What Is a Résumé? Definition, Sections, Formats and Examples

TL;DR — A résumé is a short document, usually one page, that summarizes your work experience, education and skills for an employer. Its job is to get you an interview, so it's tailored to each job and organized so a recruiter, or the software employers use to search applications, can find the evidence fast. Most US résumés use the reverse-chronological format, run one page until you have about ten years of experience, and leave off photos, birth dates and other personal details.

A résumé is a short written summary of your work experience, education and skills that you send to an employer when you apply for a job. Its purpose is to win you an interview: in a page or two, it shows the person hiring that you can do the work they need done.

The word is French. Résumé is the past participle of résumer, "to summarize," and in English it means a summary, especially of employment history. You'll see it written résumé, resume and resumé; all three are correct, and employers treat them the same. It's the American term: the Cambridge Dictionary marks the job-application sense of résumé as US usage and gives CV as the British equivalent. That difference matters if you're applying abroad, and we come back to it near the end.

This guide covers what a résumé is for, the sections it contains, the three formats and when each fits, how long it should be, what to leave off in the US, how applicant tracking systems read it, and a short annotated example.

What a résumé is for

A résumé doesn't get you the job. Harvard's career services office describes it as a concise summary of your abilities, education and experience that highlights your strongest assets, and notes that it is not enough on its own to land a job or internship, though it is an important factor in getting an interview. That's the right way to think about it: a résumé is an argument for a conversation.

Three things follow from that:

• It's selective. A résumé is not your life story. It includes what's relevant to the job you want and leaves the rest out.
• It's tailored. Harvard advises tailoring it to each position by emphasizing the skills that employer would value. You keep one master version and adjust a copy for each application.
• It's read by two audiences. Many employers keep applications in software that recruiters search (more on that below). A good résumé works for both: plain enough for the software to parse, specific enough for a recruiter to believe.

The standard sections of a résumé

Almost every US résumé is built from the same blocks. Within each section, list entries newest first, and order the sections themselves by importance, both of which Harvard recommends.

The experience bullets carry most of the weight. A strong bullet starts with an action verb, names a specific task, and ends with a result, ideally a number: "Reconciled weekly sales for three locations, cutting month-end close from five days to three." Our guide to résumé bullet points has before-and-after rewrites, and how to write a résumé walks through every section in order.

The three résumé formats, and when each fits

Every résumé is organized around your timeline, your skills, or both. Those are the three formats.

The James Madison University career center calls the chronological format the most common one and the one most employers prefer, with the trade-off that it may reveal gaps in your career path. It describes the functional format as suited to people changing fields or with limited work experience, and the combination format as giving work history and skills roughly equal weight.

Our recommendation: use reverse-chronological unless you have a specific reason not to. UT Austin's career services advises a chronological format because both applicant tracking systems and recruiters work better with it, and advises against functional formats. If your job titles don't tell the story, a combination format usually solves the problem without hiding your history. If you have little work experience, a chronological résumé built from classes, projects, clubs and part-time work still beats a functional one; see how to write a résumé with no experience. For a deeper side-by-side, read résumé formats explained.

How long should a résumé be?

• One page for students, new grads and early-career candidates. USC's career center states that one-page résumés are standard practice in the US, and JMU notes that résumés for new graduates are usually limited to one page.
• Two pages once you have a decade of experience. USC considers a two-page résumé acceptable at 10 or more years of work experience. JMU adds that some fields, such as education and health, expect two pages.
• Two pages maximum for US federal jobs. Since September 27, 2025, the Office of Personnel Management's guidance has limited résumés for federal competitive and excepted service jobs under Title 5 to two pages, and an applicant whose only résumé is longer is ineligible for further consideration.

If you're unsure, ask whether a second page would hold at least half a page of relevant material. If not, cut to one.

What not to put on a résumé (US norms)

US résumés are deliberately impersonal. Hiring decisions aren't supposed to rest on age, race, religion, national origin and other protected traits, so details that reveal them have no place on the page.

• A photo. The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says employers should not ask for a photograph of an applicant, and that a photo needed for identification can be collected after an offer is made and accepted. Harvard's guide also says not to include a picture.
• Birth date or age. USC advises minimizing personal information such as birth date, photo, height and country of origin, and says leaving off the birth date protects candidates from age discrimination. Harvard also lists age and gender as things to omit.
• Marital status, religion, nationality, health or disability. None of it bears on whether you're qualified. The EEOC notes that employers are prohibited from asking about disability before making an offer.
• Social Security number, bank details or ID numbers. A legitimate employer collects these for payroll or a background check after you're hired, not from a résumé. The Federal Trade Commission warns that job scammers are after your money and your personal information.
• References, or "references available upon request." Harvard lists references among things to omit. Keep them on a separate page and send it when you're asked.
• First-person pronouns and paragraphs. Harvard and USC both advise dropping "I" and "my" and writing in short, action-led bullets.
• Anything you can't back up in an interview. Every line is a claim you may be asked about.

These are US conventions. Some other countries expect different details; see what a CV is for how norms change abroad.

