It’s key here to list, if relevant, quantitative as well as qualitative accomplishments.

For example, you might write:

Associate Accountant, Finances and Co., Ann Arbor, MI September 2017 – Present

• Manage billing and invoicing for more than 50 clients, ensuring the deadlines and needs of our enterprise partners, including Big Company and Super Star Org, are met
• Collaborate closely with sales, account management, and project management teams on project setup, maintenance, and invoice management
• Assist in the streamlining of invoicing guidelines and procedures through documentation and the implementation of new software, resulting in an average two-week decrease in total time spent per client

Your resume bullets should be in past tense if you’re referring to past jobs and present tense if you’re talking about your current roles. In addition, your bullets should always start with a strong action verb that best describes what you did. And if you have examples of your work, consider hyperlinking them here as well.

If you have a ton of experience and this category is starting to run long (read: over one page), consider kicking out your oldest jobs unless they’re super relevant to the job you’re applying for, or extra impressive for your field.

Not sure where to start? “It’s helpful to do a brain dump and create a document that has everything and anything you consider as experience or an achievement,” says Yurovsky. From there, she explains, you can start to whittle down what is and isn’t important. And you can refer to this document later if you ever decide to update your resume for a specific role.

Need more specific advice on listing your work experience on your resume? Check out these additional resources:

• When you’ve held multiple jobs at the same company: 2 Jobs, 1 Company: How to Show Multiple Positions on Your Resume
• When you’re not sure what your accomplishments are or how to explain them: Resume Revamp: How to Turn Your Duties Into Accomplishments
• When you want to spruce up a boring or insignificant job: How to Make Your Most Boring Jobs Sound More Interesting on Your Resume
• When you’re considering fudging a job title: The Answer to “Can I Change My Job Title on My Resume to Make It More Accurate?”
• When you’ve had a bunch of short-term gigs: How to List Temporary Jobs on Your Resume

4. Consider Including Volunteer Work or Other Experience

Anything you’ve done that’s not work experience—your side gig, volunteer work, special projects—can be hosted under clearly-labeled sections (“Volunteer Experience” or “Activities,” for example). Depending on how robust your work experience is, these things may be worth including, particularly if they’ve helped you level up your skill set or better align you with your dream job. Plus, they make you look that much more well-rounded, passionate, and hardworking.

If you’re a recent grad, you might also build out a section for on-campus activities, such as clubs, organizations, or leadership experience. This can be a great supplement if you’re lacking in the jobs department. You can frame these just as you would professional jobs—including your title, the organization’s name, and bullets describing what your role was and what you accomplished.

Read More: This Is Exactly How to List Volunteer Work on Your Resume

5. Don’t Forget Your Education

If you’re still in school or just graduated, your education can go at the top of your resume, but for pretty much everyone else, this goes near the bottom. Most people include their school, graduation year (for folks less up to about a decade out of school), major, and degree. Brand-new grads might also write in their GPA, honors and awards, study abroad, thesis, or other notable achievements. But keep this section super simple, as you don’t want it to take up too much space over your work experience.

It’s possible you have unique education experience, such as taking an online course or certification. If you did this specifically as a way to boost yourself within your industry, definitely include it. Again, list everything more or less reverse chronologically—so a grad school degree would go above an undergrad degree, and a more recent relevant online course would go above that.

Learn more about the ins and outs of listing your education on your resume:

• How to (and How Not to) List Education on Your Resume
• How to List Online Courses on Your Resume the Right Way (Because Yes, There Is a Wrong Way)

6. Top It Off With Some Skills and Interests

The skills section of a resume gets a bad rap, but it’s just as important as the rest of the stuff you include. It’s a quick list a recruiter can scan to see if your skill set aligns with what they’re hiring for. And it’s super ATS-friendly (ATS stands for “applicant tracking system,” the robot that in some cases reads your resume before a human does) because it allows you to add in keywords the machine is scanning for.

Usually this section goes at the bottom of your resume, but in special cases—such as a skills-based resume or when someone’s switching fields—you may place it further up.

What exactly do you throw in here? You’ll want to list any hard skills and applications you’re familiar with (Photoshop, SEO, JavaScript, to name a few examples), and, if relevant, your level of expertise. Avoid including soft skills here, like time management or public speaking—save those for your bullet points instead.

Be strategic when filling in your skills. Don’t list things you actually couldn’t do at a high competence level (I’m looking at those of you who say you’re “great” at Excel), and maybe nix skills that are completely irrelevant to the job you want. For example, you may not even need to include Excel if you’re applying for say, a design position, unless it’s listed as a job requirement.

Maybe you’re thinking, I’m a really good volleyball player, but that’s not a “skill,” right? No, it’s not, but it is a hobby. Adding in a hobby section at the bottom of your resume is underrated, and frequently a smart choice. It can be a great conversation starter with a hiring manager, and it can show that you’re a good culture fit—or a culture add—for the company. Also, it’s just a nice way to add in some of your personality. So tack on a bullet point listing out some of your interests, such as hiking, rowing, or crafting (no more than five to seven work-appropriate verbs), and you’re all set here.

7. Write a Resume Summary Statement (if Relevant)

You may have heard of a resume summary statement . They’re not super common, but they can be useful to include near the top of your resume if you’re looking to add clarity or context to your resume. If you’re a career changer, you might find a summary statement helpful in explaining your leap and tying your experience to your new path. Or if you’re a more experienced professional, you can use a summary statement to highlight a theme that brings your career trajectory together.

Overall, you probably won’t need a summary statement if your career is pretty linear and your bullet points do a great job of emphasizing what you have to offer in terms of skills and experience. But if you think it makes sense to include one, “Take the time to think about what the person reading your summary wants to know before you write it,” says McGovern. “Good summaries explain why you do what you do and how it can help. For instance: Merging a background in ABC, I help companies improve XYZ through 123. Summaries shouldn’t be any more complicated than that.”

So, taking McGovern’s example, you might say:

Merging a background in social media marketing and PR with seven years in the consumer tech space, I help companies improve their internal and external communication and brand awareness through data-driven, quality content and strategies that align with the modern trends of the space.

Yurovsky adds that “you don’t want your summary statement to be a dense paragraph with too much information. You want it to be easy to read, concise, and memorable. Almost like a tagline.”

Read More: 3 Resume Summary Examples That’ll Make Writing Your Own Easier

8. Tailor It to the Job (and the ATS)

Once you have your resume written out—you’ve broken down your work experience, tagged on some activities and additional experiences, and listed out your skills—it’s important to go back to the job description (or multiple job descriptions, if you’re applying to several similar jobs) and make sure that what your resume says matches up with the kind of candidate the employers are looking for. In other words, tailor it .

Let’s explain further. You’ll want to begin by tackling the ATS . This means combing the job description to see if individual words and phrases line up. What skills are they asking for, and have you listed them (so long as you actually have them)? What words are they using to describe their ideal hire, and do you use similar language in your resume?

Next, take a bird’s-eye view. If you were the hiring manager for the role, where on your resume would your eyes be drawn to? And what would you be looking for? Whatever you think will be most important for the recruiter, make sure it’s near the top of your resume, or otherwise emphasized.

Finally, dig into the role and responsibilities of the job. Does your resume reflect similar experience? If not, is there a way you can spin it so that it’s clear you’re capable of doing the job (and doing it well)?

These articles can help you if the word “tailoring” makes you start to sweat:

• What It Really Means to “Tailor Your Resume”
• Your Guide to Making Unrelated Experience Look Relevant on Your Resume
• A Cool Trick: How to Spin 1 Resume Bullet 5 Different Ways

9. Edit and Refine It

Please, please don’t just write your resume and shoot it out without giving it a second glance. Hiring managers may not spend hours browsing it, but if there’s one thing that sticks out more than anything else it’s a glaring typo.

The best approach? Write a rough draft, then leave and come back to it later with fresh eyes to give it an edit.

Cover the basics: Is your contact information correct and updated? Are you using the right verb tenses? Does everything look consistent and accurate in terms of spelling and grammar?

Then do some cutting if your resume’s quite long. It’s no longer a hard-and-fast rule that all resumes must be only one page—but consider it a smart guideline for most applicants, especially if you've got less than 10 years work experience. The exception is if you’re very senior or very established in your career; in this scenario, a two-page resume isn’t completely out of the question. Everyone else, read this article for advice on how to cut your resume down.

Formatting-wise, it’s key to consider a couple things. First, what font are you using , and is it legible (for a human and a robot)? When in doubt, go with one of these simple, but sleek, options: Arial, Arial Narrow, Calibri, Cambria, Garamond, or Helvetica.

Second, are you going to save it as a Word document or PDF ? Neither option is wrong, although a PDF helps ensure that your formatting is maintained, no matter what type of computer the hiring manager uses to open the document.

Third, is your resume formatted in a way that it’s skimmable? If it’s feeling crowded or overrun with words, read this: 12 Tiny Changes That Make Your Resume Easy for Recruiters to Skim .

Once you’ve given it a few good looks, it may be worth sending it to a friend or colleague (or even a career coach ) to get a second opinion. Don’t just have them edit it for spelling and grammar—they should dig into your bullets and offer feedback on whether or not your resume is showing you in the best possible light (it’s smart to also send them the job description for something to compare it to).

Here’s the thing: Your resume won’t ever look exactly like someone else’s, nor should it. How you choose to format it, organize your information, and talk about specific experiences depends not just on your career path, but on your field, the job you’re applying for, the company that job is at, and more.

So there isn’t a universal way to do a resume. But there are common themes. To give you some context as to how yours might turn out, here are three examples of different kinds of resumes.

The Most Popular: A Reverse Chronological Resume

As previously mentioned, a reverse chronological resume is preferred by many coaches and HR experts, mainly because it’s super readable. When everything’s in a clear order, it’s easy to skim and even easier to draw lines between experiences.

Who it’s good for: Just about everyone—from students applying to internships all the way up to senior-level executives (with an optional resume summary statement)

Download an Example Chronological Resume for a Software Engineer

The Unorthodox Route: A Functional or Skills-Based Resume

Rather than listing out your experience in reverse chronological order, a functional or skills-based resume has bullet points that reflect how each of your skills is demonstrated by the work you’ve done over the course of your career. At the bottom, you’ll include everything else, such as your education, job history, professional achievements, community involvement, and other technical skills. This is a good option if you have a somewhat all-over-the-place work history and want to tie everything together neatly.

Who it’s good for: Career changers whose work experiences may not appear to be relevant and people with an abundance of temporary jobs or gaps in their work histories.

Download an Example Functional Resume for a Project Manager

The Creative Angle: An Infographic Resume or Resume Website

This resume type is characterized by how it’s formatted visually. You may choose a reverse chronological order or skills-based style to organize your information, but also use graphics, colors, unique fonts, and even multimedia elements to help that information pop. Keep in mind that any creative resume is still likely subject to an ATS—and certain elements may be unreadable by a robot. So consider going this route only if you know a human will be reading your resume (and that said human might enjoy it).

Who it’s good for: People applying to creative roles (designers, editors, writers, marketers, video producers, for example), startups, or fun companies, or to jobs where a creative resume is encouraged, if not required.

Download an Example Infographic Resume for a Designer

Not a designer but want your resume to look just as pretty as this example? Check out these articles:

• 5 Sites to Create an Awesome Infographic Resume (Even if You’re the Least Creative Person Ever)
• How to Build a Resume Website That Will Impress Every Hiring Manager Who Sees It
• 5 Digital Tools That Will Make Your Resume Infinitely More Beautiful

Your resume is a living, breathing document. So while you won’t go through this whole process every time you apply for a job, you should be thinking about all these things as you go to update your resume for your next career step. You might decide later on to switch up the order, or remove or add things, or even get creative and try out a whole new format. If you’re not getting the calls back you expect, you may decide to scrap it and start over —and that’s totally OK.

Regardless of where this piece of paper goes and how it grows, when you give it the care and attention it deserves, you set yourself up for success. And you’ll make it that much more likely that you’ll land an interview and get the chance to prove to the hiring manager—over the phone or in person—what you’ve got to offer.

Work Experience on a Resume - How to List It Right

Imagine you’re a hiring manager who goes through countless resumes on the daily.

What’s the first thing you look at?

If your guess was work experience, then you’re right.

And if you spot a few relevant keywords in their work experience section, then you’re more likely to continue reading about their background, contact information, and so on.

The most important thing hiring managers want to know is whether you can do the job you’re applying for, and that’s where the work experience section of your resume comes in.

So how do you make your work experience do the heavy lifting?

Don’t worry! Our article is here to help.

We’re going to cover:

• What Information Your Work Experience Section Needs

How to Format Work Experience on Your Resume

• 11 Real-Life Examples of Work Experience on a Resume

Let’s get started.

What to Include in Your Work Experience Section

The work experience section is the most important part of your resume.

This is the section that gives hiring managers a look at your professional journey so far, including your skills and achievements, and it’s the section they base their hiring decisions on the most.

Your work history can show how likely you are to excel at the job, how committed you are to career growth , and what industry know-how you ought to have.

This section is going to look different depending on your career level, how recent your work experience is, and what the job you're applying for is.

Let’s look at what information employers expect from your work experience section:

• Job Title/Position . Add this at the top of each work experience entry. You want the hiring manager to know at a glance that you have relevant work experience for the job, so use the actual job title instead of any buzzwords.
• Company Name. Include the name of the employer. Sometimes, if the employer isn’t well-known, you might want to describe the company in a sentence or two to give the hiring manager context.
• Location. The general location, such as the city and state/country where you worked, is more than enough information.
• Employment Dates. Write down the approximate timeframe of your employment. There’s no need to give exact dates since the standard format for this is mm/yyyy.
• Responsibilities and Achievements. The core of each work experience entry is what you achieved while you were there. List your responsibilities and achievements in bullet points instead of paragraphs to make them easier to read. Use 5-6 bullet points for newer job entries and 2-3 for older ones.

