Writing a strong CV is the first step in getting any job. However, if you get right into filling out the contents – detailing your schooling, employment experience, etc. – you’ll probably produce a disjointed, difficult-to-read jumble of a resume that won’t do your application justice. Therefore, regardless of the position you’re applying for, it’s crucial to create a resume plan, often known as a resume overview.You can arrange and organize your resume using a resume outline so that you know exactly what goes where.
Therefore, use the resume outline as a guide to help you create a fantastic resume by providing the proper format
Uncertain of the specifics of a resume outline?
Do not fret!
Everything you need to know about creating a resume outline is covered in this tutorial, from the elements you should include to formatting advice for each area.
So let’s get started!
10 Sections to Include in a Resume Outline
What you include on a resume will vary based on the position and your level of experience.
While some areas, like contact details or employment history, are essential on any resume, others, like volunteer work or interests, might not be relevant to your application.
Here is an example of a general resume summary:
Are you unsure about what should be in your resume’s summary?
Read on to find out about each area (AND how to format them!) since we’ve got you covered.
#1. Contact Information
Let’s begin with the fundamentals. Any résumé must have a section with contact details.
This portion is rather straightforward, as you might expect; just be sure to provide your contact information so that the business may get in touch with you.
However, if there is a typo in your name, contact information, or email address, your prospective employer won’t be able to get in touch with you. Even worse, they might believe you are unreliable for even the most elementary jobs.
Consequently, you should accurately include the following information in this portion of your resume:
- Full name
- Professional title
- Phone number
- Professional email
- Location
Do you have any social media accounts relevant to your job? Please feel free to provide their website links in the part of your contact information. If you’re a coder, for instance, you could add your GitHub profile, and if you’re a designer, your Behance profile.
Here is an example of how the resume outline contact information section might appear:
Contact Information Example:
Jonn Smith
Marketing Assistant
012-45-6789
Jonn Smith@resumeinventor.com
New work, USA
linkedin.com/in/JonnSmith
#2. Resume Summary/Objective
The first thing most recruiters will look at in your resume is the heading.
Your resume objective or summary should be placed here.
This part of your resume is ideal for pepping up recruiters’ attention and luring them to continue reading.
Unsure about whether to use a resume objective or a resume summary?
This is how to decide:
- If you have years of relevant job experience and want to impress the recruiter with your accomplishments and professional skills, provide a resume summary.
- If you don’t have any work experience or are changing careers, include your greatest strengths in your resume objective along with any education you may have had or work experience you may have in the field, and describe how you would apply this information to the company’s objectives.
Consequently, if you are a seasoned expert with extensive experience in your industry, the following are the essential components of a compelling resume summary:
- name, position, and level of expertise in your field
- key competencies in this area
- your top two professional accomplishments
Your resume summary should resemble the following:
Resume Summary Example
Customer care agent with more than three years of experience in tech assistance and a focus on live chat customer support. familiar with the software programs Userlike, ProProfs Chat, and LiveAgent. Excellent interpersonal, communication, and organizational abilities. Compared to other customer service professionals at Company X, handled up to 12% more clients monthly.
And if you recently graduated from college or simply lack relevant work experience, make sure to mention the following in your resume objective:
- your degree
- any practical experience
- Your reasons for selecting this particular business
Here’s an example:
Resume Objective Example
Philology student with motivation and people skills seeking a part-time position as a customer service representative at Company X. fluent in Italian, French, and English. I want to use my outstanding language and communication skills to help your company’s foreign clients.
#3. Work Experience
The work experience section is the most crucial component of your resume since it demonstrates that you have the skills, education, and background required for the position.
As a result, you should mention each relevant job you’ve held in reverse chronological order, beginning with your most recent employment.
Here is how you should format this area to start:
- List your work experience in reverse-chronological order. Then, work your way backward from your most recent employment experience. Nevertheless, keep your work entries current (for example, your ten-year stint waiting tables won’t actually help you win that marketing post today).
- Add your job title. This will make it easier for the recruiter to understand the position you held at your prior or present job.
- Add the company name. In the event that your employer isn’t well-known, you can also offer a brief summary of the business.
