How to write a resume, step by step

Assume the first person to open your resume will skim it before deciding whether to read it. In that skim they look for your name, your current title, your last two employers, a few numbers and your education. Make those easy to find, and make every line below them worth reading.

Before you write: how to start a resume

Most people start with a blank page and a template and stall at the summary. Start somewhere else.

1. Choose the job you are aiming for and find two or three ads for it. Mark what they ask for again and again: tools, tasks, qualifications, the words they use. That list decides what goes on your resume and what stays off.
2. Collect your raw material. Your old resume or LinkedIn profile, job titles and dates (contracts and payslips have them), degrees and certificates with their dates, performance reviews, and any numbers you can stand behind: sales, volumes, savings, team sizes.
3. Write the experience first. It is the largest section and the one everything else depends on. Then education, skills and the rest.
4. Write the summary last. Once the rest is there, the two or three sentences at the top are a summary of what is actually on the page instead of a guess.
5. Don’t start with the design. A clean, standard layout is enough while you write, and in a resume builder the template can change later without retyping anything.

In AlderCV you can start without an account in one of three ways: Start writing (a blank resume with grey example text and tips beside each section), Start from an example for your job, or Import a JSON Resume file from another tool, or, with an account on Pro or the 30-day pass, a PDF, a Word file or your LinkedIn PDF.

1. Pick a structure recruiters expect

Use the reverse-chronological format, with your most recent job first. Recruiters and applicant tracking systems (ATS) expect it, and it puts your most recent and usually most relevant experience at the top.

A typical order:

1. Header (name and contact details)
2. Profile (two or three sentences)
3. Experience
4. Education
5. Skills, languages and certifications
6. Optional: projects, volunteering, publications, awards

If you are a student or switching careers, you can move Education or Projects above Experience. Keep the section titles standard (“Experience”, not “My Journey”) so both people and software find them. Our guide to resume formats covers when the functional and hybrid layouts make sense.

2. Write a header that does its job

The header answers one question: who is this, and how do I reach them? It needs:

• Your name, in the largest text on the page.
• The job title you are applying for, such as “Senior Product Designer”. Many people leave it out, yet it is the first thing a reader sees after your name and it tells them which pile you belong in.
• An email address built from your name and a phone number you answer.
• City and country. A full street address is no longer needed.
• One or two links, such as LinkedIn, a portfolio or GitHub, if they help with this job.

Maria Lopez
Senior Product Designer
Austin, TX · maria.lopez@example.com · (512) 555-0147 · linkedin.com/in/marialopez

Whether to add a photo depends on the country. In the US, UK, Canada and Australia, leave it out. In Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Turkey it is common; elsewhere in Europe and Asia it varies. See our guide on resume photos by country.

3. Add a short, specific profile

It goes at the top, but it is easiest to write last. Two or three sentences. Say what you do, what you are good at and what you want next. Cut adjectives like “hard-working” and “passionate”: anyone can write them. Years, a field, a tool or a result can be checked, which is why they persuade.

Weak: Motivated professional with a passion for excellence seeking new challenges.

Strong: Product designer with 7 years in health tech. I turn complex workflows into calm, accessible interfaces and work closely with engineers to ship them.

If you are stuck, fill in this frame and then smooth the wording:

[Job title] with [number] years in [industry or kind of work]. [One thing you do well, with a tool, method or result]. [What you want next, or what you would bring to this role].

More examples by job are in resume summary examples.

4. Turn duties into results

A duty is what you were supposed to do; a result is what changed because you did it.

A simple formula: action verb + what you did + how + result.

Duty (weak)	Result (strong)
Responsible for social media	Grew Instagram from 4k to 21k followers in a year with a weekly video series
Handled customer complaints	Resolved 40+ tickets a day and raised the satisfaction score from 82% to 93%
Worked on the website	Rebuilt the checkout, cutting abandoned carts by 18%

Rules for each bullet:

• Start with a verb: led, built, reduced, launched, negotiated, trained. Our list of resume action verbs groups them by the kind of work you did.
• Use numbers wherever they are true: money, time, percentages, volume, team size.
• Keep each bullet to one or two lines, with three to six bullets per role.
• Put the most impressive bullet first. A skimming reader may stop after it.

A full entry, before and after

Here is one experience entry from a logistics resume, first as many people write it:

Logistics Coordinator, NordFreight GmbH, Hamburg · 2021 – Present

• Responsible for coordinating shipments
• Communication with carriers and customers
• Using SAP for orders
• Various other tasks in the warehouse team

And after applying the formula:

Logistics Coordinator, NordFreight GmbH, Hamburg · Mar 2021 – Present

• Coordinate 120–150 outbound shipments a week across road and sea freight for 40 B2B customers.
• Renegotiated rates with two regional carriers, cutting average transport cost per pallet by 9% in 2024.
• Introduced a daily SAP exception report that reduced late deliveries from 7% to 3% within six months.
• Trained four new warehouse staff on goods-in checks and SAP order entry.