Here’s an example of a work experience section that includes all of the above:

Want to know more about other resume sections? Learn how to write a resume with our detailed guide!

You know what to include in your work experience section, so let’s talk about how to include it.

First things first - your work experience section should always follow a reverse chronological order . Add your latest work experience at the very top, and work your way backward.

Hiring managers aren’t interested in what you did ten years ago. Instead, they’d rather know what you’ve been up to right before applying for this specific job.

That being said, if you have a lot of experience, you shouldn’t include every single job you’ve ever had.

Your resume is supposed to be one page long , so feel free to omit any summer gigs or part-time jobs to free up space. It’s also extremely important that your work experience is easy to find and that the information is well-structured and readable.

Here’s an example of how to format your work experience section:

Making Your Work Experience Stand Out

Now that you know how to list your work experience, you need to describe it in a way that makes you stand out from other candidates.

We’ve divided this process into several steps, starting with:

#1. List Achievements Instead of Responsibilities

Too many resumes focus on the day-to-day tasks in the work experience section.

The thing is, hiring managers already know what those responsibilities are. They’re the ones who write the job ads, so you won’t impress them by telling them you did just what they would expect you to do.

For example, if you’re a QA engineer, your responsibilities could include:

• Identifying software bugs.
• Ensuring test coverage for all features.
• Making detailed reports on product quality.

These same responsibilities show up in 99% of QA engineer resumes out there.

So, if you want to stand out from the crowd, you want to focus on your most impressive achievements instead. Show the hiring manager how you helped your previous employer and the difference you made while you were there.

Let’s compare how the same work experience entry looks like when we use achievements and when we use responsibilities:

• Increased test coverage by 25% by implementing new automated test suites.
• Reported and triaged over 100 high-priority defects ahead of major releases.
• Executed manual test cases across web and mobile applications.
• Logged defects into bug-tracking systems as they were encountered.

But there are some fields where there aren’t that many achievements you can mention in your resume. For example, if you’re a server , serving 120+ patrons a night, or earning a lot of tips aren’t achievements that look good on your resume.

Your daily tasks probably include:

• Taking orders, serving food and beverages, and ensuring customer satisfaction.
• Preparing tables for meals, including setting up items such as linens, silverware, and glassware.
• Assisting in opening and closing the restaurant, including cleaning duties and setting up for the next service.

In this case, it’s okay to focus on responsibilities instead. You can still distinguish yourself by following the rest of our tips on how to make your work experience shine.

#2. Tailor Your Work Experience to the Job

If you want your resume to go from “okay” to "outstanding," what you need to do is tailor it to the specific job you’re applying for. 

The hiring manager doesn’t need to know details about every job you’ve had or about the skills you gained in a different field. 

So, your work experience should reflect what the job requirements are. This way, you’re more likely to really catch the hiring manager’s attention and land a job interview .

Here’s an example of a well-tailored job ad:

As you can see from the picture, it’s easy to figure out what the most important requirements for the role are. 

So, to tailor your resume to this ad, you need to show how you meet every one of these job requirements.

Let’s look at an example of how the same work experience would be tailored differently according to different job ads.

Say, you were an advertising intern.

Here’s what your work experience would look like when you’re applying for a position as a social media assistant:

INTERNSHIPS

Marketing Intern

Full Picture Company

New York, NY

09/2023 - 12/2023

• Analyzed various social media platforms for trending content.
• Managed company social media accounts.
• Posted interesting content on the company's Facebook page, increasing engagement by 25%.

Pretty easy, right? Now, let’s look at what the same work experience entry would look like for a job as a content writer .

• Assisted the Marketing Manager in writing press releases and new blog posts, which increased web traffic by 25%.
• Created engaging content for email marketing campaigns and boosted newsletter subscriptions.
• Revitalized old blog posts with updated information and SEO optimization, improving organic search rankings by 30%.

The internship is still the same but this way, the experience you’re focusing on is tailored to the job you’re applying for. The hiring manager can immediately see your most important skills for the job and the value you could bring to their team.

#3. Add the Right Amount of Work Experience

If you’ve had a lot of jobs so far, you might be wondering if they all belong on your resume.

The answer is usually no. Your full, detailed work history belongs on your CV instead of your resume .

The hiring manager only wants the most recent and relevant information, not your full life story.

So, the amount of work information your resume should include depends entirely on your level of experience.

Let’s break it down:

• No Experience. If you’re currently looking for your very first job , you simply won’t have any jobs to fill in your work experience section. In that case, we recommend skipping this section and instead focusing on any experience gained in clubs, extracurricular activities , volunteering, and other projects.
• Entry-Level. When you’re applying for an entry-level job, you can list most of your work experience so far. Likely, some of it won’t be relevant, but it still shows the hiring manager that you have some work experience, and that’s better than none.
• Mid-Level. At this level, you should only mention relevant work experience. Don’t waste precious space listing old internships or jobs you had as a teenager .
• Senior-Level. You only need to list up to 15 years of relevant work experience. You might even need a two-page resume to apply for an executive position at this stage, but only if you have too much relevant work experience to fit onto a single page.

#4. Optimize for the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) Software

Before the hiring manager reads your resume, it has to make it to them.

The fact is that 70% of resumes get discarded before the hiring manager even reads them.

That’s because most companies use specialized Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) to go through hundreds of resumes and automatically filter out ones that don’t have what the hiring manager is looking for.

Unfortunately, this means that if a resume is missing a specific skill or isn’t formatted in a way that the ATS can process , it gets rejected immediately.

So, how can your work experience make the cut?

Here are a few tips:

• Don’t go over one page. The ATS can have a limit on how long a resume is allowed to be, so we recommend always sticking to a single-page resume.
• Format everything carefully. Don’t give your resume sections quirky names. Your work experience section should be titled “Work Experience,” not “The Journey So Far.” If you try being too creative, the ATS might not recognize what that section is and reject you.
• Tailor carefully to the job ad. If you want to beat the ATS, you need your resume to be as tailored to the job ad as possible. Include as many relevant keywords as you can in your work experience section. Just make sure they’re all used in a logical context since the hiring manager is supposed to read them, too.
• Keep everything in an active voice. Describe your previous jobs with clear and specific language. (E.g.: Instead of “A team of ten people was managed by me,” say “Managed a team of ten people” ).
• Use power words and action verbs. Hiring managers don’t want to hear how you “were responsible” for this or “helped with” that. Make your work experience pop by using impactful language like “spearheaded,” “designed,” “conceptualized,” and more.

Choose one of our ATS-friendly resume templates to make sure your resume passes the test.

Where to Place Work Experience on Your Resume

The work experience section should always be one of the first sections on your resume, along with the skills section.

Typically, it comes just after your resume header , so that the hiring manager can read it immediately after your resume headline .

If you are using the reverse-chronological resume format, work experience should go at the top of your resume. This way, hiring managers can quickly evaluate your qualifications based on your most recent roles.

However, if you’re using a different resume format, such as functional or combination resume formats, you can make an exception. These resume formats emphasize skills over work history, so you could move your work experience further down, towards the middle of your resume.

Recent graduates are another exception to this rule

Suppose you’re a student with minimal professional experience. In that case, you can put your education section on top instead of your work experience section to emphasize your academic achievements and show that you’re ready to put your knowledge to good use.

Want to learn about the other popular resume formats ? Check out this article to see which one is right for you.

Complimentary Resume Sections

While your work experience might be the single most important section of your resume, at the end of the day, it works in sync with the rest of it.

Other resume sections , like your resume summary or certifications, can show the hiring manager how experienced you are and how much industry know-how you bring to the table.

So, here are a few other resume sections that come into play if you want to back up your work experience and increase your chances of getting an interview:

#1. Resume Summary

A resume summary is a short section at the top of your resume that highlights your most relevant skills and achievements related to the job.

In 2-3 simple sentences, a good resume summary tells the hiring manager:

• Your years of experience in that type of role.
• Your top qualifications or impressive accomplishments.
• What kind of responsibilities you’re familiar with.
• What your motivation for the position is.

By summarizing the core of your work experience upfront, your resume summary lets the hiring manager know what they can expect from the rest of your resume. So, when done well, an eye-catching resume summary can make you stand out from the crowd.

Here’s an example of a resume summary:

Another important section is devoted to your most important skills.

The skills section lets you list abilities that supplement your work experience, and it should be divided into two categories:

• Hard Skills. These include technical skills, tools, and specific knowledge that’s directly applicable to the role.
• Soft Skills. These can be personality traits or interpersonal skills that demonstrate how you work with others and how well you’d fit into the company’s team.

Along with your work history, the skills section helps employers quickly evaluate your credentials and relevant expertise for the position. While your work experience highlights skills in context, the skills section provides an easy-to-reference summary.

Make sure the skills you list on your resume align with what the employer is looking for. Use the job description as a reference to pinpoint the keywords you should add to your resume .

Here’s an example of a skills section on a resume:

#3. Certificates

Professional certificates and coursework can show your commitment to continuous learning and honing your skills.

Listing certificates on your resume allows you to showcase specialized knowledge and skills that might not be evident from your work experience.

For example, say you’re applying for a position as an SEO content marketer.

If you’re experienced in digital marketing but don’t have formal work experience with SEO, that could be a problem. However, listing a certificate from an SEO course can tell the hiring manager that you have the necessary knowledge to take on the role.

Relevant certificates can provide evidence of your advanced skills, industry expertise, or any other necessary qualifications for the role. They can back up your skills and distinguish you from other candidates with similar work experience.

Depending on the context, any certificates you have can either be listed in the education section or a dedicated resume section.

If the certificates are more recent and different from your formal education, we recommend listing them separately. Here’s an example:

#4. Personal Projects

One of the best ways to show your passion and dedication is through your projects.

Hiring managers love candidates who do cool stuff in their spare time.

If any personal passion project you’ve been working on is relevant to the role you’re applying for, make sure to add it to your resume. It can back up the skills and experience on your resume, and help you stand out from other applicants.

For example, if you’re applying for a job as an animator , any published flash animation videos on YouTube are a great addition to your resume.

However, personal projects should only be listed if they’re relevant. If you’re looking for a job as an architect , your incredible cosplay sewing abilities just won’t cut it.

Here’s an example of a personal projects section:

11 Real-Life Examples

Not sure how to list work experience for your field?

Check out the practical work experience in these resume examples for different professions:

#1. Marketing Executive Resume Example

Check out our full guide to writing a marketing executive resume here.

#2. Teacher Resume Example

Check out our full guide to writing a teacher resume here.

#3. Cashier Resume Example

Check out our full guide to writing a cashier resume here.

#4. Software Engineer Resume Example

Check out our full guide to writing a software engineer resume here.

#5. Career Change Resume Example

Check out our full guide to writing a career change resume here.

#6. Illustrator Resume Example

Check out our full guide to writing an illustrator resume here.

#7. Esthetician Resume Example

Check out our full guide to writing an esthetician resume here.

#8. Stay-at-Home Parent Resume Example

Check out our full guide to writing a stay-at-home parent resume here.

#9. University Graduate Resume Example

Check out our full guide to writing a university graduate resume here.

#10. University Student Resume Example

Check out our full guide to writing a university student resume here.

#11. High School Graduate Resume Example

Check out our full guide to writing a high school graduate resume here.

Work Experience Section FAQs

Are you still wondering about something related to your resume’s work experience? Check out the answers to these popular questions about listing work experience on a resume:

#1. What If I Don’t Have Any Work Experience?

If you don’t have any work experience, there are two things you should consider: first, hiring managers don’t expect candidates for entry-level roles to have a ton of experience, so you don’t have to worry too much.

And second - there are plenty of ways to make an impressive resume even without any professional experience .

For example, if you're a recent graduate, you can focus on highlighting your education, relevant coursework or extracurricular activities.

Include any internships, volunteer roles, or student organizations that show you have the skills necessary for the job.

You can also highlight universal skills like communication , teamwork, problem-solving, and computer skills . If you use a strategic approach, your lack of work experience won’t hold you back from writing a great resume.

#2. Can I List an Internship Instead of Work Experience?

Yes, you can list internship experience on your resume instead of work experience.

Internships provide valuable on-the-job training and give you exposure to a professional work environment, so they’re always a great thing to add to your resume.

Like work experience, internships allow you to gain important skills, learn about a particular industry or role, and build accomplishments you can use to show potential future employers. 

Internships can be a vital resume section for candidates with less experience, such as students, career changers, or stay-at-home parents re-entering the workforce, since they show hiring managers you have enough relevant hands-on experience to succeed at the job.

#3. How Can I Explain an Employment Gap on My Resume?

The key to managing a gap in your work experience section is to address it briefly and positively on your resume or cover letter .

In a line or two, explain what happened and move on without dwelling on it, since employment gaps are relatively common and can happen for different reasons.

For example, if you had to take a year off to recover from a medical issue, just say so in your resume without going into details. The important thing is that you’re now better, ready to resume work, and the hiring manager knows it won’t be a problem.

If you have a short employment gap, you can probably skip the explanations. Simply list the start and end dates for each role without explaining the time in between. A couple of months between jobs is perfectly normal, and hiring managers aren’t likely to ask about it.

#4. What If My Work Experience Isn’t Relevant?

If you're applying for a job and none of your work experience is relevant, it’s a bit more complicated.

As a general rule, any work experience is better than no work experience. Most soft skills are applicable across industries, so you can focus on them in your resume.

If you’re an entry-level candidate, you might want to leverage other areas to show the hiring manager that you’re a good fit for the role.

For example, if you want to be a graphic designer but only have experience in customer service , emphasize your art education, portfolio work, and personal projects instead. If you’ve taken any more recent courses related to the field, you can list them before your work experience.

However, if you’re an experienced professional looking to change careers , things are a little different.

For a career change, you need to articulate your transferable skills and show how your previous experience can help you in this new role.

Let's say you're a sales professional interested in marketing. You could highlight skills like communication, market analysis, client relationship-building, and goal-oriented achievements that show your valuable marketing skills.

Key Takeaways

You’ve made it to the end!

Now, you’re all set to write a flawless work experience section.

But before you go, let’s recap what we talked about:

• Always list your work experience reverse-chronologically so the hiring manager can see what your most recent achievements and experiences are.
• If possible, focus on work achievements over day-to-day tasks. This way, you can immediately show the hiring manager what you’ve done for your previous team and what the value of hiring you would be.
• Carefully format your work experience so it passes the ATS and so that the hiring manager can easily read it.
• Instead of paragraphs, use bullet points to describe your previous jobs. For newer experiences, 5-6 bullets are good, but for older ones, 2-3 bullet points are enough.
• If you don’t have work experience, use this section to list your internship, volunteer experience, personal projects, or extracurricular activities. Treat them the same way you would treat work experience, and list your responsibilities and achievements in bullet points.
• Make sure the other sections in your resume complement your work experience for a flawless job application.

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Work Experience on a Resume: 20+ Examples of How to List It

Your work experience is the resume section hiring managers look at first. And if they’re busy, it’s often the only part they review. To get the interview, you need to pay extra attention to your resume work history section. In practice, this means you should spend roughly 80% of the total time spent on your resume on the work experience section. As with other resume sections, there are some simple rules to follow.  In this guide, we’ll unpack them for you and help you create a resume that stands out every single time.

Here’s what you’ll master today:

• How to describe your work experience on a resume (plus how to format it)
• Extra tips on how to make your work history super-memorable
• How to sell yourself on a resume in different situations
• How to draft your work experience section based on real examples for the most common scenarios and jobs

Let’s dive in!

How to List Your Experience on Your Resume

• Put it under a clear, legible heading
• Place it right after the resume summary or objective
• List your most recent experience first
• Include relevant experience
• Be clear, concise, and consistent with your formatting
• Use bullet points to describe your responsibilities and achievements

1. Put it under a clear, legible heading

Make sure your work experience section is clearly visible and has its own heading. You can name this section “Work Experience”, “Experience” or “Employment History”.

2. Place it right under the resume summary or objective

It’s best to place the experience section right under your resume summary or a resume objective. However, if you’re fresh out of college and have little or no work experience, you can fit the work history under your education section.

3. List your most recent experience first

You typically list your work experience in reverse chronological order — put your current or most recent gig at the top, followed by the previous one, then the one before that, and so on.

This is effective because it gives the hiring team the most relevant information instantly. If you’re a UX designer looking for a new opportunity, the hiring manager will want to know about your most recent accomplishments to see how you progressed, where your expertise lies, and how your latest experience can translate into success in your new role.

4. Include relevant experience

Do you need to put all your past experience on a resume? By no means. Professional resume writers and career coaches advise that you include up to 15 years of relevant work experience. Including every single job you’ve done (like that pizza delivery summer gig when you were 16) can actually work against you.

Remember, this is just a general rule that can be broken in certain situations.

For instance, if you’re looking for a job in tech, where skills, frameworks, and tech stacks change often, your experience from 13 years ago may not be truly relevant today.

Also, if you’ve had a major career change, e.g. switched from teaching to copywriting 10 years ago, you could omit your teaching roles. However, if working in that position gave you relevant skills and experience that you still consider useful and valuable (e.g. clear communication, time management, or presentations), you can definitely include it in your resume.

Read on if you’re changing careers, switching from the military, or are freshly graduated (we’ll cover those scenarios in a bit).

5. Be clear, concise, and consistent with your formatting

This is a big one. It’s crucial to format your entries properly so that the information is easy to spot and read. Also, consistency is hugely important. Maintain the same order of information in each entry for a polished, organized, and harmonious look.

Here’s how you can order the items in a single work experience entry:

• Your position (usually written in bigger font or in bold)
• Company name
• Dates worked
• Bullet points highlighting your responsibilities and achievements

6. Use bullet points to describe your responsibilities and achievements

Instead of writing a paragraph or description explaining your role in detail, make sure to use a bulleted list (it’s way clearer, better organized, and memorable).

Next, it’s always wise to focus on your most important accomplishments and achievements, rather than simply listing your everyday responsibilities. After all, the point of this section is to gently persuade the hiring team that you’re equipped to do the job and that you have an excellent track record.

In other words, this is where it pays to take a moment to think back to your biggest career wins and corroborate that with some data (more about this later).

Finally, make sure to limit the number of bullets as you go back in time. While it’s perfectly fine to have 5–8 points for your latest job, 3–4 will be enough for older entries.

Now let’s put theory into practice and look at two great examples of work history on a resume that follow the steps we discussed above.

Sample resume work experience section (senior candidate)

Vice President of Marketing Vue 03/2017 – Present

• Helmed website overhaul, resulting in increase of organic traffic by over 300%
• Spearheaded the team of 7 full-time employees and 12 contractors
• Tracked email, PPC and display marketing performance to optimize cost per lead
• Hit 541% and 137% return on marketing investment for organic and email, respectively

Sample resume work experience section (junior to mid-level candidate)

• Responded to up to 20 tickets a day, resulting in 97% first touch resolution score
• Maintained a >9.0 monthly average satisfaction rating each of last 12 months
• Resolved 7 escalations with the IT/SysDev teams in the last 3 months
• Wrote 24 knowledge base articles to reduce ticket resolution times by 1.3 minutes

How to Take Your Resume Work Experience Section from Standard to Job-Winning

Now let’s zoom in on your work experience section even closer and help you take those bullet points from average to outstanding. To sell yourself on your resume, just follow these simple tips.

1. Focus on achievements over day-to-day duties and quantify wherever possible

This is precisely where most candidates get stuck. A lot of you are probably thinking: yes, I’ve heard this piece of advice many times. But I don’t have any stellar achievements. I just do my job well .

Precisely. That’s enough to be sure you do have achievements. You might not even know it. And the best way to showcase those is by hard numbers.

Again, don’t freak out. You don’t have to be in the data and numbers game to be able to come up with quantifiable results and statistics. There are simple strategies to present tangible results to back up your accomplishments. And just so you realize how miserably bad people are at showcasing their accomplishments —

Here’s a real-life story that a resume-writing consultant friend told me.

He was hired to revamp a spacecraft engineer’s resume (btw, how cool is that!). When she walked him through her resume and explained what each item meant, one caught his attention — ” Optimized and automated the procurement and invoicing flow. ” Optimizing and automating? That always means something cool.

She eventually explained how she made a highly complex process fully automatic, and in doing so, saved around 18 work hours a month for 7 people each. These people were paid an average of $200/hr. That’s $1.3 million a year saved for the company. And that was not on her resume.

Why am I telling you this?

Because this is proof that you’re not alone in being horrible at framing duties as achievements. Apparently, even the most extraordinary candidates are. Bottom line: you will most definitely stand out if you know how to do it!

So here are a few tips on how to really stand out from the crowd:

Mention the scale , e.g. how many people you managed, or the size of the budgets you handled

• Provided consultations for 120 students a year over 7 consecutive years
• Managed a shift of 70 workers in a 250.000 square foot facility
• Standardized the Sales process in a 2000-employee company averaging 300M annual ARR
• Controlled an annual marketing budget of $30K

Mention the frequency , e.g. how many tasks you performed within a time frame

• Wrote 14 new SEO-optimized articles in the last quarter
• Onboarded 17 Fortune 2000 clients in 2021
• Performed 13 weekly technical website audits and resolved 25 issues
• Hosted 5 company webinars attracting a total of 790 B2B leads

Mention specific results , e.g. money and time saved

• Reduced the employee turnover rate by 5% in 2021
• Tripled the number of Instagram sales since 2019
• Reduced cost per sale from 3.8K to 2.7K in two years’ time
• Attracted 2.6 new LinkedIn followers in the last quarter

Pro tip: Record your accomplishments as they happen. This is how I do it. Every time something cool happens (e.g. 89% of email subscribers click on the CTA button in an email and read my article or 5 product demos were booked on a blog page that I wrote), I take a note in a Google document. Even if I’m not actively looking for a job. (Or not even thinking about it.) In time, you’ll have a killer list of accomplishments to add to your resume, cutting your writing time in half. Otherwise, you’ll either forget the details or spend hours digging through your old projects to find the right info.

2. Use action verbs at the beginning of your bullet points

If you take a closer look at all the examples we listed in this guide so far, you’ll notice a few common themes — none of the bullets start with “I” and they sound super descriptive although we used zero adjectives.

The secret lies in action verbs, the powerful verbs that are used at the beginning of each bullet to draw the reader in and show your impact.

Take a look at these examples again:

• Responded to an average of 20 tickets a day, resulting in 97% first touch resolution score
• Received 9.1 satisfaction rating in the last 365 days
• Resolved 7 escalations in the last 3 months with the IT/SysDev teams

Combined with numbers and specific results, these verbs show the recruiting team exactly how you accomplished things and attained goals at work.

There are extensive lists of power/action verbs you can find on the web, but here’s a short list of our favorite ones to get you started.

Top 50 action verbs to use in your resume work experience section:

• Coordinated
• Established
• Facilitated
• Implemented
• Standardized
• Streamlined
• Strengthened

Expert tip: Vary your power verbs to avoid repetition. Keep your bullet points as short as possible and avoid the use of pronouns, articles, and adjectives.

Here’s an example of a bland work experience section turned amazing and catchy by applying the 3 tips above.

• Responsible for all content marketing activities in the company
• I was in charge of the link-building project
• Proofreading of the copy before publishing.

Why we think it sucks:

Let’s dissect this Frankenstein.

• Consistency issues: Although the candidate uses the bulleted list to provide more information about their recent role, they are not consistent. The first bullet starts with an adjective, the second uses a pronoun (“I”) and looks like an actual sentence, while the third one starts with an -ing form. All in all, it’s a mess.
• No details or real info: The candidate uses overused phrases like “responsible” and “in charge of” combined with little other info. All in all, super bland and nonspecific.

Now let’s see how you can transform this meh work history section into an unforgettable one by using action verbs and quantifiers.

• Designed annual content marketing strategy, resulting in 247 SQLs (500+ employees)
• Oversaw a team of 10 writers, resulting in 60 do-follow links in the last 90 days
• Increased content downloads website-wide by 78%
• Conducted quality assurance for 100% of content

Why we love this version:

First, it’s super specific and it tells us exactly what this Content Marketing Manager did. Next, they listed the results of their efforts in a consistent and persuasive way. Finally, a nice mix of power verbs (designed, oversaw, increased, and conducted) leaves the reader with the impression that this person knows what they’re doing.

3. Customize your employment history section to the job description at hand

We’ve been saying this forever and we’ll say it again: don’t expect to have a single resume that can win you endless jobs. Heck. Don’t expect a generic, all-purpose resume to land you more than 1 interview out of 50 applications.

That’s not how the pros do it.

Instead, you’ll need multiple versions that you’ll then further customize by tailoring your work experience section to the exact position you’re targeting.

The easiest way to do this is to peruse the job description, identify which skills and requirements matter to the employer and then have your resume prove that you possess those very skills.

Here’s how it works in practice.

Let’s say a MarTech company is looking for someone to join the Billing Customer Support Team.

Here is a sample job ad and some of the requirements and duties listed in the description:

After carefully reading the job description details, this candidate found 5 points they have previously excelled in. Next, they’ll use them as guidelines to tailor their work experience resume section to match the requirements 100%.

Customer Support Engineer Omnis

• Solved a daily average of 20 Zendesk tickets over a 3-year period
• Maintained the internal knowledge base 100% clean and up to date
• Prioritized feature requests and worked with AppDev and PO until implementation
• Hit company-record ticket response times (11 hours Zendesk; 2 minutes live chat)
• Authored a total of 56 technical articles in the Help Center

Why we like this answer: The candidate relied on the information from the job ad to highlight their accomplishments in a clear and convincing way. They showed their familiarity with Zendesk, their dedication to keeping the internal company wiki updated, and proved that they are independent and proficient enough to write technical documentation. Finally, they illustrated most of their efforts with relevant metrics and KPIs and used power verbs to convey authority and skill.

How to List Work Experience on a Resume for Different Scenarios

This may make perfect sense to someone who’s had 10+ years of experience and few job gaps. But what if you’re applying for a job outside your industry or aren’t sure whether to include your volunteer experience? Here are all your questions answered.

How to show a promotion on your resume?

If you’ve held multiple positions in the same company or if you’d like to highlight your growth and change in roles, you can approach this in two different ways.

1) List them as a single entry if similar and if the career path is clear. Start with the company name, dates worked, and then list your positions together with the from-to period when you held them. Like this:

Acme Technologies Inc. 03/2017 – Present

Content Marketing Manager (01/2021 – Present) (a bullet-pointed list of accomplishments)

Content Writer (03/2017 – 01/2021) (note the promotion, followed by a bulleted list of responsibilities and achievements)

2) List them as two separate entries if you made a bigger shift or changed departments (e.g. started in a call center, then switched to Business Development).

A note of caution: When using stacked entries (1), there’s a chance that the ATS software won’t recognize your promotion as such, and may list your skills and experience under the earlier position. To ensure your resume will be well-parsed by the ATS and look good, it’s safer to stick to the format shown in (2) and list your promotions as two separate entries.

How to put freelance work on a resume?

Absolutely include your freelance work in your employment history, as it shows your versatility, skill set, and soft skills like client management, negotiation, and independence. Here’s an example of how a writer and illustrator listed their freelancing experience.

Content Writing Consultant (alternatively, you can use Contractor ) Freelance

• Contributed original blog content to businesses (include most notable clients)
• Increased organic traffic by 250% with a 6-month blog project
• Helped generate 14 Fortune 2000 leads through Google AdWords over a 6-month period
• Illustrated for both web and printed media
• Provided 50+ illustrations for clients such as NewYorker Magazine, CondeNast, Monocle
• Won Best Book Cover Award (Illustration Category) in 2021
• Collaborated with 20+ teams with an average UpWork score of 4.8

Should I include volunteer work on my resume?

If you can supply at least 5 years of paid work experience, you can skip your volunteering experience altogether or add them to other resume sections.