How applicant tracking systems read your résumé

An applicant tracking system, or ATS, is the software many employers use to collect and organize applications. Recruiters search and sort the applicant pool inside it, and some systems also compare each résumé with the job description and rank candidates; that's how both UT Austin's and USC's career offices describe it. Either way, the system has to read your résumé correctly before anyone can find you in it.

That has two practical consequences:

• Use the posting's words for skills you really have. If the posting says "financial reporting," write "financial reporting," not "money reports." USC advises including keywords from the job description and your industry's terms.
• Keep the layout plain. USC notes that these systems don't recognize columns, graphic résumés, photos or fancy fonts, and UT Austin advises avoiding tables, columns, graphics and design tools like Canva. Use a single column, standard headings (Experience, Education, Skills), and a common font. Submit a Word document or a PDF made from one, which USC recommends, unless the posting asks for something else.

Our guide to résumé keywords and the ATS shows how to find the right keywords in a posting and check your match before you apply.

A short annotated example

Here's a one-page résumé for a new accounting graduate, with notes on why each part is built the way it is.

MAYA TORRES
Columbus, OH · (555) 555-0187 · [email protected] · linkedin.com/in/mayatorres   [1]

SUMMARY                                                                               [2]
Accounting graduate with nearly three years of part-time bookkeeping for a three-location
restaurant group and a summer of audit support at a regional CPA firm.

EDUCATION                                                                             [3]
B.S., Accounting, State University, Columbus, OH                            May 2026
GPA 3.5 · Coursework: Intermediate Accounting I–II, Auditing, Federal Taxation

EXPERIENCE                                                                            [4]
Audit Intern, Regional CPA firm, Columbus, OH                    Jun 2025 – Aug 2025
• Tested 120 expense transactions against receipts for two nonprofit clients and
  flagged 6 misclassifications, all corrected before fieldwork closed
• Built an Excel reconciliation checklist the team reused for three more clients

Part-Time Bookkeeper, Family-owned restaurant group, Columbus, OH   Sep 2023 – May 2026
• Reconciled weekly sales and card deposits for 3 locations in QuickBooks Online
• Cut month-end close from 5 days to 3 by setting up bank feeds and categorization rules

SKILLS                                                                                [5]
Excel (pivot tables, XLOOKUP) · QuickBooks Online · GAAP fundamentals · Spanish (fluent)

1. Contact line. Name, city and state, phone, a professional email and one link. No street address, photo or birth date.
2. Summary. Two lines that tell the reader who this is and why she fits an entry-level accounting role. It's optional; a student with a strong education section could skip it.
3. Education above experience. She graduated this year, so her degree is her strongest credential. After a couple of years of full-time work, it moves to the bottom.
4. Experience in reverse-chronological order. Each role gets its title, employer, location and dates, and each bullet pairs an action with a result. The part-time job counts: it's real accounting work with numbers attached.
5. Skills as searchable nouns. These are the tools and standards an accounting posting is likely to name, so a recruiter searching the ATS can find them.

Résumé vs. CV: what's the difference?

In the US, a résumé and a CV are different documents. A résumé is the short, tailored summary used for most jobs. A CV, short for curriculum vitae, is a longer and more complete record of an academic career, used for faculty jobs, research positions, graduate school and fellowships. The University of New Mexico's CV guide puts a résumé at one to two pages and an academic CV at two or more, with no page limit, and lists every publication and presentation. Outside North America, the words shift: in the UK and much of Europe, "CV" is simply the everyday name for what Americans call a résumé. Our guide to what a CV is compares the two side by side and explains which one to send where.

How to start your résumé

1. Gather the raw material. List every job, internship, volunteer role, project and leadership position you've had, with dates, plus your education, certifications and tools. You'll cut most of it later.
2. Pick the reverse-chronological format and a plain, single-column layout. Set your sections in order of importance for the job you want.
3. Write each bullet as action plus result. Start with a verb, name the task, and finish with what changed, adding a number wherever one honestly exists.
4. Tailor it to one real posting. Mirror the posting's language for skills you have, and move your most relevant experience to the top.
5. Proofread and save it in the right format. Read it aloud, check dates and contact details, and save it as a Word document or PDF, whichever the application asks for.

If you'd rather not start from a blank page, Olive's résumé builder lets you build a résumé by talking through your work, or upload the one you have for an ATS review, tailor it to a specific job, and export it to DOCX or PDF. For a full walkthrough, read how to write a résumé.

Sources

• Cambridge Dictionary — résumé and CV
• Wiktionary — résumé (etymology)
• Harvard University, Mignone Center for Career Success — Create a Strong Resume
• University of Southern California Career Center — Resume Format Guidelines
• James Madison University Career Center — Resume Formats
• The University of Texas at Austin, College of Natural Sciences Career Services — Applicant Tracking Systems
• U.S. Office of Personnel Management — Agency Guidance on the Two-Page Limit on Resume Length
• U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — Prohibited Employment Policies/Practices
• Federal Trade Commission — Job Scams
• University of New Mexico Career Services — CV Guide