- Include the period of employment. To indicate how long you’ve worked for the company, format all work experience entries using the mm/yyyy format.
- List your responsibilities and professional achievements. Include five to six successes and duties in bullet points for your most recent jobs. Use no more than 2-3 bullet points for older roles.
Want to go above and above to make your resume stand out? The solution is in what you’ve accomplished!
Consider the fact that most applicants simply mention their responsibilities and call it a day, even though the hiring manager is fully aware of what the role requires.
As a result, the majority of sales associates, for instance, have a job experience part that is almost entirely the same: greeting and assisting clients, operating the cash register, etc.
Instead, think about ranking your accomplishments before your duties.
By concentrating on your accomplishments, you may stand out from the competition, establish credibility, and demonstrate to the hiring manager the value you can add to the organization.
Remember that providing evidence for your accomplishments and being explicit about your contributions are the greatest ways to highlight your contributions.
In this method, instead of saying “Increased sales,” recruiters would know exactly what effect you had (for example, “Exceeded sales KPIs by 30% for 3 months in a row”).
Here’s an example of a strong job experience section:
Work Experience Example
Recruitment Expert X Company 09/2017- 06/2019
- managed all hiring processes, including talent sourcing, talent evaluation, and talent hire.
- 15+ IT professionals were hired with success.
- partnered with hiring managers to produce precise job advertisements, which led to a 32% increase in pertinent job applications.
- used LinkedIn and Facebook to find candidates.
- 20 or more senior experts were sourced in a single year.
#4. Education
Hiring managers want to know your educational history whether or not the position demands a degree.
As a result, your resume should always have a section on schooling.
However, in general, employers are more interested in your talents and job experience than your schooling, so it’s best to keep the education part short.
Start with your most recent and highest degree to achieve that, then say the following:
- Name of degree
- Name of educational institute
- Years Attended
You can exclude any of the following educational information if it doesn’t add value to your resume or isn’t pertinent:
- Minor
- GPA (if relevant and noteworthy)
- Honors
- Courses relevant to the job
- Exchange programs
If your high school diploma is the only degree you hold, only mention it. If not, feel free to omit it and substitute another, more pertinent portion in its place.And here is an illustration of what a resume’s education section should look like:
Education Section Example
M.B.A. Arabic Language and Culture, Minor in Teaching
University of Dhaka
09/2014 – 07/2018
GPA: 3.01
#5. Skills
Any resume should have a skills section because it highlights your professional qualifications.
You should therefore mention your skills in the proper order to impress the hiring manager.
There are now two categories of skills:
- Hard skills – which speak to your technical expertise or training that you have gained through experience (e.g. software, tools, language skills, etc.)
- Soft skills –which describe a lack of concrete talents (e.g. your people skills, interpersonal skills, leadership, organizational skills, etc.)
You should always list both hard skills and soft skills on your resume, regardless of the position.
For instance, even though game creation is a highly technical field, it requires excellent communication skills to operate as a team.
The necessary computer abilities and active listening techniques must both be mastered by a customer care professional.
Having said that, here are some recommendations for improving your skills section:
- List your soft and hard skills separately. Your resume will appear well-organized and simple to scan as a result.
- Tailor your skills section to the job. Employing managers want to know if you have the necessary abilities for the job, so just describe your relevant experience. For instance, if you’re applying to work as a server, the hiring manager won’t be interested in your expert Adobe Premiere Pro talents.
- Carefully read the job description and take notes.If you’re unclear of which abilities to mention on your resume, check to see if any of the qualifications listed in the job description match yours and include them.
#6. Awards & Certifications
Now, if your resume has any extra space, don’t squander it by leaving it blank; instead, add pertinent new sections to stand out and highlight your background in business.
Include any pertinent honors and certificates you may have to demonstrate your knowledge in the field to the recruiting manager.
