At the risk of sounding like your middle school teacher, you might want to consider using one of those pesky writing outlines as it could be a valuable stepping stone when it comes to writing your resume. In addition to ensuring your final resume has a logical flow, an outline can make the overwhelming process of resume writing more manageable to tackle and less of a chore.
Honestly, there’s not a ton you need to know about resume outlines, and we aren’t here to insult your intelligence. So, we’ll get right to it—giving you the info you should have and, most importantly, the tools (outlines) you came for—so you can get going with a strong and successful job hunt.
At a minimum, your resume outline should include your contact information and job title, your work experience, education, and skills. Consider adding optional sections, including a career objective, resume summary, projects, activities, and hobbies/interests.
These resume outline examples are great tools for you, no matter your career choice or experience level:
Download and edit in Microsoft Word.
Edit in Google Docs (choose “File” and “Make a copy”).
Download and edit in Microsoft Word.
Edit in Google Docs (choose “File” and “Make a copy”).
Download and edit in Microsoft Word.
Edit in Google Docs (choose “File” and “Make a copy”).
Depends.
If you answered yes to any of those questions, a resume outline might be helpful.
If, on the other hand, you already have a resume template or an older version of your resume, you may not find much value in a resume outline. If you’re confident about the sections you’ll be including, how you’ll order those sections, and what resume format you’ll use, then it’s time to complete your resume!
All right, you made it this far, so we’re committed to helping you understand each part of your resume outline. We’ll take a quick peek at every section you’ll include (or consider including) on your resume, offering helpful resume tips and writing guidance along the way.
Since contact information is pretty self-explanatory, chances exponentially increase for mistakes here. We’re pretty comfortable writing our names. Until, after we’ve sent 20 applications, we realize we’ve misspelled it.
You’ll want to include the following, and, of course, don’t be that person that misspells their own name (because let’s face it, you’ll probably just copy and paste what’s in your outline onto your resume template):
You don’t necessarily need a career objective or summary statement. In fact, we only recommend including them in certain circumstances. Here’s a quick look at the difference between a summary and an objective and when they may be useful for you to include:
Resume objective: a short paragraph (two or three sentences) pitching why you’re a strong candidate. Consider using a resume objective if:
Anyone can choose to include a resume objective, though, as long as it’s highly specialized for each job application like this one:
Resume summary: a highlight reel of your work experience and relevant skills. A summary could benefit you if:
This summary gives you a good idea of how detailed and tailored yours should be:
Writing your work experience is a bit of an art form. Lots of us are visual learners, so looking at real resume examples will be your best bet. In our samples, you’ll notice that the most engaging, descriptive work experiences:
This short section is one of the most important elements of your resume. Customize your resume skills based on the job description and your true abilities.
It’s a small section, but even so, it’s easy to forget what you should include. Our free resume templates make it a cinch to ensure you include the following in your education section:
These aren’t required, but each has its time and place depending on your experience level, workplace culture, and specific qualifications that are particularly relevant for the role.
Awards:
Certifications:
Languages:
Projects/Activities or Volunteering:
Hobbies/Interests:
You have some creative freedom when structuring your resume. Nevertheless, there are a few sections where the placement shouldn’t change:
The rest of your structure will depend on how you format your resume. The most common formats are:
Reverse-chronological resume format
After starting with your contact information and resume objective, your reverse-chronologically formatted resume should most likely be ordered this way:
Functional resume format
The order for a functional resume format will look a little different after the contact information and optional objective/summary:
Combination/Hybrid resume format
Following your name and contact information, you’ll include:
In general, any optional sections should be included at the bottom of your resume or the sidebar regardless of the format you choose.
We will always recommend you use the reverse-chronological format for your resume. It’s the most popular resume format for a reason!
Fortunately, you don’t need to start from scratch and deal with the headache of making and formatting your resume outline. Use any of our ATS- and human-friendly resume templates, download our Word resume templates, or make a copy of these creative Google Docs resume templates. Whatever you choose, you can easily replace the information in each section with your own!
Or, skip those decisions altogether. We’ve made it easy with the following three templates. Choose from a reverse-chronological resume template, a functional resume template, and a combo resume template that you can begin editing now.
Writing your professional resume outline is as simple as following along with this guide. If you’re ready to fill in your resume outline or take your existing resume to the next level, our resume tips will set you up for successful job hunting. If you’re not sure whether you want to start your resume from scratch, or if you’re looking for some guidance on how to improve your work, you can easily check your resume with our free, AI-powered resume tool. No matter what stage you’re at in your career search, we hope this guide gave you a leg up and got you a step closer to snagging your dream job!