What to Put on a Resume: Essential Sections & Tips
From contact info to volunteer work, here is everything that belongs on your resume—and a few things that definitely do not.
The Must-Have Resume Sections
Every resume, regardless of industry or experience level, needs five core sections: Contact Information, Professional Summary or Objective, Work Experience, Education, and Skills. These sections form the foundation that both recruiters and ATS systems expect to find. Missing any one of them raises immediate red flags.
Your Contact Information should include your full name, phone number, professional email address, city and state (full street address is no longer necessary), and a link to your LinkedIn profile or personal portfolio. Make sure the email address is professional—firstnamelastname@email.com, not partyanimal99@email.com.
Your Professional Summary or Objective comes next and serves as your elevator pitch. If you have relevant experience, use a summary that leads with achievements. If you are entering a new field or the workforce for the first time, use an objective that focuses on the value you aim to contribute. Either way, keep it to two to four sentences.
Work Experience: The Heart of Your Resume
The Work Experience section is where you prove your value with evidence. List each position in reverse chronological order with your job title, company name, dates, and three to six bullet points per role. Focus every bullet on accomplishments and results rather than job duties.
Use the formula: action verb + task + measurable result. "Redesigned the onboarding flow, reducing new user drop-off by 35% and increasing 30-day retention by 22%" is far more compelling than "Worked on improving the onboarding experience." Quantify wherever possible—percentages, dollar amounts, time saved, users served.
If you lack traditional work experience, this section can include internships, co-ops, freelance projects, significant volunteer roles, or relevant academic projects. The key is to frame each entry in professional terms with clear contributions and outcomes.
Education, Skills, and Certifications
Your Education section should include your degree, institution, and graduation year. Include your GPA only if it is 3.5 or above and you graduated within the last three years. Relevant coursework, honors, and academic projects can be added for entry-level candidates who need to fill space with substantive content.
The Skills section should be a curated list of hard skills and technical proficiencies relevant to the target role. Pull keywords directly from the job description and match them to your genuine abilities. Organize skills into categories—"Programming Languages," "Tools & Platforms," "Methodologies"—for easy scanning.
Certifications deserve their own subsection or a dedicated section if they are central to the role. List the certification name, issuing organization, and date earned. Prioritize certifications mentioned in the job posting and those from recognized industry bodies.
Optional Sections That Can Set You Apart
Beyond the core sections, several optional additions can strengthen your resume when they are relevant. A Projects section is invaluable for developers, designers, and anyone whose work produces tangible deliverables. Include the project name, your role, technologies or methods used, and the outcome.
Volunteer Experience demonstrates character and community involvement, and it can fill gaps in your work history with meaningful activity. Awards and Honors provide third-party validation of your excellence. Publications, Presentations, and Patents matter for research-oriented and technical roles.
A Languages section is increasingly valuable in the global job market—list each language with an honest proficiency level. Professional Affiliations and Memberships show that you are engaged with your industry beyond your day job. Only include optional sections that add genuine value; padding your resume with irrelevant information dilutes its impact.
What to Leave Off Your Resume
Certain items should never appear on a modern resume. References—or the line "References available upon request"—are outdated and waste space. Employers will ask for references when they need them. Personal information such as age, marital status, religion, and social security number should also be excluded in the US and most Western countries.
Remove outdated skills like "Microsoft Office" (it is assumed) and "typing speed" unless the job specifically requires it. Hobbies and interests are generally unnecessary unless they are directly relevant to the role or company culture—listing "competitive chess" for a strategy consulting role could spark a conversation, but "enjoys cooking" probably will not.
Photos, graphics, and elaborate design elements are risky. While they may look impressive, most ATS systems cannot parse them, and many companies have policies against considering photos to avoid bias. Stick to clean, text-based formatting that prioritizes readability and ATS compatibility.
Putting It All Together
The ideal resume tells a coherent story: who you are (summary), what you have done (experience), what you know (skills and education), and what qualifies you further (certifications, projects, awards). Every section should reinforce the narrative that you are the right person for the specific role you are targeting.
Order your sections strategically. If your experience is your strongest asset, keep it right below the summary. If you are a recent graduate, move Education higher. If certifications are a job requirement, give them prominent placement. The resume is not a rigid form—it is a flexible marketing document that you arrange to highlight your strengths.
TechnCV's AI resume builder guides you through each section, suggests content based on your target role, and automatically formats everything for ATS compatibility. Whether you are starting from scratch or optimizing an existing resume, it takes the guesswork out of deciding what to include and where to put it.