If your employment history is short or if you’re just starting your job search after being a stay-at-home parent or a student, then definitely include the volunteering gigs in your main work history section. After all, recruiters love seeing this type of experience — it tells a lot about who you are as a person, what you’re passionate about, and that you’re not entirely motivated by money.

How to list part-time jobs on a resume?

When adding your part-time jobs to your resume work history, treat it like any other entry. However, make sure to add that you worked part-time. A simple note next to your position works just fine. Like this:

Online Marketing Specialist (part-time) Forwa

• Posted 5 blog posts weekly in WordPress over a 2-year period
• Set up an average of 10 email marketing campaigns/week
• Assisted 2 Lead Gen Specialists to clean 14 lists over a 2-year period

How to put internships on a resume?

You can include your internship just as you would with any other work experience, no matter if it was paid or not. Add your official role, the company name, and then provide a bulleted list of your responsibilities and accomplishments. Here’s how one candidate did it:

• Used javascript, HTML, and bootstrap to build UI pages
• Worked closely with frontend developers to solve more complex issues
• Collaborated with backend developers and UX/UI designer to assess requirements

How to explain employment gaps on a resume?

I’ll start with a general note here: people freak out about their employment gaps way more than they should. Yes, employment gaps on your resume can be considered red flags, but not by default.

As a matter of fact, a recent study published in the American Economic Review reveals that “long-term unemployment spells in the past do not matter for employers’ hiring decisions.” The study also found that all subsequent experiences canceled out the gaps in employment, as well as that employers didn’t treat short-term and long-term unemployment much differently.

So no reason to panic, okay?

You’d normally have the chance to explain the gaps in your employment in an interview. To get there, it’s wise to address them in your resume work experience section and provide a bit of information and context.

This is especially valid if the gaps are bigger and happened for a good reason like getting a degree, being a full-time parent or caregiver, or for medical reasons.

And here’s how you can integrate that smartly into your resume employment history.

• Took time off from professional career to provide care for a baby and a toddler and manage the household
• Used the gap years to complete 3 B2B Sales courses

(In case you need more inspo, here’s what else you can put on a resume .)

Resume Work Experience Examples for Different Careers

Here you’ll find some of the best resume experience examples for the most common professions.

Customer service and tech support

• Assisted customers and troubleshot technical issues on 30+ calls/day on average
• Resolved 90% of issues without transfers or escalations
• Decreased cancellations by 11% over a one year period
• Ran regular customer satisfaction surveys resulting in 9.6/10 satisfaction rating
• Built close relationships with CIOs and CTOs from prospective companies
• Provided software demonstrations to 52 companies in the last quarter
• Closed 36 new deals, hitting a 69% closing rate in the last quarter

Software engineering

• Worked with PO team to update and rearchitect 50+ page web app
• Built 5 additional features in the last 12 months
• Cooperated with a team of 8 agile developers to prioritize biggest impact features

Office administration

• Provided reliable administrative assistance to the Regional Manager
• Organized 2 conferences for 2000+ attendees
• Managed 7 workshops and 10 local events over a two-year period
• Interviewed 6 potential new candidates and trained 3 new team members

Digital marketing

• Posted daily on 5 company social media profiles
• Interacted with 10 LinkedIn HR influencers every day
• Grew the LinkedIn account by 525% over a six-month period
• Provided emergency health care to 20 patient per shift on average
• Participated in 300+ emergency procedures over a one-year period
• Exceeded standards of care to hit 9.7 patient satisfaction rating in an anonymous survey
• Prepared and delivered 100% of lessons to second year students (<20 students/class)
• Coordinated 30+ extra study sessions to prepare students for state exams
• Increased assignment completion by 40% via technology-based learning during Covid19

Business analysis & data science

• Reduced the cost of IT infrastructure by 24% via alternative software solutions
• Relocated budget from social to organic for 30% increase in ROI
• Restructured the Sales department, resulting in 45K of new revenue

Find out how to write a next-level resume work experience section for 100+ other professions in this free resume library .

Need a bit more guidance?

You can hop over to Big Interview’s Resume Builder, where you’ll get to enter your information section by section (basic info and contact details, summary, work experience, education, certifications, skills), choose the design and then have the tool create a resume for you. Here’s what you’ll find inside:

This is super useful because you can easily create many iterations (for different job ads) and save a bunch of time in the process.

Once that’s done, you can also use ResumeAI , a new feature that assesses your resume for various criteria hiring teams use in real life – how easy it is on the eye, how you used action words to convey experience and skills, and whether it’s ATS-friendly Basically, you’ll get a rating based on how effective you were in showcasing your skills and experience.

And if you need a bit more support, we created a short course on resume writing, designed and led by our own co-founder, Pamela Skillings (aka *the resume and job interview guru*). In this curriculum, you get 8 video lessons with Pam (with a transcript), after which you’ll be 100% sure to crush that resume.

Key Points Summarized

TL; DR? Here’s the essence of a killer resume work experience section that you can copy in no time.

• A well-written employment history section directly impacts your chances of being shortlisted. Take some extra time to do it right.
• Always present your work experience in a clearly separated section and place it under your resume summary.
• Begin with your current (or most recent) job and work backward from there.
• Include the following information, in this order: your position, company name, and dates worked.
• Back up this information with a bulleted list of up to 5 achievements and responsibilities. Forget false modesty and show your excellent track record. Quantify and provide tangible results wherever possible. Use power verbs to convey authority and entice the hiring team.
• When applying for multiple jobs in different companies, custom-tailor your work experience section to each job opening. Browse the job requirements and duties and match them with examples from past experience.
• Bonus tip: Keep the high standards in other resume sections too. Learn how to best showcase your skills on a resume.

How many years of work history should I describe on a resume?

List 10–15 years of experience, depending on your individual circumstances. The key thing here is to include only relevant work experience, so if you’ve been in the job market for 10 years, but only 6 are relevant to the job you’re applying for, focus on those 6 years. You can still list the previous experience, but there’s no need to go into great detail.

How many bullet points should I use per entry in the work history section?

A common guideline is to have 3–8 bullet points per entry. This way you can give plenty of relevant information about your achievements and responsibilities without overwhelming the reader with excessive detail. You can use 5–8 for your most recent and penultimate positions. As you work your way backwards, 3 bullet points is usually enough. Remember to aim for quality over quantity — if you can fit your best accomplishments into 3 bullet points, there’s no need to write 2 additional weak ones. Make sure to refer to your “strongest” qualities in the first 2 bullets.

What work experience should I not include in my resume?

Here are some examples of work experience that should not be included in your resume: irrelevant experience, experience from over 15 years ago, high school jobs, or volunteer work. However, this all depends on where you are in the career journey. For example, for first-time job seekers, school jobs, part-time jobs, and volunteer experience will matter.

What should I do if I have little to no work experience?

If you have no or little formal work experience, include other types of experience and focus on your qualifications and results. Some ideas to consider: internships, volunteer work, academic projects, freelance or contract work, leadership roles in student associations or sport clubs, and community work. Don’t worry about your title or if it was a formal experience. Instead, focus on the relevant skills and tangible results you accomplished in these roles.

Should I put volunteer experience in my work history section?

You can include it if you have little to no relevant professional experience. Otherwise, you can put it in a separate resume section or omit it if your resume is already full.

How to address gaps in employment in my work experience section?

If there’s a significant gap in your resume, address it proactively in the document and don’t wait for it to come up at the interview (imagine you miss out on one because of that gap!). This way, your potential employers will know you have nothing to hide. Briefly explain the reasons for the gap, keep your language positive, and mention if you did any coursework or upskilling during that time. If you took a sabbatical to travel, take care of a family, or get degrees to prepare for a career change, say it proudly.

When should I take a job off my resume?

A general rule is to remove a job from your resume if it’s no longer relevant to the position you’re applying for. For example, if you’re applying for a marketing role, already had 4 marketing roles, but had initially worked as a history teacher for 1 year, it’s safe to assume your history teacher experience can be taken off. The point is to not overwhelm the resume with unrelated experience. You can also remove some short-term jobs or jobs you had a long time ago, especially if your resume is already getting longer than 2 pages.

Should I include a job I was fired from on my resume?

That depends on several factors. If this was a recent position you held for a long time, you should include it. Otherwise, there would be a big employment gap that you’d still have to address (and it may come up anyway during a background check). If you can come up with a tactful, honest explanation behind the termination, and especially if you’ve gained new relevant skills in the meantime, don’t hesitate to include that position. On the other hand, if the job was a long time ago or if it’s unrelated to the position you’re currently applying for, feel free to omit it.

Pamela Skillings

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Resume Examples & Samples

How to write work experience in your resume [step-by-step guide].

Adi Gaskell

Create a Resume in Minutes & Get More Job Interviews

Table of Contents

The work experience must-know, how to format your work experience, how to write a killer work experience section.

• Irrelevant of Transferable Work Experience
• Listing Work Experience With No Experience

The work experience section is an essential part of your resume. It’s the one thing the recruiter really cares about and pays the most attention to.

Your previous experiences are seen as a good indicator of how you’ll handle the new job. This section, however, is not just a list of your previous responsibilities. It's meant to present you as a wholesome candidate by showcasing your relevant accomplishments and should be tailored specifically to the particular position you're applying to.

Education, skills and hobbies are all great but it's the work experience section that ultimately decides whether you get the job or not.

And no, more university degrees doesn’t mean better jobs - creating a killer resume work experience section does.

In this guide, We will teach you...

• How the work experience section “works”
• How to do basic formatting
• How to write a work experience section that will get you hired
• How & why to list different types of work experience.
• How to list experience when you have none

#the-work-experience-must-know

As we’ve mentioned before, the work experience section is the bulk of your resume and is a key part of all successful resume templates .Think of it as the sales pitch that’s going to land you the job.

You can mention anything you've put your time and labor in, including:

• Professional Experience - Your career goes here. Essentially any job you've ever worked that's in the relevant field & industry.
• “Unskilled” Experience - That part-time hostess job during college goes here.
• Internships - Unpaid or paid.
• Part-time Gigs - Did you collect unused stuff on Craigslist and sell it on E-Bay? Anything along those lines.
• Volunteering - NGOs, non-profits, etc.

Before we dive into the details, we’ll explain the most basic and important principles about this section.

Be Brief & Relevant

The work experience section should be the detailed summary of your latest 3 or 4 positions . The “3 or 4” part is important here - the recruiter wants to know how relevant you are for the job without having to read your entire life story.

For example, if you are a programmer with 20 years of experience, would you really mention your very first internship?

VelvetJobs Expert Tip

As a rule of thumb, listing your last 3 or 4 positions is the optimal amount.

On a similar note, you’d want your work experiences to be relevant to the job you’re applying for. Get into the recruiter's head for a minute - you’re reading 2 resumes for the position of financial analyst .

Which of these two statements looks more “relevant?”

Financial Analyst with 5+ years of experience

Marketing Expert with 10+ years of experience

The first one gets a callback. The second gets a confused glance and a trip to the paper shredder. That being said, there are some exceptions . Sometimes, you’d want to include your seemingly “irrelevant” experiences to show your skills.

Confused? Well, let’s say you have these two people applying for a job in sales .

Hard-working student, 2+ years of experience working as a server

Hard-working student

You’d go for the first one because of 2 reasons .

• General Experience - In most cases, the recruiter would prefer someone with some experience rather than none. It shows that they’ve worked before in their lives, and won’t just stand around looking confused on the first day of work.
• Transferable Skills - Every job teaches you skills, be it very basic ones. As a waiter, for example, you've probably learned how to interact with customers. When you apply for a sales associate position, you'll end up using these same skills.

Having previous work experience is super helpful. But what if you just graduated? Not to worry, we've got tips for recent grads as well.

#how-to-format-your-work-experience

While the content of your resume work experience section is important, it’s essential to get the formatting right . The two go hand in hand. How?

Most big companies these days use Applicant Tracking Systems - software that scans your resume and determines how relevant you are for the position.

So if the formatting is somehow messed up or too far from traditional norms, no one’s going to even look at your resume! This is why it’s essential to get the formatting right.

The first thing to do with the formatting is to create the e xperience section . The font size should be the same as any other section headings in your resume, and it can be in bold , CAPITALS, italics , etc. depending on your general theme.

Then, list the basic information about your work experience. Follow this example for each position:

Position + Dates

Company Name

Company Description (Optional)

• Responsibility or Achievement

The company description mentioned here is optional - you might want to mention it in case it's a company most people have never heard of. Otherwise, skip it and use this space for an additional bullet point.

As for responsibilities and achievements , the average number you want to hit is 6 : It’s optimal enough to describe your experiences with a company properly, while leaving room for your other experiences.

This, however, is not set in stone, and is up to you. Let's have a look at an example:

• Oversaw the daily operations of the marketing team
• Led a team of 4 marketing specialists and 2 designers
• Managed the company client-acquisition PPC strategy with a budget of $2,000+ monthly
• Coordinated efforts with the sales team, acquiring, warming & handing over 100+ leads monthly
• Led company re-branding efforts, creating a new website, brochures, Ad copies , etc.
• Took the company from an MRR of $20,000 to $50,000 over the course of 2 years

Now that you know how to format your resume work experience section, have a look at how to format it so that the recruiter sees you're the one right off the bat!

Fun fact - there are 3 completely different ways you can format your resume. In some, you don't even mention your work experience! Learn how the 3 different formats, chronological, functional and combo work with our guide!

#how-to-write-a-killer-work-experience-section

Technically, there is no right or wrong way to list your experiences. There’s no central resume authority deciding on what should or should not be on a resume.

There are, however, some best practices that’ll take you a long way. The most important of which is:

Selling Yourself the Right Way

I hard to say which of your responsibilities & achievements are best mentioned in a resume.

You did, after all, work in that company for months (or years, maybe decades?). You were in charge of so many things , you can barely even remember all of them! So, where do you start?

