How To Build A Strong Resume with Examples, Tips, and Guide
Building a resume can be challenging for even the most seasoned professionals. Even with years of industry experience, you need a clear strategy for how to frame your qualifications and achievements. To craft a strong resume that leaves a lasting impression on the hiring manager, the key is to tell your unique story using engaging and tangible examples from your career. Throughout this guide, we’ll provide expert tips, resume examples, and insights to help you build an accomplishment-driven resume and land your next job interview.
How to Write a Resume that Stands Out
1. Lead with a powerful opening summary
First impressions play a pivotal role during the hiring process. In an increasingly competitive market, HR departments don’t always have the bandwidth to review every applicant they receive thoroughly. With an engaging profile at the top of your resume, you can immediately grab the hiring manager’s attention and set the tone for your document.
Start with a sentence that lists your title, years of experience, and three to four specializations that match the job description. Throughout the remainder of your paragraph, highlight compelling aspects of your experience that can help set you apart from other candidates. For example, say you’re pursuing a position as a UX designer. In this situation, you might emphasize how you’ve delivered seamless user experiences throughout your career by employing a holistic approach to UX design.
Profile Example #1
A Project Manager with 8 years of experience, specializing in Agile methodology, cross-functional leadership, budget management, and strategic planning. A proven track record of executing large-scale technical projects valued at up to $15M. Adept at building and developing high-performing organizations and identifying opportunities to drive operational excellence.
Profile Example #2
UX designer with 6 years of experience specializing in human-centered design, usability testing, and front-end collaboration. Proven ability to design intuitive interfaces that improve digital engagement across e-commerce, SaaS, and mobile platforms. Experienced in building scalable design systems and using data to drive product decisions that align with user behavior and business goals.
Profile Example #3
Registered nurse with 7 years of experience in acute care, telemetry, and surgical recovery units across hospital and clinical settings. Skilled in managing complex care plans, leading patient education initiatives, and coordinating multidisciplinary care. Consistently maintained patient satisfaction ratings above 95% through compassionate care and timely interventions. Played a key role in reducing post-op complication rates by 18% through early risk assessments and collaborative discharge planning.
2. Highlight accomplishments over job responsibilities
When describing your work history, it’s essential to prioritize accomplishments over daily job duties. Hiring managers want to see how your efforts have helped organizations grow and excel throughout your career. Each bullet point should be thoughtful and strategic, illustrating how your unique strengths and industry expertise can translate into real value for prospective employers.
This section is usually the most challenging, especially for entry-level job seekers. That said, you can still make a strong impression on the reader even if you’re entering a field for the first time. For example, if you’re pursuing a career in the nonprofit sector, you could highlight volunteerism and community service experience to make up for a lack of work history.
Professional Experience Example #1
Senior UX Designer | Atlas Software Group, San Francisco, CA | July 2021 to present
- Led the redesign of a B2B SaaS platform used by 50,000+ users, resulting in a 31% increase in task completion rates and a 24% drop in support tickets
- Conducted moderated usability testing and customer journey mapping that directly informed new design patterns and improved NPS from 48 to 67
- Collaborated with front-end developers to implement a component-based design system, reducing dev handoff time by 40% and ensuring visual consistency across products
Professional Experience Example #2
Technical Project Manager | VelocityNet Solutions, Boston, MA | March 2020 to present
- Oversaw a $12 million data migration project impacting six departments and 200+ users, delivered on schedule with less than 3% variance in budget
- Introduced sprint planning and Agile tooling that reduced project cycle time by 22% and improved team velocity over five consecutive releases
- Partnered with executive stakeholders to align program outcomes with business goals, leading to a 17% increase in
Professional Experience Example #3
Registered Nurse | Memorial West Hospital, Fort Lauderdale, FL | May 2018 to present
- Achieved patient satisfaction scores averaging 97% over three consecutive years by emphasizing responsive care and clear communication
- Reduced postoperative infection rates by 15% through early intervention protocols and collaboration with wound care and surgical teams
- Served as charge nurse on rotating shifts, coordinating care for 20+ patients and mentoring newly licensed nurses during clinical orientation
3. Quantify your career achievements
To make your professional experience section more impactful, incorporate hard numbers, data, metrics, and monetary figures to give the hiring manager a clearer picture of your contributions. This adds depth to your bullet points, conveying a greater sense of accomplishment. For example, if you’re a project manager, you might emphasize the budgets for the projects you’ve led or provide insights into how you successfully reduced delivery timelines or costs.
4. Optimize for the applicant tracking systems (ATS)
Before your resume reaches the hiring manager, it’s usually screened by a software algorithm that parses your document for specific keywords that match the job posting. If your resume lacks enough key terms, you’ll likely be rejected automatically. One way to account for this is by featuring a robust skills section containing all the relevant qualifications the company is looking for. While you should also provide tangible examples of how you applied these industry skill sets in real-world business settings, it simply isn’t possible to cram every keyword into your work history. By using the skills section to your advantage, you can ensure that your document is fully optimized for the ATS.
5. Avoid cliche language and phrases
A common mistake job seekers make is relying too heavily on generic and uninspiring buzzwords. Referring to yourself as an “expert problem solver” or “detail-oriented” will never move the needle for most hiring managers. These traits are expected of any professional, and as such, they don’t provide any meaningful insights into who you are as a candidate. Conversely, a term such as “cross-functional leadership,” while perhaps overused, is important to feature for most occupations.
6. Highlight your education and industry certifications
Although your degrees and certifications won’t carry as much weight as your professional experience, they’re still important to feature on your resume. Industry credentials can be especially valuable for entry-level job seekers who need to find other avenues to show employers they have the knowledge to succeed in their field. Pursuing highly recognized certifications also demonstrates your commitment to continuous learning and growth, which reflects positively on you as a candidate.
Strong Resume Examples
Frequently Asked Questions About How To Build A Strong Resume
To tailor your resume effectively, take the time to carefully review the job posting. Look for specific qualifications that align with your background and prioritize featuring those skill sets prominently in your profile, work history, and skills sections. Highlight meaningful examples of how you applied your industry experience in real-world situations.
You can use AI to write some portions of your resume, but it’s not advisable to allow ChatGPT to produce all of your content. Despite rapid advancements in AI, these tools tend to create generic content that won’t capture the depths of your unique experience. Instead, you should use AI tactically to give yourself a starting point for your resume and then revise the bullet points to make the resume engaging and insightful.
While many believe a resume should only be one page, this isn’t always the case. Students and entry-level job seekers should undoubtedly opt for a more concise resume in most situations. Still, more experienced professionals may need an additional page to capture all of their qualifications. Two pages should be the max length for most documents with the exception of federal resumes.
Resume.org offers free, HR approved resume templates to help you create a professional resume in minutes. Choose from several template options and even pre-populate a resume from your profile.