Nothing in the second version is invented. It is the same job, described by what it changed, and the numbers come from reports the person already had access to. “Various other tasks” is gone because it tells the reader nothing.

If you think you have no numbers, look in the places they usually hide: monthly or weekly reports, performance reviews, the ticketing or CRM system, targets you were given, and the size of what you looked after (accounts, budget, people, stock). If you still cannot find one, describe scale or frequency instead (“for all EU customers”, “every month-end”). For finished resumes to compare with, see the logistics specialist resume example and the other resume examples by job.

Stuck? The AlderCV editor suggests example bullet points for 30 jobs while you write. Use them as a starting point and replace the numbers with your own.

5. Tailor it to each job

You do not need a new resume for every application, but you should adjust three things:

1. The job title in your header: match the role you are applying for, if it is accurate.
2. The profile: mention the two or three things the ad cares most about.
3. The bullets: move the most relevant achievements to the top and use the ad’s words where they truly describe your work (e.g. “stakeholder management” instead of “working with other teams”).

A quick way to find those words: read the ad and mark every skill, tool and duty that appears twice or sits in the first few lines of the requirements. Then check that each one you really have appears on your resume, in the ad’s wording. The free resume keyword scanner does the comparison for you.

This also helps with applicant tracking systems, which let recruiters search for the ad’s terms and in some setups rank candidates by how well they match. Read more in our ATS resume guide, and see a worked example in how to tailor a resume to a job description.

6. Education, skills and the rest

• Education: degree, school, city and years. Add your grade only if it is strong and recent. Once you have a few years of experience, education moves below experience and gets shorter. Details for ongoing degrees, GPA and unfinished studies are in how to list education on a resume.
• Skills: list concrete skills and tools (Figma, SQL, SAP, Spanish C1), not personality traits. Eight to fifteen is a good range; past that, the important ones get lost. See the skills section guide.
• Languages: use a clear level, such as the CEFR scale (B2, C1) or “Native”, “Fluent”, “Professional working”.
• Certifications and courses: include them if they are relevant or well known in your field, with the issuer and date. Our guide to certifications on a resume covers formats and licenses.

7. Length and format

• One page early in your career, and up to two once your relevant experience no longer fits on one. Senior academic CVs can be longer. The details by career stage are in how long should a resume be.
• Body text between 10 and 11 pt. Never go below 9.5 pt to fit more in; cut words instead.
• Margins of about 12–20 mm. White space makes a page easier to read.
• One accent colour is enough.
• Export a text-based PDF (not a scan or image) and name it clearly: First-Last-CV.pdf.

For fonts, spacing, columns and a full example page, see what a resume should look like.

8. Common mistakes

• Typos in your name, email or employer names. Read the file on screen, then on your phone, then aloud. Your eye skips different errors each time.
• An unprofessional email address. A free address made of your first and last name takes five minutes to set up.
• Listing every task you ever did. Leave out what a new hire could do in their first week, and keep what took skill or judgment.
• Vague dates. “2022 – 2023” can mean two years or two months, and readers know it. Use month and year for recent roles.
• Tables, text boxes or text inside images, which some systems read out of order or skip. Run your PDF through the free ATS checker to see what text software gets out of it.
• A photo or personal details where they are not expected (or missing where they are).

FAQ

Should I write in the first person?

Resume bullets usually drop the pronoun: “Led a team of five”, not “I led a team of five”. In the profile, either style is fine as long as you are consistent.

How far back should my experience go?

Usually the last 10 to 15 years in detail. Older roles can be cut or shortened to a single line each, unless they are directly relevant to the job.

I already have an old resume. Should I start over?

Usually not. Start from it: add your current job, cut what has gone stale, then refresh the summary and the format. Our guide on how to update your resume goes through it step by step.

What do I do about a gap between jobs?

Show it honestly and briefly. One line explaining a career break, study or caregiving period is usually enough. Our guide to employment gaps on a resume has examples.

Should I list references?

In most countries, no. Have them ready and share them when asked. Some countries, Turkey among them, still commonly include them. See references on a resume.

Is a CV the same thing as a resume?

In the US, a CV usually means a long academic document. In the UK and most of Europe, “CV” is the normal word for what Americans call a resume. The resume vs CV guide explains the differences.

A quick checklist before you send

• Name, title and contact details are correct
• Every role has 3–6 result-focused bullets
• Numbers are accurate and specific
• Section titles are standard
• One or two pages, readable font size
• Tailored to this job's title and keywords
• Exported as a text-based PDF with a clear file name

When you are ready, create your resume with AlderCV. Every template is free and your PDF has no watermark.