Resume builder Your facts, a clean format, nothing invented.

Section order by situation

Advice On TryHired's role resume guides, the order also follows the occupation's O*NET Job Zone (how much preparation the work usually needs): for Job Zones 3 to 5, Experience comes before Skills; for Job Zones 1 and 2, Skills come first.

Length. One page is usual for students and early-career applicants. Two pages is common once you have more relevant experience than fits on one. Detail roughly the last ten to fifteen years; shorten or drop older jobs unless they're directly relevant. Academic CVs and federal resumes follow their own, longer conventions that this page doesn't cover.

Layout. One column, standard headings (Summary, Experience, Education, Skills), and plain bullets. Some application systems read multi-column layouts, tables and text boxes out of order; one column avoids the question. Put each job's title, employer, place and dates on one line.

Font and margins. A common, readable font (for example Calibri, Arial, Georgia or Garamond) at about 10 to 12 points for body text, slightly larger for your name and headings, with margins of about half an inch to one inch.

Reverse-chronological, hybrid or functional. Reverse-chronological (most recent job first) is the standard and the builder's default. Hybrid puts key skills and highlights first, then the same full timeline; it suits career changers and people returning to work. Functional groups everything by skill with no timeline. Our view We don't offer functional in the builder: without dates and employers, a reader can't see where or when you did the work.

PDF or Word. Send what the posting asks for. If it doesn't say, a PDF exported from a word processor keeps your layout; some application forms ask for Word (.docx). Either way, the text must be selectable: a scanned image of a resume contains no text to read. The free ATS resume checker reads PDF, DOCX and TXT files in your browser and shows the text it finds.

Photo, address and personal details. In the US, leave off a photo, date of birth, marital status and other personal details unrelated to the job. City and state are enough; a full street address isn't needed. Interests and hobbies are optional: include them only when they relate to the job.

Header. Your name on the first line, then one contact line: city and state, email, phone, and one current link. Put it in the body of the document rather than in the page header area, so it's read with everything else.

Summary: two or three lines at the top: what you do, your strongest one or two areas, and one true result. Use it when you have relevant experience. Objective: one sentence on the job you want. It helps when you have little experience or are changing fields; otherwise leave it out. Skip filler such as “results-driven” or “team player”: the free checker flags those, and a specific result says more.

The formula: a verb, what you did, the scale (how many, how often, for whom), and the result (what changed). Use past tense for past jobs and present tense for your current one, and leave out “I”. Three to five bullets suit a recent, relevant job; one or two are enough for older ones. Include a number only when it's true and you could explain it in an interview; a bullet without a number is better than a made-up one.

Weak vs strong, labelled by the checker engine

• Duty, not a result Responsible for processing invoices

  Action + number Processed about 250 vendor invoices a week with no late-payment penalties

• Duty, not a result Helped with various projects as needed

  Action + number Coordinated a store remodel with 5 contractors and finished one week early

• Vague or too short Customer service

  Action + number Resolved about 30 customer calls a shift and fixed billing errors the same day

• Duty, not a result Worked on the weekly report

  Action + number Built a weekly no-show report that 4 clinic managers use to plan staffing

• Action, no number Trained new coworkers on the invoice-approval workflow

  A good bullet already. If you have a true number (how many, how often), adding it makes the result easier to see; if you don’t, leave it as it is.

Action verbs

The 250 verbs the checker engine recognizes as strong openers:

accelerated, achieved, acquired, adapted, addressed, administered, advanced, advised, advocated, analyzed, answered, applied, appointed, architected, arranged, assembled, assessed, audited, authored, automated, balanced, benchmarked, boosted, briefed, budgeted, built, calculated, campaigned, captured, centralized, chaired, championed, clarified, closed, coached, coded, collaborated, collected, combined, commissioned, communicated, compiled, completed, composed, computed, conceived, conceptualized, condensed, conducted, configured, consolidated, constructed, consulted, contracted, controlled, converted, convinced, coordinated, corrected, counseled, crafted, created, cultivated, cut, debugged, decreased, defined, delegated, delivered, demonstrated, deployed, designed, detected, determined, developed, devised, diagnosed, directed, discovered, documented, doubled, drafted, drove, earned, edited, educated, eliminated, enabled, encouraged, engineered, enhanced, established, estimated, evaluated, exceeded, executed, expanded, expedited, facilitated, forecast, forecasted, formalized, formed, formulated, founded, generated, grew, guided, halved, headed, hired, identified, implemented, improved, increased, influenced, initiated, innovated, inspected, installed, instituted, instructed, integrated, interviewed, introduced, invented, investigated, launched, led, lifted, lowered, maintained, managed, mapped, marketed, maximized, measured, mediated, mentored, merged, migrated, minimized, mobilized, modeled, modernized, monitored, motivated, negotiated, onboarded, opened, operated, optimized, orchestrated, owned, organized, originated, outperformed, overhauled, oversaw, partnered, performed, persuaded, piloted, pioneered, planned, prepared, presented, prioritized, processed, produced, programmed, projected, promoted, proposed, prototyped, proved, provided, published, purchased, qualified, raised, ran, rebuilt, recommended, reconciled, recruited, redesigned, reduced, reengineered, refined, regained, rehabilitated, reorganized, repaired, replaced, reported, represented, researched, resolved, restored, restructured, retained, revamped, reviewed, revised, revitalized, saved, scaled, scheduled, screened, secured, segmented, selected, shaped, shipped, shortened, simplified, sold, solved, sourced, spearheaded, specified, sped, stabilized, standardized, steered, streamlined, strengthened, structured, succeeded, supervised, surpassed, surveyed, sustained, synthesized, systematized, tested, trained, transformed, translated, tripled, troubleshot, turned, uncovered, unified, upgraded, validated, verified, won, wrote