Here are a few concepts:
- Publication in a journal
- Language certificate
- Professional certificate
If you have multiple certificates, start with the latest and add the following information:
- Certification name
- Certifying body name
- Year of obtainment
- Location (optional)
- Date of expiry (if applicable)
- In progress (if applicable, also add the expected date of obtainment)
And here’s an example:
Professional Certificates
- Digital Marketing Certificate of Professional Competence (2018)
- Information Technology Institute
- expert certified marketer (2018)
- United States Marketing Association
#7. Languages
Knowing one or two foreign languages can provide you a competitive advantage when applying for your ideal job because the majority of businesses today are quite global.
Therefore, if you speak any additional languages, list them on your resume and be careful to note your level of fluency in each one specifically:
Languages
- English – Native or Bilingual Proficiency
- German – Professional Working Proficiency
- Dutch – Limited Working Proficiency
#8. Volunteer Experience
Adding this extra area to your resume is a certain method to stand out from the competition if you have volunteer experience.
That’s because your volunteer work demonstrates to the hiring manager that, in contrast to the majority of other applicants, you are committed to a cause and interested in giving back to the local community.
Additionally, strange employment gaps might be explained or compensated for by your volunteer activities!
Here is an example of how your volunteer experience section can appear:
Volunteer Experience
Nursing Center X
02/2011 – 09/2014
- led social and artistic events for around 15 senior adults.
- aided in the design and construction of a potting shed.
- conceived of and managed regular board game events.
#9. Personal Projects
Want to demonstrate to the recruiter that you are self-driven, enthusiastic about the industry, and possess excellent project management and leadership abilities?
Think about putting your side hustles and personal pursuits in your resume! Of course, you should also explain what each project is about.
Ideally, you should list extracurricular activities that are somewhat related to the position you’re applying for.
But even if your side projects aren’t specifically related to that industry, including them on your CV will demonstrate to employers your ability to successfully handle multiple tasks at once.
Here’s an example:
dhaka Wednesdays Workshop was co-founded (2017 -2018)
The School of Public Health at Imperial College
- started a weekly meal-prep session to educate people about the harm that ingesting too many animal products may do to the ecosystem.
started a recycling initiative (2015)
The School of Public Health at Imperial College
- created educational materials and taught every student on campus how to recognize waste and avoid it
#10. Hobbies & Interests
Even though they won’t be the deciding factor in hiring you if you don’t meet the other requirements, your hobbies and interests are nevertheless an enjoyable element to include if you have the spare room.
Consider this: If a recruiter needs to choose between two prospects who are both equally qualified:
- Someone with whom they share a lot in common
- a stranger they don’t share any interests with
You can bet that they would select choice 1!
Additionally, highlighting your interests and hobbies can help you demonstrate your special abilities and characteristics, which will help you stand out from the competition.
However, in the ideal scenario, you should try to only list hobbies that are pertinent to the position you’re applying for (for instance, playing video games is a great hobby if you’re applying for an open-world designer position at Blizzard Entertainment, but it won’t impress the recruiter if you’re applying to be a financial analyst at a nearby law firm).
Use a Tried & Tested Resume Template
It can take some time to create a resume from scratch.
Before you can even begin to fill in the information, you must prepare the resume’s outline and take care of its formatting.
Use one of our free resume templates instead!
By choosing one of our expert templates, you can avoid worrying about creating a resume outline or formatting your resume because everything is taken care of for you!
You may now start filling out the information on your résumé.
Not to add, our resume templates look great, so hiring managers will definitely pay notice to you!
Compare our tried-and-true resume outline templates to the standard black-and-white resumes to see for yourself:
Job-Winning Resume Outline Example
Resume Example 01
Example 02
Example 03
Key Takeaways
Therefore, you need to now have a far better idea of how to create an effective resume outline that highlights your professional skills.
However, before you begin developing your resume, let’s quickly review what we discovered in this article:
- Create a resume that is specific to the position you are applying for in order to land the job.
- Your work experience section is the most crucial part of your resume, so be sure to describe it accurately and highlight your accomplishments to set yourself apart from other applicants.
- Use the box to add pertinent extra information to more fully describe your professional past rather than adding superfluous information (such as your high school diploma if you already have a bachelor’s degree)
Read Others Articles
5 Must-Have Skills For Your Nursing Resume
How to Write A Skills-Based Resume in 5 Steps
Latest Products
