A solid resume is your best chance to make an impression on hiring managers. It should be formatted in a professional manner with a clear and consistent font style (we recommend Sans Serif), no more than two pages and be free of graphics, tables or charts.

The Experience section should include your work history, beginning and ending dates, your role in each position and the specific accomplishments that you made. Start with the most recent experience and go backwards, highlighting key projects or positions that are relevant to the role you’re applying for. Using strong action verbs such as accelerated, effected, influenced, managed, increased, maintained or trained will help to make your bullet points stand out. For each role, try to quantify your impact: “Generated a 50% increase in social media followers across various platforms” or “Achieved a 25% increase in online sales.”

Your Education section should list the schools you attended, your level of degree and the field of study. You can also include any certifications or continuing education that you’ve undertaken. Some job seekers choose to include their GPA if it is impressive, while others find that it is not as important as the skills or experience gained during college.

Many recruiters use applicant tracking systems to scan resumes for keywords, so it’s essential that you include the right ones in your resume. You can either incorporate them into your Experience section or create a separate skills section to highlight the relevant hard and soft skills you have, including a rough indication of your skill level for each (i.e. Intermediate or Advanced). building your resume