What to Put on a Resume: 2026 Complete Checklist

It’s 11:00 PM. The only light in the room is the cold, accusatory glow of your laptop screen. A blank document stares back. The cursor blinks, a tiny, rhythmic heartbeat mocking your paralysis. You’ve been here for an hour. You’ve typed your name. You’ve deleted your name. You’ve retyped it in a different font. Defeated, you open a new tab and type the question that brought you here: what to put on a resume. You’re not alone. The blinking cursor gets everyone eventually. Let’s kill it for good.

This isn’t just a list. It’s a blueprint. We’ll go section by section, covering exactly what hiring managers and their robot assistants, the Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), actually want to see. You’ll learn what to include, what to cut, and why it matters.

Your Contact Information Header: The Digital Handshake

This is the easiest part to get right, and somehow, the easiest part to mess up. Your header is prime real estate at the top of the page. Don’t waste it. The goal is simple: make it effortless for a recruiter to contact you. If they have to spend more than three seconds figuring out how to email you, you’ve already lost.

Here’s what you need, and only what you need:

• Your NameLarge and in charge. Make it the biggest thing on the page.
• Phone NumberOne number. Your cell. Make sure the voicemail is professional. No meme recordings.
• Email AddressSomething clean and professional. Firstname.Lastname@email.com is the gold standard. Your high school email, Sk8rBoi4Lyfe@aol.com, must be retired. Immediately.
• LocationCity, State, and Zip Code. That’s it. Your full street address is unnecessary and, frankly, a little weird to share. It creates a security risk and can introduce location bias.
• LinkedIn Profile URLCustomize it first. Get rid of the random string of numbers at the end. A clean URL shows you’re detail oriented. LinkedIn reports that profiles with a professional headshot get significantly more views, so make sure it’s up to date.
• Portfolio or GitHub (If Applicable)For creatives, developers, writers, and anyone with a body of work, this is non-negotiable. It’s your proof. Make the link clean and direct.

Your header needs to be readable by both humans and software. An ATS can get confused by fancy formatting. Don’t put your contact info in the document’s header or footer section. Don’t use tables or columns. Just plain text, clearly laid out at the very top of the page. Simple works.

The Professional Summary: Your Six-Second Pitch

The "Objective Statement" is dead. It died a quiet death around 2015. It was all about what you wanted. Recruiters don’t care what you want; they care about what you can do for them. You’ll replace it with a Professional Summary. This is a short, 3-5 line paragraph that sits directly below your contact information. It’s your highlight reel. According to research from TheLadders, recruiters spend an average of just 7.4 seconds on their initial scan of a resume. Your summary is your only shot to make them stop and read more.

A good summary is tailored to the specific job you’re applying for. It’s not a generic biography. It’s a direct response to the company’s needs. Use this formula:

• Line 1Your professional title with years of experience. (e.g., "Senior Product Manager with 8+ years of experience...")
• Line 2Your key areas of expertise and skills, packed with keywords from the job description. (e.g., "...specializing in SaaS product lifecycle management, agile methodologies, and user-centric design.")
• Line 3A killer, quantified achievement that proves your value. (e.g., "Led a cross-functional team to launch a flagship mobile app, acquiring 500,000 users and increasing monthly recurring revenue by $1.2M in the first year.")

For an entry-level candidate, the focus shifts. You’d highlight your education, core skills, and passion for the industry. For example: "Recent Computer Science graduate from [University] with a focus on machine learning and data analysis. Proficient in Python, R, and SQL, with hands-on project experience in developing predictive models. Eager to apply academic knowledge and a strong analytical mindset to solve real-world data challenges." It still focuses on what you offer, not what you want.

Work Experience: The Case for Your Candidacy

This is the core of your resume. It’s where you stop making claims and start providing evidence. List your jobs in reverse chronological order, with your most recent position at the top. For each role, include your job title, the company’s name, its location, and the dates you worked there. Underneath, use 3-6 bullet points to describe your accomplishments. Not your duties. Accomplishments.

There’s a huge difference. "Responsible for managing social media accounts" is a duty. It’s passive. It tells me what was on your job description. "Grew organic Instagram followers by 45% in six months by implementing a data-driven content strategy and influencer collaboration program" is an accomplishment. It’s active. It shows results. It makes the recruiter pick up the phone. Every bullet point should start with a strong action verb and, whenever possible, include a number. How much? How many? How often? Quantify everything.

