How to write a resume

Step 1: Gather the raw material

Do not start writing. Open a blank document and dump, for each role: employer, exact title, start and end month, the tools you used, what you were measured on, and anything you changed. Do not edit and do not worry about phrasing.

This is the step people skip, and it is why first drafts stall. Writing and remembering at the same time is much harder than doing them separately.

Step 2: Set up the structure

Single column, top to bottom, in this order:

1. 1Contact details: name, target job title, city, phone, email, LinkedIn. In the document body, never in the page header.
2. 2Professional summary: three lines. Written last.
3. 3Experience: reverse chronological.
4. 4Skills: grouped, twelve to twenty items, not forty.
5. 5Education: degree, institution, year. Move above experience if you graduated within the last year or two.
6. 6Optional: certifications, projects, publications, languages. Only if relevant to the roles you want.

Step 3: Write the experience section

This is 80% of the work and 80% of the value. For each role write a one-line context sentence if the employer is not well known, then three to six bullets in the same shape every time: verb → specific action → measurable result.

• Two lines maximum per bullet.
• One idea per bullet.
• Strongest bullet first. Most readers stop after two.
• Cut anything everyone in your role does.

If the verbs are the part you get stuck on, the action-verb series has lists by industry: tech, marketing, finance, healthcare, and sales.

Step 4: Write the skills section

Group into two or three categories rather than one long comma-separated wall. Twelve to twenty items. Every item here should also appear inside a bullet above. A skill with no evidence anywhere is a claim, and readers discount claims.

Step 5: Write the summary last

Now that the experience section exists, the summary is easy: three lines naming your target title, your level and domain, and the single strongest result from below. If it could describe someone else with your job title, rewrite it.

Step 6: Trim to length

One page if you have under about eight years of experience, two beyond that. Cut in this order: old irrelevant roles down to one line each, duty bullets, the skills wall, then anything on page two that does not support the roles you want. Never cut dates or shrink the font below 10pt to make it fit.

Step 7: Check before you send

1. 1Copy-paste test. Select all in the PDF, paste into a plain text editor, read what arrives.
2. 2Six-second scan. Cover everything below the top third of page one. Does it say what you do, at what level, and why you fit?
3. 3Score against a real posting. Run it through the free ATS resume checker with the actual job description.
4. 4Read it aloud. Anything that sounds like a brochure gets cut.

Then tailor it per application

What you have now is a master CV. It is not what you should send. Sending the same document to every posting is the single biggest cause of low response rates.

For each role, reorder the bullets so the matching ones lead, rewrite the summary around that posting's top requirements, and adjust the vocabulary to match. The tailoring guide is the full method, and tailoring from a job link does the first pass automatically if doing it by hand is what makes you stop.