It's actually quite simple - mention only your greatest achievements. Don't get bogged down by describing your duties. If your resume says that you've worked as a retail manager for 5 years and you're applying for a position of a retail manager, the recruiter already knows what duties the position includes.

It makes sense that what’s really going to set you apart are your achievements :

• Did you manage to save the store from being over-flooded by customers on Black Friday?
• Did your management lead to much lower customer complaint reports than last year?
• Are you literally super-human and can endure 200 hour work-weeks ?

These are the type od things that’ll take you from “ a candidate ” to “ THE CANDIDATE .”

• Increased the regional Customer Satisfaction Index by 10%.
• Managed sales clerks

As for how you’d list your achievements, here's the best advice to keep in mind:

Quantification is King

Saying that you’re good is one thing. Proving that you’re good is what matters. The best way to impress is to demonstrate your achievements with numbers. After you've got your core experience inserted into a resume you're creating from scratch, or one of these resume templates , make sure to quantify appropriately, like this:

Managed a monthly company budget of $200,000 , while cutting $30,000 in unnecessary costs

Managed a monthly company budget, while cutting unnecessary costs

The first shows how good you are. The second gives a general idea , but it doesn’t really say anything.

Quantify your achievements. It will be useful when you make your case for a promotion or when you're looking for the next opportunity.

Now let’s see how all this would fare in a real-life scenario . The position applied for is that of a customer support manager at a retail company.

The ideal candidate will be put in charge of hiring, managing, and ensuring the productivity of 15+ cashiers.

Customer Support Manager, 2015 Sep - 2017 Feb

Boston, Massachusetts

MadeUpRetailCompany

• Hired & trained 25+ new employees over 2 years , reducing yearly regional turnover by 10%
• Increased the regional Customer Satisfaction Index by 4%
• Conducted training on using the POS terminals for all new hires, as well as company culture & behavior
• Awarded MadeUpPrizeForExcellence for the year 2016, out of 20 stores nationwide.
• Hired and trained employees.
• Charged with ensuring customer and employee satisfaction.
• Trained new employees with everything store-related
• Was called an “amazing employee” multiple times

There are, of course, professions and fields where you just can’t quantify your achievements, and that’s fine.

In such case, just list the job responsibilities as usual. But again, whenever you have the chance, use numbers to show the recruiter how good you are.

You can list your accomplishments in other sections of your resume too. Learn how to mention accomplishments with our complete guide!

ATS & Tailoring

We’ve talked about ATS or Application Tracking Systems before. But to refresh your memory, it’s the software that most big companies use filter thru resumes by “ keywords ” and to bring the most relevant candidates in for interviews.

Let’s take a sample job description and see how that would work with an ATS.

MadeUpCompanyInc is looking for an award-winning , money-making m arketing manager. The requirements are:

• 5+ years of marketing experience
• Leadership skills, experience leading teams of 5+
• Experience managing a monthly marketing budget of $20,000 +
• MarketingSoftware Certification

The hiring manager then picks several keywords that are important for the job. Here, for example, would be marketing, leadership, marketing software or any synonyms of those.

In order to be a perfect match, you’d want to mention each of these in your resume work experience section or the skills section.

Now, let’s turn that into an example resume section:

• Managed a team of 5+ marketers .
• Mastered MarketingSoftware , using it for cross-channel integrated marketing

The job title of your previous position mentions “ marketing. ” There’s experience with leadership mentioned ( i.e . managed), and finally, there’s MarketingSoftware mentioned.

Check, check, check.

There's more to resume tailoring than just looking good for the ATS. If you work hard enough, you could turn your resume into the best thing HR has ever seen. Learn how to tailor your resume to the company you're applying for, and become the recruiter's best friend!

IRRELEVANT OR TRANSFERABLE WORK EXPERIENCE

# irrelevant-or-transferable-work-experience.

If you’re switching industries , the resume work experience section can be a tough nut to crack. Which work experience should you mention? Do you start completely from scratch ?

In case you list all of your experience, chances are that you'd get ignored as not all of it would be relevant. In the second case, you’re going to look like you’ve been unemployed for too long.

The best-practice here is to mention the existing relevant experience.

How? Well, instead of listing your achievements and responsibilities as you typically would, you look at the whole thing from a different angle: What skills did your previous career give you that would be useful in the new field?

As a simple example, let’s say you’re a customer support representative with 5+ years of experience . You’re a killer on the phone - even the most disgruntled customer turns into your biggest fan after a 5-minute conversation.

Let's say you want to adapt the skills acquired in one industry to another, for example, going from customer support to sales. How do you do so? Let's have a look at this example:

Customer Support Representative, 2015 Sep - 2017 Feb

MadeUpTechSupportCompany

• Handled 100+ phone calls a day
• Maintained a 5-star customer-satisfaction rating over 2 years
• Achieved customer-experience rating 25% higher than average
• Charged with handling customer complaints
• Calmed down disgruntled customers
• Awarded employee of the month title

Now, the difference between the two examples is that the first specifically mentions all the right skills and experiences you’d need in phone sales.

Hundreds of calls a day? That’s a given.

5* customer-satisfaction rating? If you can talk to moody, unsatisfied customers, you can probably sell a new product.

25% higher customer experience rating? You’re not just any other support rep, you’re good at what you do, and are ready to progress.

LISTING WORK EXPERIENCE WITH NO EXPERIENCE

# listing-work-experience-with-no-experience.

If you’re a student, then this might seem really tricky . You don’t have any work experience, leaving your entire resume as a one giant blank space with your name & education on it.

Well, actually, “work experience” doesn’t necessarily mean professional work . It can be any of the following:

• Internship Experience
• Transferable Experiences
• Extracurricular Activities
• Projects & Portfolio

Each of these can be listed the same way as any other work experience, with exactly the same formatting:

Student resume formatting

Company Description

There’s more to creating a student resume than just listing your experiences. Learn how to perfect your student resume & get that job you’ve always dreamed off with our step-by-step guide!

The work experience section is the hardest part of creating a resume . And now you know everything you need to ace it!

Now it's time to focus on the other sections of your resume. Is your education section , for example, listed the right way?

Or, did you make sure that the formatting of your resume is just as it should be? Maybe you’d even want to brush up on your resume-making skills with our How to Make a Resume [The Visual Guide] ?

Whichever the case might be, we’ve got your back!

Now that you're a master at listing your work experience, how about you put the knowledge to practice! Head over to our resume builder & jump-start your career!

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How to List Work Experience on Your Resume – A Guide with Examples

In This Guide:

What is a resume work experience section, how do i add experience to my resume, where to list work experience on your resume, how to format your work experience (with template), how to describe work experience on a resume, how to choose the right resume format, how many years of work experience should be on a resume, what should i do if i have a gap in employment, tips on writing a powerful resume experience section, key takeaways.

R esume work experience almost always needs to be presented in reverse chronological order—starting with your most recent position and working backward.

Each entry needs to include the basics: company name and location; job title; start and end dates. It’s also essential to include bullet points describing your duties and responsibilities.

Finally, never underestimate the power of action verbs and quantifying your accomplishments.

Crafting the perfect resume experience section  can be challenging, especially when deciding how to describe work history  effectively. Almost everyone struggles with selecting the right work experience examples  that highlight their skills and accomplishments. The key is to showcase your professional past in a way that resonates with potential employers.

A we ll-structured resume work experience example s houldn’t only detail your previous roles but also emphasize the impact of your contributions. By accurately featuring yo ur work experience, yo u enhance your chances of catching a recruiter's eye and securing your next job opportunity.

We guarantee that by the end of this article, you’ll have a better understanding of this particular resume section and be able to do the following:

• Study and use a plethora of real work experience examples to help visualize your target.
• Easily produce an effective entry that conveys all the essential elements.
• Be able to recognize and correctly choose which format is best for the specific job you’re applying for.
• Understand what exactly needs to be included in your work listing.
• Tips on writing a more powerful and convincing experience section.
• How to properly describe and convey your achievements and responsibilities in an impactful way.

Let’s begin by looking at what exactly we are trying to craft.

Improve your resume experience section!

Drop your resume here or choose a file . PDF & DOCX only. Max 2MB file size.

The work experience section is arguably the most critical part of a resume, serving as the focal point for recruiters and hiring managers alike. This segment outlines your professional history and highlights your achievements in previous roles. It encompasses paid and unpaid roles, including full-time positions, part-time jobs, internships, volunteer work, and freelance projects, essentially any role where you've applied and honed your skills in a professional context.

What to put for experience on a resume involves carefully  tailoring your selection  of relevant positions that illustrate your qualifications and readiness for the new role you're applying for. This means not just listing your duties, but focusing on quantifiable achievements and how you've contributed to past organizations.

For instance, highlight the wins you had, like projects you nailed, teams you led, sales records you broke, or any process you made better—outcomes that provide concrete evidence of your capabilities.

Including different types of work experience is all about painting a picture of how you've grown and what you bring to the table. It's not just about what you've done, but how you've made a difference, underscoring why the experience section plays such a pivotal role in your resume.

But what exactly should you include?

Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you.

Aldous Huxley

Your resume work experience section refers to your professional background in employment.

For all professional experience sections, you need to include your previous:

• Role and responsibilities
• Skills and accomplishments
• Company names
• Dates you’ve worked

If you’re worrying about what to write in a resume for work experience, let us just quickly calm those nerves. Just remember to stick to reverse chronological order, presenting your most recent job first  to emphasize your career progression.

Also, try starting each point with action verbs  to animate your roles and achievements vividly—recruiters love that!

The ideal location for your work experience section is immediately following your resume summary  or objective statement . This gives it a prominent position that ensures it’ll catch the eye of the hiring manager.

Deciding which work experience is listed first on a resume is easy—it’s the job you just left or perhaps are still working at  and then you work your way back.

For a standout resume experience format , begin your entry by listing the company name, your position/title, employment dates, and the location. Including a brief company description is optional but can provide context, especially if the company isn't widely known—whatever you choose, be sure to be consistent.

The bullet points under each role are crucial; this is a job description  where you should focus on quantifying your impact and showcasing your achievements using action verbs. Aim for 4-6 bullets per position, starting each with a dynamic action verb.

Ensure that you quantify as many of your achievements as possible (e.g., "Increased sales by 20%") to provide concrete evidence of your impact. This approach not only makes your contributions clear but also demonstrates the value you brought to the position.

Remember, how to format work experience on a resume is about making your contributions and achievements easily accessible, so use concise, impactful language and keep your bullet points focused and relevant.

The best way to demonstrate this is by showing you a couple of examples. You can find below an example of an experience entry that you would do well avoiding. Check it out:

• • Duties included cashiering, helping customers, stocking shelves.

As you can see this work history section needs a boost. It would be a good idea to swap "Duties included" for lively action verbs like "Managed" or "Assisted." Also, adding some numbers to show off their impact, like boosting checkout speed by 30%, would drastically improve this entry. Another thing that they should’ve done is to be more clear about how they helped customers or improved stocking methods.

A few tweaks could definitely make this resume shine! Let’s rewrite it in a manner that could actually help the candidate land the job.

Here’s the new and improved work experience listing:

• • Managed transactions for up to 200 customers daily, ensuring a smooth and efficient checkout process.
• • Assisted customers by providing detailed product information and resolving inquiries, enhancing customer satisfaction.
• • Coordinated shelf stocking and organized product displays, contributing to a 15% increase in-store efficiency.

We transformed the work experience section by swapping "Duties included" for dynamic verbs like "Managed" and "Coordinated," highlighting proactive roles and leadership. By quantifying achievements—like handling 200 transactions daily and boosting store efficiency by 15%—and adding specific details on enhancing customer satisfaction, we've crafted a vivid, impactful snapshot of skills and contributions.

Here’s a template you can use to help guide you while listing your experience on your next resume:

Resume work experience section template:

[Job title]

[Company name in smaller font]

[Location - optional]

[Company description]

• [Bullet points detailing your accomplishments and job duties –– between 3 and 6 for each job you’ve held]

While writing your bullets, remember these four things:

Action verbs

• Use numbers and quantify
• Detail your achievements and responsibilities
• Be concise and impactful

Let’s continue with the topic of experience and achievements. Next, we’ll explore exactly how to format these sentences, use the right action words, and the best way to quantify your accomplishments.

When writing the work experience section of your resume, start each sentence with a strong action verb  to immediately capture the reader's attention. This approach showcases your role as an active contributor and leader in your previous positions. For example, instead of saying "Responsible for managing a team," you could say "Managed a team of 10, leading to a 20% increase in productivity." This not only demonstrates what you did (managed a team) but also quantifies your achievement (20% productivity increase).

Quantifying

Quantifying accomplishments provides concrete evidence of your impact and showcases your ability to deliver results. Try to include numbers, percentages, or other measurable outcomes whenever possible. For instance, "Increased sales by 15% through strategic marketing campaigns" gives a clear picture of your effectiveness and contribution.

For formatting sentences, aim for clarity and conciseness. Begin with the action verb, follow with the task you performed, and end with the result or impact of your action, quantifying the achievement. Keeping this structure consistent throughout your work experience entries will create a streamlined, easy-to-read section that clearly communicates your professional value.

Tailored content

When pondering how to write work experience in a resume, it's crucial to tailor your bullets to the job you're applying for, emphasizing the experiences and achievements most relevant to the position.

Prioritize work experience that aligns closely with the job you're applying for, highlighting roles where you've developed relevant skills or achieved significant accomplishments. This targeted approach  demonstrates your suitability and potential value to prospective employers.

How to decide what experience is relevant and what isn’t?