Lena Brandt, a senior recruiter at Outline Technologies, puts it bluntly. "I see hundreds of resumes a week," she says. "Most of them are just lists of tasks. ’Managed projects.’ ’Wrote reports.’ ’Attended meetings.’ It tells me nothing. Did you manage them well? Did the reports lead to anything? Did you say anything useful in the meetings? If you can’t show me the impact you had with numbers, I assume you didn’t have one. It’s that simple."

Education: Setting the Foundation

How you format your education section depends entirely on where you are in your career. If you’re a recent graduate or have less than five years of experience, this section is critical. It should be placed near the top of your resume, right after your professional summary. Include your university, degree, major, and graduation date. If your GPA was a 3.5 or higher, add it. You can also include relevant coursework, academic awards, or major projects to fill out the space and demonstrate relevant knowledge.

If you’re a seasoned professional, your direct work experience is far more compelling than your degree from a decade ago. Move the education section to the bottom of your resume. Keep it short and sweet. The name of the institution, the degree, and the year you graduated is all that’s needed. No one needs to see your GPA from 2008. They care about the P&L you managed last year. Also, unless you’re in a highly academic field, you can drop the graduation year if you’re concerned about age discrimination.

This section is also the right place for non-traditional education. If you completed a respected coding bootcamp, a UX design intensive, or another specialized program, list it here. Treat it like a degree. Name the institution, the program, and the completion date. These programs are increasingly valued by employers, especially when they’re paired with a strong portfolio of project work.

The Skills Section: Keywords are King

The skills section is your primary tool for getting past the ATS. A Jobvite report found that a large majority of corporations use an ATS to screen candidates. These systems work by scanning your resume for keywords that match the job description. If your resume doesn’t have the right keywords, it might never be seen by a human. Your job is to make your resume a keyword jackpot for the roles you want.

Break your skills into logical categories. For a software engineer, this might be "Programming Languages," "Frameworks & Libraries," and "Developer Tools." For a marketer, it could be "SEO & SEM," "Social Media Platforms," and "Analytics & Reporting." This makes it easy for a human recruiter to scan and find what they’re looking for. Read the job description carefully and pull out the specific skills and technologies mentioned. If it lists "Salesforce," you need to have "Salesforce" in your skills section. Don’t write "CRM platforms." Be specific.

Include a mix of hard and soft skills. Hard skills are teachable, technical abilities like Python, graphic design, or financial modeling. Soft skills are interpersonal traits like communication, leadership, and problem-solving. While hard skills get you past the ATS, soft skills get you the job. Don’t just list them, though. You need to prove them in your work experience section. It’s one thing to list "Leadership" in your skills section; it’s another to have a bullet point that says, "Led a team of 5 to successfully deliver a project 2 weeks ahead of schedule." Need more ideas? We have a whole guide to the best skills to include.

Certifications and Projects: Your Competitive Edge

This section is where you show you go above and beyond. It’s your chance to stand out from a stack of otherwise similar resumes. If you have industry-recognized certifications, list them here. This includes things like Project Management Professional (PMP), AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Google Analytics IQ, or Certified Public Accountant (CPA). For each one, list the name of the certification, the issuing organization, and the date it was obtained. This provides immediate, third-party validation of your skills.

The projects subsection is especially powerful for people in tech, design, or those just starting their careers. A well-described project can be more compelling than an internship. For each project, give it a title, and then use a few bullet points to explain what you built, the technologies you used, your specific role, and the outcome. Most importantly, include a link to the live project or its repository on GitHub. This allows a hiring manager to see your work firsthand, which is infinitely more powerful than just reading about it.

Don’t clutter this section with minor online courses or internal company training. Stick to significant, recognized credentials and substantial projects that demonstrate the skills you want to highlight for the job. Think of it this way: if it wouldn’t impress you, it won’t impress a recruiter. Keep the bar high. This section is about quality, not quantity.

