How to write a resume that gets read

1. Before you write: collect the raw material

Writing is faster when you are not trying to remember dates and numbers at the same time. Spend 20 minutes gathering:

• Two or three job ads for the role you want. Highlight the skills and duties that appear in all of them — those are your keywords.
• Your job history with month and year for each start and end date, plus job titles exactly as they appeared on contracts or payslips.
• Evidence of results: performance reviews, sales reports, project dashboards, customer feedback scores, awards, emails that thanked you for something specific.
• Qualifications: degrees, licences (with numbers and expiry dates where relevant), certifications and training.

If you do not have exact numbers, honest estimates are fine (“about 40 tickets a day”). Be ready to explain how you arrived at them in an interview.

2. Pick a format that machines and people can read

Use a reverse-chronological format — most recent job first — unless you have a strong reason not to. It is what recruiters expect and what applicant tracking systems (ATS) parse most reliably.

• One column, real text (not an image or a screenshot), and standard section names such as “Experience”, “Education” and “Skills”.
• No tables, text boxes or icons for important information. Many parsers skip them, so your phone number inside a sidebar graphic may simply vanish.
• A clean, common font at 10–12 pt for body text, with consistent spacing and dates in one format (for example “Mar 2021 – Jun 2024”).
• Save as PDF unless the employer asks for Word. A PDF made from real text keeps your layout and remains searchable.

Every template in our resume templates follows these rules: single column, selectable text, standard headings.

3. Contact details and headline

Put your name in the largest type on the page, then a one-line headline with the job title you are targeting — “Registered Nurse, Cardiac Step-Down” or “Data Analyst · SQL, Python, Tableau”. Below it, add:

• A professional email address and one phone number.
• City and region (or “Remote”). A full street address is no longer expected and is a privacy risk.
• One or two links that help your case: LinkedIn, a portfolio, GitHub, or a published work sample.

Leave out date of birth, marital status, photo and national ID numbers unless they are standard in the country you are applying to.

4. Write a short professional summary

A summary is two to four sentences at the top of the page that tells the reader what kind of professional you are and why they should keep reading. A good formula:

[Title] with [X years] in [specialty/industry]. Known for [two strengths that match the job]. [One proof point with a number].

For example: “Customer support lead with 6 years in SaaS help desks. Known for calm escalation handling and clear documentation. Cut first-response time from 9 hours to 2 while the team grew from 4 to 11 agents.”

Avoid “I” and “my”, avoid adjectives you cannot prove (“passionate, dynamic, results-driven”), and rewrite the summary for each type of role you apply to. Keep it between roughly 150 and 700 characters — the builder shows a live count.

5. Turn duties into achievement bullets

This is the part that wins interviews. For each job, list 3–6 bullet points. Each bullet should answer: what did you do, how, and what changed because of it?

Three habits make bullets stronger:

1. Start with an action verb — Led, Built, Reduced, Negotiated, Trained. The builder has an action-verb helper you can click to insert.
2. Add a number — money, time, percentages, volumes, team size, customers. Aim for at least half of your bullets to include one.
3. Put the most relevant bullet first. Recruiters often read only the first one or two lines of each job.

Older jobs (10+ years ago) can shrink to one line or a single bullet. Unrelated jobs can be grouped: “Retail and hospitality roles, 2012–2015”.

6. List skills that match the job ad

Use the keywords you highlighted in the job ads. Group them so they are easy to scan — for example Clinical, Systems, Languages — and list specific tools rather than vague traits. “Excel (pivot tables, Power Query)” says more than “computer literate”.

Soft skills are better shown through bullets than listed. If you do list them, choose two or three that the ad explicitly asks for.

7. Education, certifications and extras

List degrees with the institution and graduation year. Recent graduates can add honours, a strong GPA, relevant coursework or a thesis title; experienced professionals usually keep this to one line per qualification.

Add certifications and licences that the job requires or rewards, with the issuer and date. Optional sections — languages, projects, volunteering, publications, awards — are worth including when they support the role you want. The builder’s custom section is for exactly this.

8. Length, tailoring and proofreading

• Length: one page for students and early-career applicants; two pages is normal after about 5–7 years of relevant experience. Academic CVs and some government roles are exceptions.
• Tailor every application: reorder bullets, adjust the headline and summary, and mirror the language of the job ad. With a Pro account you can keep one saved version per application.
• Proofread twice: once on screen, once from the PDF. Read it backwards to catch typos, check dates line up, and make sure every link works.
• Test the PDF: open it, press Ctrl/Cmd + A and copy the text into a plain document. If the text comes out in the right order, an ATS can read it too. You can also export a .txt version from the builder for pasting into job portals.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Listing duties copied from the job description instead of results.
• Unexplained gaps — a one-line entry such as “Career break: family care, 2021–2022” is enough.
• Dense paragraphs. If a bullet runs past two lines, split or trim it.
• Different date formats, fonts or bullet styles on the same page.
• Sending a Word file whose formatting breaks on the recruiter’s computer — export a PDF.