Determining if work experience is relevant  to your resume involves aligning your past roles and achievements with the requirements of the job you're applying for. Here are tips on how to tailor your resume effectively:

• Analyze the job description: Start by thoroughly reading the job listing. Note the skills, experiences, and qualifications that are emphasized. These are your clues to what the employer values most.
• Match your experience: Look at your own work history and identify which roles and accomplishments directly relate to the job description’s requirements. Focus on experiences where you've used the skills listed as necessary for the new position.
• Highlight transferable skills:  Some of your experiences may not be directly related but have transferable skills that are valuable for the job. For example, if you’re applying for a project management role and you’ve led a team or coordinated a project, even in a different industry, that experience is relevant.
• Use keywords from the job description: Incorporate language and keywords  from the job description into your resume. This not only shows that your experience aligns with the role but also helps your resume get past automated applicant tracking systems (ATS) that many companies use.
• Be selective:  You don’t need to list every job you’ve ever had. Focus on the roles that demonstrate you have the skills and experience to excel in the job you’re applying for.

Remember, a tailored resume is much more likely to catch the attention of hiring managers and show that you're a strong candidate for the position.

Deciding on the right resume format hinges on your career history, skills, and the type of job you're applying for. Among the main formats—reverse chronological, combination, and functional—each serves a distinct purpose, while all other formats are considered outdated in today's job market. Here's how to choose:

• Reverse chronological format :  This is the most traditional and widely accepted format. It lists your work history starting with your most recent job and working backward. It's ideal if you have a steady work history and want to emphasize your upward career trajectory. This format is especially beneficial when applying to roles that require extensive experience in a specific field.
• Combination or hybrid format :  This combines elements of both the chronological and functional resumes. It highlights your skills and achievements at the top, followed by your work history in reverse chronological order. This format is suitable if you're aiming to change careers, have gaps in your employment, or possess a diverse set of skills and experiences that are relevant to the job.
• Functional format :  This format focuses on your skills and experiences rather than your job history. It's organized by skill categories rather than employment history and is best suited for individuals with gaps in their employment, those changing careers, or if you're new to the workforce.

Your choice should strategically highlight your strengths and match the expectations of your target role, ensuring your resume stands out for the right reasons.

The work experience section of your resume should ideally go back 10 to 15 years . This timeframe allows you to showcase your most relevant and recent experience without overwhelming the reader with too much information. Older positions can be included if they are particularly relevant to the job you're applying for, but it's often unnecessary to detail every role beyond the last decade or so.

Also, choose how many jobs you list  wisely. Don’t include 15 different jobs—focus on positions that directly relate to the target role. Prioritize quality over quantity, ensuring each listed job adds value to your candidacy.

Handling employment gaps on your resume  can be tricky, but it's essential to approach them thoughtfully and strategically. Here's how to manage and communicate employment gaps:

• Don’t highlight gaps on your resume : Your resume is a marketing document meant to highlight your strengths. You don't need to explicitly point out employment gaps here. Focus on your experiences, skills, and achievements.
• Use a functional or combination resume format:  Instead of the traditional chronological resume, consider a functional or combination format. These emphasize skills and accomplishments up front, rather than the timeline of your employment history. This approach can help draw less attention to the gaps.
• Include other relevant experiences:  If you were doing something relevant during your gap period, such as volunteering , freelancing, studying, or undertaking any personal projects  related to your field, include these experiences on your resume. Present them similarly to how you would list a job, focusing on skills  gained and contributions made.
• Be prepared to discuss the gap in your cover letter and interviews: While you don't need to explain employment gaps on your resume, you can address them briefly in your cover letter  if it adds valuable context to your application. Be prepared to discuss the gap openly and positively in interviews, and focus on what you learned or how you grew during that time.
• Stay positive and focus on the future:  When discussing employment gaps, maintain a positive tone and focus on your eagerness and readiness to return to work. Emphasize that your experiences during the gap have prepared you for the next step in your career.
• Honesty is key:  If asked about an employment gap, be honest but succinct in your explanation. You don't need to go into personal details. A simple explanation like "I took time off for family reasons, but I'm excited to bring my skills and experiences to this role" is sufficient.

Employment gaps are more common than ever and are becoming less of a stigma, especially due to reasons like personal health, family obligations, or the recent global changes impacting employment. Most employers understand that career paths aren't always linear, so focus on demonstrating your value and readiness for the role you're applying for.

Here are some final resume tips  that could help you create that powerful, successful resume you’ve been hunting for:

Choose an organized template

Selecting a clear, professional template for your resume  can make a significant difference. It helps highlight your experience section effectively, ensuring that recruiters can easily scan through and understand your career progression and accomplishments. A well-structured template with distinct headings and a logical flow from one section to the next sets a strong first impression.

Address the needs of the employer

Tailor your experience section to meet the specific requirements and preferences of the employer. Closely read the job description and emphasize the parts of your work history that match with what they’re looking for. By mirroring the language of the job listing and focusing on relevant experiences, you demonstrate that you aren’t just qualified but also attentive and responsive to the employer’s needs.

Keep it brief

Aim to convey the essence of your roles and achievements without overwhelming the reader with too much information. For each position, include a few bullet points that highlight your key responsibilities and accomplishments, using quantifiable results whenever possible. This approach guarantees that your resume is digestible and impactful, making it easier for employers to see your value.

Check for grammatical and spelling errors

Before submitting your resume, thoroughly proofread it for any typos on your resume . Consider using tools like spell checkers or having someone else review your resume to catch errors you might have missed. A clean, error-free resume reflects your diligence and care, qualities that are highly valued in any role.

Now that we have thoroughly gone through all aspects of listing your resume work experience, you should be ready to start writing. Here are some takeaways from the article.

• Study real examples: Use real work experience examples to visualize and craft an effective experience section on your resume.
• Choose the right format:  Understand and choose the best resume format (reverse chronological, combination, or functional) for your specific situation, recognizing that all other formats are considered outdated.
• Highlight relevant experience:  Tailor your resume to address the needs of the employer by focusing on relevant work experience that showcases your qualifications for the job you're applying for.
• Use action verbs and quantify achievements:  Start bullet points with action verbs and quantify your accomplishments to clearly demonstrate your impact in previous roles.
• Organized template:  Choose a clear, professional template to make your work experience stand out effectively.
• Mind the details: Include essential information like company names, positions, dates, and locations, and aim for 4-6 bullet points per job that focus on your achievements and contributions.
• Address employment gaps thoughtfully:  Strategically manage and communicate any employment gaps, focusing on the positives and how experiences during these periods have prepared you for your next role.

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Seven Key Resume Sections and How to Organize Them

13 min read · Updated on March 05, 2024

Not sure how to organize your resume? We've got you covered

Did you know that most employers only spend about six seconds skimming each resume that hits their desk? That's right; no matter how qualified you might be, your resume needs to capture a hiring manager's interest in just a few short moments. If you do grab their attention, they'll give the rest of the document more consideration. Fortunately, you can increase your resume's readability by including the right resume sections and organizing them in a structured way.

In this post, we'll explain why organization matters and explore the seven key resume sections that you should include in your resume. We'll also provide some useful tips that can help you to maximize the effectiveness of each section of your resume.

Why the order of your resume sections matters

Resumes need to do more than just provide basic information about your skills and employment history. They need to deliver a compelling message about the value that you can bring to any organization that's fortunate enough to hire you. To convey that narrative, however, you need to arrange your resume sections in a way that tells a story about your skills, professional experience, and achievements.

As we go through each of the key resume sections, you'll notice that each is designed to include a specific type of employment information. Several of the sections will also have their own headings, to ensure that employers can quickly locate those specific details. In addition, certain types of information will be formatted using bullet points to make those details even easier for employers to find.

Seven key resume sections

Though there are many ways to organize your resume, we recommend focusing on a seven-section structure. Those seven sections are:

Contact information

Resume headline

Professional summary

Core competencies

Professional experience

Optional section (or sections)

To better understand why we organize resumes this way, let's go through each section and explain its important role in establishing your career narrative.

1.     Contact Information

This part of a resume may seem obvious, but a TopResume study found that 25% of people either forget to include all the necessary pieces of contact information or fail to format them in a way that can be read by an ATS. When writing your resume, be sure to include the following personal details at the top of the document, just below the header section:

Full name: Include your preferred first name (e.g. Bill instead of William) and last name on your resume. Then, make sure you use the same version of your name on all your other job-search materials, such as your LinkedIn profile, cover letter, and business cards. The key is to be consistent.

Cell phone number: It's best to include the phone number to your personal cell phone on your resume. That way, you have control over the voicemail recording, who answers calls, and when.

Address: Contrary to popular belief, it's no longer necessary to include your full mailing address on your resume. Instead, include your city, state, and zip code if you're seeking work near your home. If you're conducting a long-distance job search or you're open to relocation, you may opt to not include any mailing address information.

Email address: Create an email address that's dedicated to your job-search activities with a modern provider like Gmail, so that it's easy to manage your job applications and communication with recruiters and valuable networking contacts.

Social media: The most common social media profile to include on a resume is a customized URL to your public LinkedIn profile . Other social media profiles should only be added if they're relevant to your line of work. If you work in a creative field, you may also want to add a link to your online portfolio or blog.

Related post : How Should I Format My Contact Information on a Resume ?

2.     Resume headline

The professional title part of a resume is fairly straightforward. Below your contact information, add a line that describes the type of role you're pursuing. For instance, if you're pursuing a position as a Director or Senior Manager of FP&A, you may put “Senior Financial Planning & Analysis Professional” as your professional title.

When you're submitting your resume for a specific job, it's common to change your professional title to match the one listed in the job posting. If you're updating your resume after changing careers and feel weird about putting a title you've never held before at the top, you can place the word “Objective:” in front of it to provide some context for the reader.

3.     Professional Summary

A resume professional summary - also referred to as a career summary, executive summary, or career statement - has taken the place of the resume objective statement you likely learned how to write back in college.

Historically, a standard resume objective statement focused on the job seeker's wants, needs, and goals. A resume professional summary, however, focuses on what the job seeker has to offer a prospective employer, by describing his or her qualifications. Click on the following link to view some resume statement examples .

If you're still unsure about how to create a winning resume summary statement, just use our simple template:

[Professional title] with [years of experience] in [job-related specializations and experiences]. [Describe a measurable achievement that demonstrates your value]. [Describe a second professional achievement that highlights your skills and how you used them to create value for an employer. Use real numbers to quantify that value].

4.     Core competencies

Your “Core Competencies” or "Key Skills" section is a great place to incorporate the all-important keywords that will help your resume get found in searches. Focus on highlighting the hard and soft skills that are most relevant to the role you're pursuing.

If you're unsure what to include in this part of your resume, gather a few job descriptions that interest you and run them through a word cloud generator. This will help you to quickly identify which terms routinely pop up for this type of job opportunity. If you possess that skill, be sure to incorporate it into this section of your resume, your professional summary, and even your work history, where appropriate.

It's also vital to examine the job posting to see which skills and experiences the company cites as required qualifications. There's always a good chance that those qualifications may be used as keywords by applicant tracking systems. Try to use those exact terms in your resume, to increase your chances of being found.

5.     Professional Experience

The most popular resume format lists your work experience in reverse chronological order. This means that your most recent professional experience will appear toward the top of your resume and your earliest experiences will be listed towards the end of your document. The rule of thumb is to elaborate on the most recent 10-15 years of experience only.

The work history part of the resume can include a variety of professional experiences beyond a full-time job, from unpaid internships to consulting gigs and relevant volunteer work. That can be vitally important if your work experience is a little thin – for example, if you're trying to change careers and suffer from a lack of experience in your chosen industry.

It's also important to make sure that you include measurable achievements for each job title you've held. Instead of listing that role's duties and responsibilities, focus attention on how you used your skills to provide your employers with real value. Aim for four or more bullet point examples of these achievements and quantify each one with numbers. For example:

Increased client acquisition by 23%, boosting sales revenue by an average of $120,000 each year

Led network acquisition and implementation effort that reduced workplace inefficiencies by 30%

Created a new sales training program that reduced onboarding time by 20%, while increasing team productivity and sales goal achievement by 13% and 31% respectively

6.     Education

If you're a recent college graduate, chances are your newly minted diploma is one of your top selling points at this stage in your career. If that's the case, then this information should appear near the top of your resume, just above your work experience. However, if you're no longer an entry-level professional, it's best to move your education details to the end of your resume. 

This section should include the name of the school, its location (city and state), the degree you earned, and any honors with which you graduated (such as summa cum laude). If you graduated college within the past 15 years, include the year that you received your degree; otherwise, leave the date off.

Note also that it's only necessary to include details about your GPA and some of the 400-level courses you completed if you're new to the workforce and need more fodder to demonstrate your employability to companies.

If you've earned multiple degrees, list these accolades in chronological order, starting with the most recent. This part of the resume is also a great place to list any relevant certifications, licenses, training, or professional development coursework you've completed that will make you a more desirable candidate.

7.     Optional: additional parts of a resume

In addition to these standard resume components, you may want to include some of the following sections, depending on your experience and the role you're targeting.

Career highlights: This section, which is typically used by senior-level professionals with more than 10 years of experience, may be included in addition to, or in lieu of, a professional summary. It calls attention to relevant, noteworthy achievements that may be scattered throughout a professional's extensive work experience. By highlighting these accomplishments at the top of the first page of the resume, you're helping readers to understand the value you bring to the table and enticing them to thoroughly read your resume to learn more.

Volunteer experience: Hiring managers and recruiters alike look favorably on professionals who engage in philanthropic activities such as volunteering for non-profits and mentoring programs. If you actively volunteer for a non-profit organization, consider sharing this information on your resume and LinkedIn profile.

Technical hard skills: If you work in a technical field, this section may take the place of your “Core Competencies” at the top of your resume. However, if you work in a non-technical profession but use many technical platforms to do your job - and these tools are often noted in the job descriptions you're interested in - then you may want to add a section at the end of your resume to list all these tools.

Language skills: If you're multilingual, be sure to note these language proficiencies in your professional summary and detail them out in a separate section toward the end of your resume. Only list the language on your resume if you would feel comfortable going to an interview that was spoken in that language.

Publications: If you are seeking work in the medical, dental, academic, scientific, or research field, then your academic resume - also known as an academic CV - will likely include a section to showcase the presentations you've given or publications you've written or been featured in.

