What to Put on a Resume: Key Sections, Templates, & Examples

What You Need to Know

Deciding what to put on a resume can be tricky. Include too much, and your strongest qualifications get buried. Leave out too much, and employers may not have enough information to see why you’re a good fit.

A well-organized resume solves both problems. The right sections give employers a quick picture of your experience, skills, education, and achievements while keeping the information relevant to the job.

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What to Include on a Resume: Essential Elements

Most resumes need five core sections: contact information, a professional summary or objective, work experience, education, and skills. You can also add sections for certifications, languages, projects, volunteer work, or other qualifications when they’re relevant to the job. The order of these sections can vary depending on your experience level and which qualifications are most important for the job.

Resume Header

Your resume header should make it easy for an employer to identify and contact you. Place it prominently at the top of the page and include current, professional contact information:

• Full name
• Professional title
• Phone number
• Professional email address
• City and state
• LinkedIn or Bold.pro profile
• Professional website or portfolio, if relevant

You generally don’t need to include your full street address, marital status, date of birth, or a photo. Keep the header focused on information an employer needs to evaluate your application or contact you.

Professional Summary or Objective

A professional summary or objective gives employers a quick overview of what you offer. Use a resume summary when you have relevant experience to highlight. An objective can be useful for recent graduates, career changers, or people entering a new field, but it isn’t required.

Example resume summary:

If you’re a recent graduate or career changer, a resume objective can highlight your skills and goals. Share your skill set and how you plan to use it to get results in your new role.

Example resume objective:

Work Experience

Your work experience section should show employers what you’ve accomplished, not just where you’ve worked. For each relevant position, include your job title, company name, location or remote status, and employment dates, then use concise bullet points to highlight achievements.

Start bullets with strong action verbs and quantify your results with numbers or metrics when possible. You can write achievement-focused bullets using this simple formula:

For instance, instead of writing “Responsible for vendor contracts,” show what you did and what changed: “Negotiated vendor contracts (action + subject), reducing purchasing costs by 15% (outcome) while maintaining quality and delivery standards.”

Quantify results when you can. Useful metrics include percentages, revenue, cost savings, time saved, customers served, projects completed, team size, and productivity improvements.

Choose action verbs that accurately describe the type of work you performed, such as:

• Communication: Presented, wrote, negotiated, persuaded, coordinated
• Creative: Designed, developed, launched, produced, conceptualized
• Leadership: Directed, managed, mentored, led, supervised
• Technical: Automated, configured, engineered, implemented, programmed

For example:

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Education

Your education section should include your degree or credential, school, and location. If you’re a recent graduate, you can include your graduation date, relevant coursework, honors, or academic projects when those details strengthen your qualifications.

For example:

Include high school education if it’s your highest level of education or you’re early in your career and need additional credentials. Once you’ve completed higher education or built substantial relevant work experience, you can usually remove high school details to make room for stronger qualifications.

Skills

Your skills section should highlight abilities that are relevant to the job you’re targeting, including both technical or hard skills and professional soft skills. Prioritize skills named in the job posting when you genuinely have them, since those keywords can also help applicant tracking systems (ATS) identify your resume as relevant.

Be specific and relevant to the job you’re applying for. For example, a buyer/planner might list skills like inventory management, demand forecasting, and vendor negotiation, while a social worker could highlight case management, client advocacy, and active listening.

Additional Sections

Additional resume sections can showcase qualifications that don’t fit neatly into your experience, education, or skills sections. Add them only when they strengthen your candidacy or provide relevant information an employer wouldn’t see elsewhere.

• Certifications and licenses: Relevant professional credentials, such as Project Management Professional (PMP), First Aid, or a professional license
• Languages: Languages you speak and your proficiency level
• Volunteer experience: Relevant service that demonstrates skills, leadership, or industry involvement
• Projects: Academic, professional, freelance, or personal projects that demonstrate relevant abilities
• Publications: Articles, research papers, or books you’ve written or contributed to
• Hobbies and interests: Selective interests that provide useful context or demonstrate relevant qualities and soft skills, like teamwork, creativity, or leadership.

Resume Templates With All the Key Sections

Zety’s resume templates help job seekers organize the essential sections of a professional resume in a clear, polished layout. Choose a template based on readability and how you’ll submit your resume. Simple layouts are generally easier for an ATS to parse, so check an employer’s application requirements before using designs with columns, icons, or other decorative elements.

Here are four options that show how the same core information can work in different designs:

Cascade

Cascade uses a structured layout that separates skills and credentials from the main work experience section, making it easy to see both qualifications and career history.

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Crisp

Crisp uses a clean, organized layout to separate key sections such as skills, experience, education, and credentials for easy scanning.

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Diamond

Diamond uses a streamlined layout with visual section markers to organize work experience, education, and skills while keeping the resume easy to follow.

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Refined

Refined uses a traditional layout with minimal design elements, giving detailed experience, education, skills, and certifications room to stand out.

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How to Handle Special Resume Situations & Academic Variations

Nontraditional education or career paths can still fit cleanly on a resume.

Label double concentrations, concurrent degrees, study abroad, and career gaps clearly so employers can quickly understand your background. The goal isn’t to hide an unusual path but to present it accurately while emphasizing the qualifications most relevant to the job.

Double Concentrations

List the degree first, followed by both concentrations or areas of study. This makes the credential easy to identify while showing the breadth of your academic background.

For example:

If both concentrations are important to the position, you can also highlight relevant coursework, projects, or skills elsewhere on your resume.

Concurrent Degrees

When you earned two degrees concurrently, list each credential separately so employers can easily understand what you earned. Include the institution and completion date for each degree.

For example:

If the degrees have different areas of focus, consider adding relevant coursework, projects, or academic achievements that demonstrate skills related to the job.

Study Abroad

Include study abroad experience under your education section when the coursework, language experience, international exposure, or other skills are relevant to the position. You can briefly identify the program, institution, location, or dates without giving it more space than your most relevant qualifications.

For example:

You can also include academic honors earned during the program beneath the applicable degree.

Career Gaps

You don’t need to disguise employment gaps. Use accurate dates and focus your resume on relevant achievements and qualifications. If you completed freelance work, education, certifications, caregiving, volunteer work, or substantial projects during the gap, include those experiences when they strengthen your application.

For shorter gaps, you generally don’t need to explain them on the resume. For longer gaps, adding relevant activities or experience can help show how you continued developing skills or contributing during that period.

Key Takeaways

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