List skills and tools you have actually used, and back the important ones up in a bullet. To see which skills O*NET rates most important across occupations, and which software O*NET flags as in demand, use the resume skills guide. To match the words in a specific posting, read what a resume keyword is, then compare your resume against the posting in the free checker. Each role resume guide shows the O*NET tasks, skills and tools for one occupation: material to choose from, not a list to copy.

Education. Most recent first: the credential exactly as awarded, the school, its city and state, and the year if you want it. If it's not finished, say so with “Expected” and a month and year. GPA is optional; include it if the posting asks for it or if you want it considered. Students can add relevant coursework and honors. Once you have a college credential, high school is usually left off.

Certifications and licences. A certification is awarded by a certifying organization or vendor; a licence is permission to practise issued by a government agency. They are not the same thing: label each correctly, name it exactly as issued with the issuer, and list only ones you hold. A course you're taking can go under Education as in progress, not under Certifications.

Student, high school or first job. Lead with Education, then Projects, any jobs (part-time, seasonal, internships, regular babysitting or yard work count), Volunteer Experience and Skills. An objective line is optional. One page.

Career change. Name the move in the first line of the summary (“Moving into … from …”), choose bullets that show work similar to the new job, and consider the hybrid layout so key skills come first while the timeline stays. Call it “Relevant Experience”. Never relabel an old job title to look like the new field.

Employment gap. You don't have to explain a gap on the resume. If you want to, use one honest line in your own words (for example “Career break, family caregiving” with the dates), and keep any longer explanation for the cover letter or the interview. Don't stretch other dates to cover it.

Returning to work. Put recent courses, volunteering or freelance work in their own sections with real dates. Lead the summary with what you can do now. Leaving the military: describe each role in plain civilian words that someone outside the service would understand.

Experienced

Student or first job

Career change

Returning after a gap

For layout and file-format advice, see also the resume templates guide.

In US practice, a resume is a one- or two-page summary tailored to a kind of job. A CV (curriculum vitae) is a longer, complete record of education, research, publications and teaching, used mainly for academic, research and some medical positions. Outside the US, “CV” often means what Americans call a resume. Conventions vary by country; this page describes US practice only.

Leave references off the resume, and skip the line “references available on request”: employers ask when they need them. Keep a separate list ready with each person's name, job title, organization, phone, email and how you know them, and ask each person before you list them.

Tailor it for each job. Copy the exact job title from the posting into your target title, put the bullets that match the posting first, and use the posting's words for skills you really have. The free checker compares your resume with a job description.

Name the file. Your name and “Resume”, for example Jordan-Sample-Resume.pdf, so it's easy to find in an inbox.

Upload or paste. Follow the application form. When a form asks you to paste plain text, use the builder's “Copy as plain text” or the .txt download, then check the pasted result for broken lines. When you email it, attach the PDF and keep the message short; the job search email builder has application and follow-up messages.

LinkedIn. Keep job titles and dates the same on your resume and your LinkedIn profile. See LinkedIn optimization for job seekers.

Printing. Use “Print or save as PDF”: it prints the resume alone, in one column, on plain white paper.

Role resume guides (O*NET tasks, skills and tools for one occupation): Registered Nurse · Software Engineer · CNA · Medical Assistant · Administrative Assistant · Customer Service Representative · Accountant · Server · Data Scientist · Cashier. Or pick a role in the builder for its guide.

Also free: the cover letter builder, interview prep (questions, STAR answers, pay), job search emails and the resume skills guide.

Disclosure. TryHired sells HIRED, a paid job-search program. The builder, templates and examples are free and don't require it.