A resume (also spelled résumé) is 

a formal document that serves to show a person's career

background and skills. In most cases, it's created in order to help a candidate to land a new job. A
traditional resume consists of a professional summary, work history, and education sections.

How to Write a Resume

 1. Choose a resume format

 2. Add your name and contact information
 3. Write a standout resume headline
 4. Add your professional resume summary statement
 5. Detail your work experience
 6. List relevant skills and keywords
 7. Add your education, certifications, and any other relevant information
 8. Tailor your resume and optimize for applicant tracking systems
 9. Polish up your grammar and formatting

What are the 5 main resume parts?

Here are the five main sections of a resume:

1. Contact information

2. Resume introduction

3. Professional experience

4. Skills

5. Education
1. Contact Information
The purpose of your contact information is to help the hiring manager quickly
know who you are and how to reach you.

Your contact information should be listed in your resume header, and include

these five pieces of information:
 First and last name

 Email

 Phone number

 Mailing address (optional)

 LinkedIn (optional)

 Current job title (optional)

2. Resume Introduction
Your resume introduction is a quick three-to-four sentence summarization to the
hiring manager that details your experience, relevant skills, and other key
qualifications.

You can best think of your resume introduction as an elevator pitch. It’s the first
resume section the hiring manager will see and should grab their attention
immediately.

There are four main types of resume introductions:

 Resume summary

 Resume objective

 Resume profile

 Summary of qualifications
However, most people normally write either a resume summary or objective.

A resume summary is nearly always a good choice for job seekers, particularly
those with previous work experience and notable career achievements.
When writing a resume summary, focus on detailing your most job-relevant
career experience, skills, and accomplishments. Essentially, it should serve as the
highlight reel of your career for the hiring manager to quickly review and ensure
that your qualifications match the job requirements.

Here’s an example of a resume summary for an electrician:

Skilled journeyman electrician with more than 6 years of experience

installing, repairing, and maintaining low-voltage electrical systems.
Have personally worked on and repaired 500+ houses during my
tenure. Skilled in interpreting blueprints and schematics, and possess a
Journeyman Electrician License issued in California.

On the other hand, if you’re an entry-level candidate with very little or no relevant
work experience, you should write a resume objective because an objective
focuses on your career ambitions more than your accomplishments.

Resume objectives are written to target a specific position and show how you
would use your skills, experience, and training to help the company achieve their
goals.

Here’s a resume objective example for a recent college graduate:

Recent graduate with a B.S. in Marketing and a 3.9 GPA. Gained more
than a year of experience in web-based advertising, data analysis, and
customer relations while interning for a local marketing firm. Outspoken
personality with excellent customer service skills. Looking to leverage my
academic background and expertise to fill the marketing role at ABC
company.

3. Professional Experience
 Work experience is one of the most essential parts of a resume, and for most
candidates will make up the bulk of their resume’s content.

When listing work experience, include the following information for each entry:

 Employer or company name

 Location (city and state)

 Employment dates

 Three to five bullet points describing your responsibilities and accomplishments

Additionally, for each work experience bullet point, begin by using an action verb,
and use hard numbers when detailing your accomplishments.

Action verbs help make your experience sound more impressive and interesting
to read to hiring managers, while using hard numbers and statistics gives them a
clear picture of how you contributed on the job at your previous employer.

Here’s a work experience example for a wedding planner that includes action
verbs and hard numbers:
4. Skills
The skills section of your resume sums up your expertise and skillsets to the
hiring manager in a short, easy-to-read list. Regardless of how much experience
you have, you should always include a skills section on your resume.

To write a strong skills section, list your most marketable abilities and include a
mix of both hard skills and soft skills to show employers that you’re a dynamic,
well-rounded candidate.

Hard skills will typically only include technical skills that you acquired through
training, education, or otherwise hands-on experience. Meanwhile, soft skills
most often consist of personality traits and people skills.

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

5. Education
The level of detail you add to your resume education section can vary based on
how much work experience you have and the number of degrees you’ve
achieved.

For example, if you’ve just graduated from college, the education part of your
resume should be highly detailed and include any information that’s relevant to
the job you want.

However, after working in your industry for a couple of years, consider omitting
some less-important details (such as your GPA and honors) when listing your
degree unless you’re writing a grad school resume.

This is because your work experience will now likely be a more important factor
regarding your employability to a hiring manager.
 At the very least, your resume education section should include the following
four items:

 School name

 Location

 Degree

 Graduation year
For additional items, consider listing your GPA on your resume (as long as it’s 3.5
or above) to help demonstrate that you’re hardworking, studious, and
responsible.

If you have limited work experience, consider adding relevant

coursework, extracurricular activities, academic awards, or even sororities or
fraternities you were in as components to help demonstrate your hard and soft
skills.

Here’s a properly formatted education section on a grad school resume,

complete with relevant coursework and academic awards: