What to put on a resume—and what to leave out
You do not need to fill in every possible section. You need to organise the right information so the reader understands your background in less than a minute.
4-minute readUpdated on 19.10.2026
In this guide
Which sections should a resume have?
There are four sections almost no resume does without, a few that depend on your background, and a set of details that do not need to be there at all.
- Always: contact details, summary, experience or education, skills.
- Depending on the case: projects, internships, volunteering, certifications, languages, portfolio.
- Usually left out: identity card number, tax number, full address, marital status, age and personal references.
What should contact and identity details include?
Name, phone number and a professional email. The city or region helps when the job is on site. A link to a portfolio or professional profile goes in if it is up to date — a dead link is worse than no link.
Check the contact details out loud, digit by digit. A wrong number is the costliest mistake on a resume: the application may be accepted and you would never know.
Emily Carter
Administrative assistant
- London
- +44 7700 900 123
- emily.carter@example.com
- linkedin.com/in/emilycarter
What should you write in the professional summary?
Two to four lines about your field, your most relevant experience and your goal. Loose adjectives take up the most-read part of the document without saying anything.
Says little
«A committed professional who enjoys challenges and wants to grow within the company.»
Says more
«Maintenance technician with five years on production lines, specialised in preventing and fixing electrical faults.»
Why: The second version gives the role, the years of experience and the kind of problem you can solve. That is what lets someone decide whether to keep reading.
Emily Carter · Administrative assistant
Profile
Administrative assistant experienced in customer service, document management and Excel. Looking to support an operations team with accuracy and clear communication.
How should you describe work experience?
Each entry carries role, employer, location and dates. Below, two or three lines about what you did — not just the names of the tasks, but how you carried them out and what came of them.
Says little
«Responsible for customer service.»
Says more
«In-person and phone customer service, order entry and follow-up of complaints through to resolution.»
Why: “Customer service” means different things in different places. The second version gives the channel, the tasks and how far your responsibility went.
Use numbers only when you know them: how many customers, daily volume, team size. An invented percentage is easy to pull apart in an interview.
Emily Carter · Administrative assistant
Experience
Operations assistant
Northway Logistics · London
2023 — present
- Tracked customer orders from entry to delivery.
- Organised shared documents and spreadsheets.
- Worked daily with a six-person team.
What should education and skills include?
For education: course, institution and dates, from the most recent to the oldest. Certifications and extra training go in when they relate to the job.
For skills, use concrete names of tools, methods and languages, with levels that match what you really know. For languages, prefer the European scale (A1 to C2) over descriptions such as “fluent”, which everyone reads differently.
When should you include projects and other sections?
Projects are useful when they demonstrate skills your experience does not show yet. That is the case for people starting out, changing field or working for themselves.
Awards, volunteering and extracurricular activities go in if they add something to the application. An empty section, or one unrelated to the job, does not need to exist — see also How to write a resume with no experience.
What order should resume sections follow?
Put first what best proves you fit the job. With relevant experience: summary, experience, education, skills. For a first job: summary, education, projects, skills. Contact details always stay at the top.
There is no single order. The practical rule is simple: the most useful information for that application should be among the first things found.
Compare structures to choose a template suited to the content.
What should you check before sending?
Quick check
- The contact details are right and are the ones you use.
- There is no excess personal data in the header.
- Every section adds new information.
- The dates are consistent across sections.
- The language levels match your real level.
- The document reads well on a phone and on a computer.
Keep an adapted version for each type of role, and avoid changing facts just to make the resume match the advert.
Start your resume.
Apply these tips in the ArrobaCV editor. This guide does not change your data, and opening the editor does not automatically import the examples in this article. A watermarked PDF is free and needs no account. Exporting without a watermark or in Word requires an account and paid access.