Tips for making the most of your resume sections

To help you quickly get up to speed on how to organize your resume sections and make the most of each one, we've compiled some helpful tips.

Choose the right resume section order

While it's important to include the six essential sections (plus any optional sections) in your resume, there may be times when you need to use a different structure than that provided above. For example:

1.      Resume sections for students are often organized using a different order: contact information, resume headline, resume objective statement, education, experience, skills, optional sections.

 The goal of that structure is to focus on your educational qualifications and career objective, to compensate for your lack of experience and skill.

 2.      Experienced professionals may use a structure that emphasizes their work history and achievements: contact information, resume headline, resume summary, work experience, education, skills, optional sections.

 In most instances, an employee with a great deal of experience in their industry will want to emphasize their career trajectory and achievements rather than their skills.

 3.      Career changers often want to use a structure that focuses attention on transferable skills and related achievements. The following structure can help to draw attention to those qualifications: contact information, resume headline, resume summary (including career objective), key skills, work experience (focusing on related experience and emphasizing achievements), education, and optional sections.

Keep it brief

While it might seem as though seven sections will require a lot of resume space, your goal should be to limit the total length of your resume to no more than two pages. One is even better. Remember, hiring managers may be put off by longer resumes, especially if they have dozens or hundreds of other applicants to consider.

Make it readable and informative

Use bullet points for your skills and work achievements. To save space, you should consider formatting your core competencies section into two or three columns.

Don't just list skills in your core competencies section. You should scatter mentions of them throughout your resume, including in your resume summary paragraph and work history achievements.

Don't use the same resume for every job submission. Instead, tailor your base resume to each job you're seeking. To learn more, check out this related post: How to Tailor Your Resume to a Specific Job Description .

Make sure that your resume is easy to read and pleasing to the eye. If everything seems a little cramped on the page, try to adjust your margins, fonts, and other page elements to ensure that there's enough white space on the page to make for easy reading.

Always use a blank space or a solid line to separate the different sections on your page. Include headings for your core competencies, professional history, education, and any optional sections, to help hiring managers quickly locate the information they're seeking.

Using the right resume sections is vital for telling the right story

As you design your resume's structure, consider the story you're relaying to your reader. Each resume section is there for a purpose and plays a vital role in convincing the employer that you have what it takes to be a valuable member of their team. With the right resume section structure and a keen commitment to conveying your value as a professional, you can increase your odds of landing that essential interview!

If you're unsure about what should be in a resume, don't be afraid to ask for help. Request a free resume review today to find out how to improve your chances of landing the interview.

This article was originally written by Amanda Augustine and has been updated by Ken Chase.

Recommended reading:

11 Steps to Writing the Perfect Resume

How to Tailor Your Resume for a Specific Application

10 of the Worst Cover Letter Mistakes to Avoid

Related Articles:

Do Hiring Managers Actually Read Cover Letters?

How to Create a Resume With No Education

Why You Lose When You Lie on Your Resume: Learning From Mina Chang

See how your resume stacks up.

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46 Must-Know Resume Phrases That Earn Interviews

3 key takeaways

• Resume phrases highlight your skills, knowledge, and experience on your resume.
• There are three different types of resume phrases: action phrases, power phrases, and descriptive phrases.
• Teal’s AI Resume Builder can help you put these phrases to work and create your most impressive resume.

An impressive resume isn’t just about what you say— how you say it matters too. You can have a strong work history, relevant responsibilities, impressive accomplishments, and undeniable expertise under your belt. But none of those matter if you can’t summarize them in a way that captures the attention of potential employers.

That’s why it’s helpful to familiarize yourself with some of the best resume phrases and action words. While your resume content will be as unique as you are, these reliable phrases can give you some new ideas, help you write about your qualifications and abilities, and impress recruiters.

Ready to beat the blank page and put some sentences down on paper? This detailed guide (and long list of resume power phrases) will get you started.

Struggling to land interviews with your resume? Get started with Teal’s AI Resume Builder for free .

Understanding resume writing phrases: What they are and why they matter

Resume phrases are specific words or combinations of words used to highlight your skills, abilities, knowledge, and achievements on your resume.

Understanding the job market can help you choose the right phrases that align with industry expectations and employer needs.

It’s tempting to think the language you use on your resume doesn’t carry much weight, but choosing the right phrases and verbs can make or break your resume in the eyes of a potential employer. For example, take a look at this comparison:

• Handled customer questions and complaints
• Resolved customer inquiries and complaints with a 95% satisfaction rate, resulting in a 20% increase in customer retention

It’s not hard to see that the second option is far more impressive. And though there are other creative strategies and resume best practices at play in that example (such as quantifying accomplishments), the resume writing itself also makes a world of difference. The second bullet includes several powerful phrases and action words:

• Resulting in an increase
• Satisfaction rate

What are the different types of resume phrases?

There’s no shortage of ways you can categorize these phrases, but this guide covers three common types of resume phrases:

• Action phrases: Describe specific actions you took
• “Implemented a new inventory system…”
• Power phrases: Describe results you achieved or an impact you made
• “Reduced costs by…”
• Descriptive phrases: Describe your role and responsibilities
• “Managed a team of 10 customer service representatives”

There’s a lot of overlap between those categories—especially between action phrases and descriptive phrases. The main difference is that action phrases highlight what you actually did while descriptive phrases focus on your responsibilities.

Especially if you opt for using the STAR method on your resume , many of your bullet points will incorporate all three types of phrases at once.

Good resume phrase example

“Led a cross-functional team of 10 to develop and launch a new customer relationship management (CRM) system, resulting in a 30% increase in customer satisfaction and a 20% boost in sales within six months.”

• Action words or phrases: Led, develop, launch
• Power phrase: Resulting in a 30% increase in customer satisfaction and a 20% boost in sales
• Descriptive phrases: Cross-functional team of 10, new customer relationship management (CRM) system, within six months

That example illustrates the importance of the right phrases for your resume, but choosing them involves more than opening up a thesaurus while you’re writing. The best resume phrases are:

• Concise: Your document shouldn’t be stuffed with resume buzzwords and cliches . Get to the point and cut out fluff or unnecessary words.
• Specific: It’s tempting to over exaggerate your responsibilities, but big words aren’t always better. Phrases should clearly describe your role and achievements and increase understanding.
• Action-oriented: Particularly in your work experience section, each of your bullet points should start with a strong resume action verb to demonstrate how you achieved results.
• Relevant: Your resume isn’t intended to be a rundown of all of your tasks and positions throughout your career stages. Relevance is key. The job description will provide helpful clues and valuable insights to guide your resume writing.
• Quantified: Resume phrases are intended to kick start your writing process and not be copied and pasted exactly as they are. Customize them to your experience and supplement them with metrics and real-world examples to add extra impact. 

Where should you use resume phrases?

Wondering where to use these short snippets on your document? Most resume phrases are incorporated in two different sections of your resume:

• Your resume summary (sometimes called your resume personal statement )
• Your work experience section

These phrases can also be effectively used in your LinkedIn profile.

In your summary, these phrases can call attention to your overall career highlights, relevant skills, and the success you’ve achieved. In your job history bullet points, they’ll better describe your contributions and achievements in previous roles.

46 resume phrases you need to know

Now that you have the lay of the land, it’s time to look at some resume power words and phrases you can lean on during your resume writing process to effectively convey the skills, value, and solutions you can bring to a job. 

The best resume phrases start with action verbs—words that describe an action while emphasizing your contributions and achievements. Need help coming up with some? Check out this comprehensive guide to resume action verbs before you get started.

Action phrases for resumes

Use resume action verbs and phrases to describe the specific actions you took and contributions you made in a previous position.

• Assisted clients
• Created reports
• Designed and executed
• Developed a process
• Developed content
• Drafted documents
• Facilitated meetings
• Generated ideas
• Identified opportunities
• Implemented a new system
• Monitored progress
• Organized events
• Prepared resources
• Resolved issues
• Spearheaded an initiative
• Streamlined operations
• Trained staff

Power phrases for resumes

Use strong power words and phrases in your resume to describe the impact you made and the results you achieved (including specific metrics).

• Achieved top performance
• Boosted customer satisfaction
• Drove significant growth
• Elevated team performance
• Enhanced product quality
• Exceeded targets
• Expanded service offerings
• Improved accuracy
• Improved efficiency
• Improved retention rates
• Increased market share
• Increased revenue
• Maximized resources
• Minimized downtime
• Optimized processes
• Reduced costs
• Reduced turnaround time
• Strengthened client relationships

Descriptive phrases for resumes

Use these to describe what you were responsible for in a previous position.

• Collaborated cross-functionally
• Conducted research
• Coordinated efforts
• Coordinated team activities
• Ensured compliance
• Handled customer inquiries
• Maintained relationships
• Managed projects
• Oversaw operations
• Provided support

Resume phrase examples by job

The phrases above are flexible enough to be used in a variety of career paths. But it’s helpful to get a little more specific and look at phrases that apply to a certain job. Here are five different types of roles and examples of key phrases to use for each. 

1. Project manager resume phrases

• Achieved organizational goals
• Determined cost-saving initiatives
• Developed project plans
• Ensured smooth project execution
• Identified and mitigated project risks
• Implemented streamlined processes
• Led cross-functional teams
• Monitored project budget and timeline
• Reduced project costs
• Successfully managed multiple projects

2. Administrative assistant resume phrases

• Assisted in preparation of reports
• Coordinated office operations
• Handled correspondence and communications
• Managed schedules and appointments
• Maintained confidential files and records
• Prepared and organized meetings
• Provided administrative support
• Responded to client inquiries and requests

3. Data scientist resume phrases

• Analyzed datasets
• Automated data collection processes
• Cleaned and processed data
• Communicated data findings
• Created data visualizations
• Developed predictive models
• Extracted insights and trends
• Identified opportunities for improvement
• Implemented algorithms

4. Sales representative resume phrases

• Attended industry events
• Cultivated relationships
• Developed and implemented sales strategies
• Exceeded monthly targets
• Managed a pipeline
• Negotiated contracts and sales
• Prospected and generated leads
• Provided tailored solutions

5. Marketing professional resume phrases

• Analyzed market trends
• Conducted market research
• Created compelling content
• Drove brand awareness
• Executed marketing strategies
• Increased customer acquisition
• Monitored campaign performance
• Planned and executed events
• Reduced customer acquisition cost

Ready to write your own? Check out this guide to resume bullet points to make your snippets short and strong.

5 Essential tips for crafting effective resume phrases

The above phrases will get your creative juices flowing as you start writing your resume. But as you continue getting your skills and accomplishments down on paper, here are a few best practices to keep in mind when using common phrases.

1. Refer to the job description

Think your next best step is to pick out a few of the above phrases that sound the best to you? Not quite. Your goal is to use phrases that are the most relevant to the role you’re applying for to demonstrate how your qualifications and expertise match the position’s requirements. Understanding the job market can help you select the most relevant phrases.

Return to the job description and stay focused on finding key skills and words. Then, select words and phrases that are the best fit. For example, if the job posting mentions leadership several times, then you’ll choose phrases that use words like “led,” “managed,” “supervised,” “owned,” and “spearheaded.”

Struggling to figure out which words get a lot of importance in the job posting? Attach a job description in Teal’s AI Resume Builder to see your match score and determine how well your resume aligns with the language and skills from the job description.

2. Quantify your achievements

If you only rely on common phrases, your resume likely won’t stand out from the crowd—after all, everybody will describe themselves as a “go getter” or a “team player” on paper.

Employers want to see proof not only of the work you’ve done, but why it mattered. Adding metrics to your accomplishments and bullet points shows recruiters the results you’ve achieved in your past jobs.

This is another area where Teal can help with its resume bullet point generator . In your resume, click “add an achievement” and then the “write with AI” button. Teal will automatically come up with three options for metric-driven bullet points you can customize and use on your resume.

3. Use time-based statements

Reducing costs? That’s impressive. But reducing costs in only three months? That’s sure to get a hiring manager’s attention.

That’s why it’s helpful to use time-based statements that describe a certain period of time (for example, “in five weeks or within six months”). These also count as descriptive phrases on your resume.

In Teal’s AI Resume Builder, use the Analysis Score to see a detailed breakdown of issues on your resume—including where you’re missing time-based statements.

4. Check your verb tense

Most of the best phrases start with strong verbs, but don’t get so caught up in the language that you forget about using the right verb tense. On your resume, use:

• Present verb tense (e.g. “manage”) for jobs you currently work
• Past verb tense (e.g. “managed”) for jobs you worked previously

It’s a small change that can make your resume clearer and more polished.

5. Rely on tools to help you

Even with the best phrases to guide you, developing your resume can still feel daunting. Fortunately, you don’t have to start from scratch.

Use Teal’s AI Resume Builder to get over your fear of a blank page and create your strongest resume yet. It can help you:

• Automatically generate metric-rich achievements and contributions
• Compare your resume to the job description and identify keywords
• Provide suggestions to make strategic improvements to your content

Additionally, these tools can also help improve your LinkedIn profile, which complements your resume.

Something as simple as a prompt or an example bullet point can spark your creativity and ease the burden of writing your own resume. With Teal in your corner, you’ll feel more confident throughout the writing process so you can craft a resume that does your experience justice and makes a positive impression on an employer.

Ready to put these phrases and best practices to work on your own resume? Get started with Teal for free today .

Frequently Asked Questions

What are good lines for a resume.

Good lines for a resume effectively highlight your skills, achievements, and contributions. Examples include "Implemented a new inventory system, reducing operational costs by 15%" and "Led a cross-functional team to launch a new product, resulting in a 20% increase in sales."

What are key phrases in a resume?

Key phrases in a resume are specific words or combinations of words that highlight your skills, abilities, knowledge, and achievements. They fall into three categories:  strong verbs and phrases (e.g., "Implemented a new system"), power phrases (e.g., "Increased revenue by 20%"), and descriptive phrases (e.g., "Managed a team of 10").

What are some good words to use in a resume?