The Definitive "Never Include" List

Just as important as knowing what to put on a resume is knowing what to leave off. Including the wrong information can get your resume thrown out before it’s even read. It can signal that you’re out of touch with modern hiring practices or, worse, open the door to conscious or unconscious bias. Here is a list of things that have no place on your resume in 2026.

First, a photo. In the United States, UK, and Canada, including a headshot is a major misstep. It’s a legal liability for companies trying to avoid discrimination claims based on age, race, or gender. Second, your full mailing address. City and state are sufficient. Third, the phrase "References available upon request." It’s completely redundant. Employers know they can ask for references if they’re interested. It just wastes a valuable line of text.

Finally, avoid all personal information that isn’t directly relevant to your ability to do the job. This means no marital status, no date of birth, no religion, and no political affiliations. Your salary history or expectations should also be left off; that conversation is for later in the hiring process, and you don’t want to screen yourself out before it even begins. And please, for the love of all that is professional, do not include a list of your hobbies unless they are uniquely and impressively relevant to the job (e.g., you’re applying to a hiking gear company and you’ve climbed Everest).

Resume Content: The Decisive Breakdown

Making the right choices for each section can be tricky. Use this table as a quick reference guide to decide what’s essential, what’s optional, and what’s forbidden.

As you can see, the context of your career and the job you’re targeting determines what’s situational. But the "must-have" and "never include" columns are universal. Our free CV builder is designed around these best practices, ensuring you get it right every time.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should I put in the summary section of a resume?

Your professional summary should be a concise, 3-5 line paragraph at the top of your resume. It needs to grab the reader’s attention immediately. Start with your professional title and years of experience. Then, highlight 2-3 of your most important skills or areas of expertise, making sure to use keywords from the job description. Finally, end with a powerful, quantified accomplishment that demonstrates your value. For example, instead of saying you’re good at marketing, say you "increased lead generation by 30% through targeted ad campaigns." It’s your elevator pitch in written form.

Should I include references on my resume?

No, you should never include references directly on your resume, nor should you add the line "references available upon request." This practice is outdated and wastes valuable space. Hiring managers assume you will provide references if they ask for them. The time to share your references is when a company explicitly requests them, which usually happens after a successful interview. Keep a separate document ready with the names, titles, and contact information for 3-4 professional references.

What skills should I put on my resume?

You should include a mix of hard and soft skills that are directly relevant to the job you are applying for. Hard skills are technical abilities like programming languages (Python, Java), software proficiency (Adobe Creative Suite, Salesforce), or foreign languages. Soft skills are interpersonal attributes like communication, leadership, teamwork, and problem-solving. The best approach is to create a dedicated skills section and mirror the keywords found in the job description to get past automated screening systems. You should also demonstrate your soft skills through the accomplishment-based bullet points in your work experience section.

Do employers care about a resume objective?

No, employers today generally do not care about a resume objective. The objective statement is considered obsolete because it focuses on what you, the candidate, want from a job. Instead, you should use a professional summary. A summary shifts the focus to what you can offer the employer. It highlights your key qualifications, experience, and the value you can bring to the company, which is what a recruiter or hiring manager is actually interested in learning.

What certifications should go on a resume?

You should include any professional certifications that are relevant to your industry and the specific role you’re targeting. This includes credentials like PMP for project managers, AWS or Azure certifications for cloud engineers, CPA for accountants, or Google Ads certification for digital marketers. Create a dedicated section titled "Certifications" and list the name of the credential, the issuing organization, and the date you earned it. Including these shows a commitment to your professional development and provides external validation of your skills.

Should I include a photo on my resume?

If you are applying for a job in the United States, Canada, or the United Kingdom, you should absolutely not include a photo on your resume. Including a photo can introduce unconscious bias into the hiring process related to age, race, gender, and appearance. Companies actively try to avoid this, and many will immediately discard resumes with photos to protect themselves legally. The only exceptions are for some jobs in other countries where it is standard practice or for professions like acting or modeling where your appearance is a core job requirement.

Building a resume doesn’t have to be a late-night struggle. It’s a formula. By focusing on quantified achievements, tailoring every word to the job description, and cutting everything that doesn’t actively build your case, you create a document that does its job. It gets you the interview. Now you have the complete checklist. Stop staring at the blinking cursor. Start building. You can find more inspiration from our collection of CV examples to see how it’s done.