Good resume words are strong verbs that demonstrate your contributions and achievements. Action verbs include "Led," "Developed," "Implemented," "Achieved," "Optimized," and "Streamlined." These words help to clearly and concisely communicate your impact in previous roles.

Kat Boogaard

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How to Put Your Education on a Resume? [+Examples]

The education section on your resume can be the most important part of your resume , but in some cases, it can also be almost irrelevant. It all depends on your degree and where you're in your career. That’s why it’s important to know where and how to put your education on a resume. 

To put it simply, the education section is the section on your resume where you list your degrees and relevant academic accomplishments. It’s one of the key resume sections that you can find on almost every resume ever written. 

So keep reading to know what mistakes to avoid and what to include in order to impress a potential employer. 

This guide will also explain:

Why include an education section on your resume?

• What information to include in your education section?
• Where should you place it on your resume?
• How to write your education section?
• ...as a high school graduate?
• ...as a student/ fresh graduate?
• ...as an experienced professional?
• ...when you're changing careers?

Too long, don't want to read? Here's a video guide.

There’s a good chance that every resume you’ve ever seen had an education section. But why is it so? If in some cases education isn't relevant at all, why does everyone include it in their resumes? 🤔

• Employers expect to see it. While this reasoning may sound silly, conventions are conventions. If you want to get hired, it’s crucial to meet your future employer’s expectations. And not including an education section on your resume can raise many suspicions about your background, or willingness to follow rules. 
• Your job requires a specific degree. For example, you can't become a medical doctor without a medical degree. We all know that. The same goes for being a lawyer and many other professions, or people who aim at better-paid positions in corporates. 
• Your educational background can help you stand out. This is especially true if you’re a fresh graduate or a student. Sure, adding a prestigious degree to your name can increase your chances, but that’s not all. Try to inflate your education section by mentioning your GPA, scholarships, awards, being on student committees, etc. Anything to help your future boss see your full potential.

What information to include in your education section? 

For each entry about your education, there's a set of information that recruiters expect to see. 

Information that's a must: 

• The name of educational institution/s
• Location of the schools/s
• Starting and graduation year (if applicable) 
• Level of study
• Field of your studies
• Obtained degree

Optional information: 

• Your grade (you want to include this if your grade was good — if not, it's better to ignore it)
• Any extra academic awards or recognition
• Extra educational courses, classes, or training 
• Study exchange programs (such as Erasmus or a year abroad) 
• Final thesis
• Scholarships
• Other academic achievements

How to write your resume education section?

So how do you put that information in your education section? Follow these basic steps:

• Write about your education in a reversed chronological order. Place your most recent education first and then continue with the previous ones (if applicable).
• Always include the name of your school and its location. In most cases, list the name of your school first. This is the best thing to do especially if your degree has nothing to do with your desired role. The recruiter's attention will be drawn to the name of the institution instead of the study subject. 
• Specify your degree and field of study. You can either spell out the full title, e.g. “ Master of Arts” , or use the initials “ MA” . If you have more than one degree from the same school, list your most recent degree first. Also, list your minors or concentrations after your major.
• Don’t forget the dates. Include the year you began your studies and the year you graduated. Remember, you don’t have to include any specific dates if you seek to avoid discrimination based on your age.
• Add other optional information. This applies to you if you’re a student or fresh out of school. Consider adding information such as good grades, awards, Dean's list, being a part of a committee, related school projects, etc. 

What does this look like in practice? Take a look at the sample below! 

Or to write your own education section, use the following template. Of course, include only the information that pertains to the job you want:

Education Section Template

Name of your school, location — dates of duration or year of graduation.

Degree, the field of study

(+ additional info that students and graduates can include):

• Relevant coursework or student activities
• Study abroad
• Extracurricular activities
• Grade point average (if it’s above 3)
• Academic honors
• The topic of your final thesis together with the outcome (if it’s related to the job)

Where to place your education section?

So now that you know what to include in your education section, you must know WHERE to place it within your resume. 

Generally speaking, you should position it either before or after your work experience section . So, which placement is better for YOUR resume? 

Well, as with the rest of your resume, the rule of thumb is: always put the most important information first. Ask yourself — what's my best asset? What makes me stand out from the crowd of applicants? Is it years of experience in the field? Or the fact that I've just finished a really good school?

In other words, the location of the education on your resume is determined by the stage of your career. 

Are you a student or a fresh graduate? 

If this is your case, then remember: your education is still probably your main strength. So play into it! 

Place the education near the top of your resume ; just below your resume objective/profile section. This way, your education will be the first thing that recruiters will see. 

But what if you worked during your studies? 

Even if the work experience wasn't in the field of your studies, you must have learned valuable skills. So make sure you include them in your resume. Place them right underneath your education. 

And if you've managed to land a cool internship related to your studies, even better! In this case, you may even consider placing it ABOVE the education section. However, make sure you do this only if the internship experience outshines your education. 

Are you an experienced professional?  

In this case, place your education section anywhere on the page, as long as you place the work experience section first. 

Just remember: you should always put the most important information first. At this point in your career, your education isn’t nearly as important as it used to be. Because of that, it should probably find its place near the bottom of your resume.

How to list your high school education on a resume?

So far, we mostly talked about how to list your college education. That’s because once you’ve already got your university degree, you can leave your high school degree out of your resume.

But what if you've never attended university? 

Well, it means that your resume’s education section is going to be pretty straightforward and it will focus on your high-school experience . 

All you have to do is list the name of your high school, its location, and the dates. There’s no reason to complicate it any further.

The exception is if you graduated less than three years ago. In this case, when you don’t have years of professional experience to lean on, add anything to your education section that shows off your skills and talents, such as: 

• awards and unique achievements
• competitions that you've attended
• extracurricular activities
• clubs and organizations you were a part of
• good academic results

Feel free to include details about any projects or clubs you joined while at school. Focus on including specific examples to demonstrate your motivation and initiative.

Did you write for high school newspapers and published 16 articles? Then it deserves a mention in your education section!

The bottom line is simple: Look for anything that helps you show your enthusiasm and work ethic.

Think of clubs, organizations, extracurricular activities, or even volunteer work (even though volunteering may deserve its own separate section). All of these can count as major achievements if you don’t have work experience yet.

Pro tip: Make the education section relevant. Only include information that's related to the specific job opening that you’re interested in. Keep an open mind and remember that transferable skills can make a huge difference, too. In other words, tailor your resume .

How to write an education section if you're a fresh graduate or student

If you’re a student or you’ve just graduated, you probably don’t have much work experience to put on a resume yet. That’s normal. On the other hand, what you do have is academic experience. 

That means the education section should dominate your resume . Make it more elaborate in comparison to other sections and place it at the top of your resume.

During your studies, you must have learned and achieved more things than you probably realize. So — don’t make your education section only about the degrees obtained. Use this space to present all of your most notable academic accomplishments.

Consider including the following:

• Academic awards: e.g. AP scholar, Duke of Edinburgh award, National Merit Award, President’s Award, school subject-based awards, etc.
• Scholarships: e.g. athletic scholarships, scholarships for women, creative scholarships, etc.
• Academic conferences and symposia: Don’t forget to mention the scope and name of the paper you presented at a conference.
• Relevant student societies: e.g. debating societies or programming clubs. If you were on the committee of any kind of student society, make sure you include it as well. 
• Dean’s list.
• GPA: Only include if it was higher than 3.0 on a 4.0 scale. If your overall GPA was lower than that, mention your major GPA. Alternatively, mention your summa cum laude or magna cum laude. But if it wasn’t great, you can simply leave it out. And if you're out of school for a couple of years, you should take your GPA out of your resume no matter what.
• Academic publications: This may not apply to you but if you have a Ph.D. (or working towards it), you’re expected to include at least one publication.
• Extracurricular activities: Show that you're active and care! Doesn't matter if it's football, book club, or volunteering. All of these activities show that you are able to work with people and are interested in the world around you.
• Relevant coursework: Demonstrate that you know plenty about the work that youre applying for. Academic knowledge matters, especially if you dont have hands-on experience yet. 
• Projects that you've worked on: Are they related to the job you're applying for? Make sure you include it!
• Final thesis: This matters especially if you've earned a good grade, it got published, or you've researched something related to your potential new position. 
• Study abroad: It demonstrates flexibility and the fact that you can adapt easily to new environments. 

However, if you've acquired solid work experience already, you can also place your education section after it. Keep in mind — what ’ s more important comes first.

This can be, for example, a standout internship.

Internships

Having an internship on your student resume will automatically make you stand out from the crowd of student applicants. But you already know that. 

Whether the internship is paid or unpaid, doesn’t matter. The most important thing is that you can show you’re motivated and willing to work.

Once you’ve got an internship under your belt, make sure to place it in a separate resume section , as it deserves this special treatment. 

Now you may ask, where to place this internship section. Before, or after your education? 

Well, the most impressive information on your resume should be placed first. So, judge the importance of your internship: 

• If it was a longer internship in a prestigious company, feel free to put the internship section before the education section. 
• On the other hand, if you’re a student at an Ivy League school with an excellent grade average, a month-long internship experience in a local company should come second after your academic achievements. 

How to write an education section if you’ve never graduated (dropped out)?

Many people feel ashamed if they haven't finished their studies. Consequently, they make the mistake of not mentioning their studies at all. And as a result, they leave out years of valuable academic experience.  

Don't make this mistake. Dropping off of a university or taking a leave of absence is now a part of your story. And if you can sell it well, it doesn't even have to harm your chances of getting the job. 

So, always include unfinished education on your resume . It's better than leaving that period of time unaddressed. That's because gaps in your resume always make hiring managers a bit suspicious.

And if you’re just taking a break in studies ( so you don’t have a degree yet), also just put it on your resume. In this scenario, all you have to do is emphasize that you’re still working towards finishing your studies.

How to write an education section if you’re an experienced professional?

Once you become an experienced professional, your education section takes a back seat to your professional experience. Your interviews will revolve around your work experience and professional achievements rather than your academic career.

This means that you can get away with simply listing your degrees in reverse-chronological order with basic info like university name, location, degree, and field of study — and leave it at that.

Feel free to remove more specific details about your education such as GPA, or extracurricular activities related to coursework, or even attendance dates.

How to write an education section if you’re changing careers?

Even if you’re completely changing careers and are moving away from your field of expertise, your education remains important. However, it’s also not as big of a selling point as the skills you possess. Because of that, you should position your skills and relevant experience above your education section.

The easiest way of doing this is to write a functional resume , as opposed to the more traditional chronological resume. This resume format allows you to place transferable skills first, and work experience and education second. 

You may be asking — what if my education isn’t related to the job I ’ m applying for at all? Should I still include it? And the answer is yes! 

Just make sure that you write the name of the institution first. By doing so, you can first draw attention to the fact that you attended a (prestigious) university. It's only then that recruiters notice your somewhat unrelated degree.

But you can impress the hiring manager with your education section anyway. Besides listing key information such as the name of the institution, degree, and dates, you should also consider including accomplishments that are related to the position that you're applying for. 

Think of any coursework, or student clubs and organizations involvement, where you gained transferable skills. You can also mention academic awards, even those that aren’t related to your new job, as they can help you impress the hiring manager.

Final tips on how to make your education section stand out

• Consider adding subsections. If you have a lot of information to include in the education section, consider dividing it into subsections. You can divide it into Basic information (schools and degrees), Awards and Honours, Certifications, School Organizations, or Volunteer Work.
• Keep ATS in mind. ATS normally uses school rankings to assess candidates. If you’re still at school and have your university email address, use it to associate yourself with the school’s reputation. Make sure to include the full name of the school together with its abbreviation, e.g. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) .
• Get certificates. If your academic background isn't something you can be really proud of, get an online certificate from one of the top universities like Harvard or Yale. Then you’ll be able to use the school’s name to your advantage.
• Tell the truth. It’s very easy for hiring managers to confirm whether your education is true or not. Also, be honest about your grades. If you’re not happy with your GPA, instead of making it up, rather leave it completely out of your resume.
• Tailor it to the position: Just like with the rest of your resume, tailor your education section to the job description. If certain courses or projects you completed align with the job requirements, make sure to highlight them. This shows the employer that you already possess relevant knowledge and skills for the job.

Oh, and if you have a LinkedIn profile filled with all the important details, including your academic background, skills, experience, and qualifications, you can easily  turn it into a polished resume with just one click.

How long should the education section be?

The education section should be among the shortest ones on your resume (unless you're a student, a fresh graduate, or are applying for an academic position)

In most cases, it’s ideal if you keep the education section to 15-30 words max. Naturally, this varies depending on the level of education achieved. 

How do I list a double major on my resume?

Feel free to list it under one entry, just make sure you make it clear that it's a double major (either state the fact openly or include & between the names of the two degrees, e.g. Biology & Psychology ) followed by the name of your school.

Is it ever ok to leave out your education section completely?

Not really. Even if the position you're applying for doesn't require any formal education, recruiters will still expect to see at least the most basic education section entry. So don’t make them suspicious of you and write down what you’ve got instead.

What can I include in the education section if I did not finish my degree?

You can still list the degree and the school name, but instead of the graduation date, include the range of years you attended. However, it's crucial to indicate that the degree is not yet completed. For instance, "Bachelor of Arts: English Literature (In Progress) 2017 - Present."

How should I list relevant coursework on my resume?

Include this under your degree in the education section. You can either list courses directly related to the position you’re applying for. For example, “Relevant Coursework: Microeconomics, Business Law, Financial Accounting, Data Analysis."

Kaja Jurčišinová

Kaja Jurcisinova is a fresh graduate and a junior copywriter at Kickresume. Kaja completed her undergraduate degree in Art History at the University of St Andrews in 2018 and graduated with a Master’s in Arts and Culture from the University of Groningen in 2021. She was an intern at multiple cultural institutions across Europe, including the Dutch Museum Association in Amsterdam, the Matter of Art Biennale in Prague, and the European Cultural Centre in Venice. At the moment, she resides in Visby on the Swedish island of Gotland.

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