Good Things You Should Include on Your Resume [Examples & Tips]

Good Things You Should Include on Your Resume: A resume is an essential part of a job application. When apply for any job, your Resume/CV will usually land in the inbox of a busy recruiter or hiring manager, they will probably be looking through lots of other Resumes/CVs, so you need to impress them quickly, make it as easy as possible for recruiters and employers to contact you.

In order to grab their attention and ensure that they read your Resume/CV in full and contact, you must hook them with good things on your resume.

In this very well detailed guide, you will learn the “Good Things You Should Include on Your Resume in 2022”. This guide will also tell you what not to put on a resume.

Resume Writing Format

Not every resume has the same sections. Depending on your experience level & where you’re applying, your resume might look completely different. The content that goes inside each section can differ as well, depending on whether you are applying for a job, an internship, or for a Ph.D. program.

For example, you always need to include your contact information, but the resume objective can be very situational.

So, the key here is to tailor your resume content to the job you’re applying for. As long as you mention the right things on your resume, you’re bound to land a job you’ll love.

When writing a high school student resume, or a resume for your first job, it will make sense to put your education above work experience. Also, depending on how you format your resume, all key sections will go in different places on your resume.

Good Things You Should Include on Your Resume To Land The Perfect Job

What to put on a resume? Here are the key items to include:

• Contact Information
• Opening Statement: Summary or Objective
• Work History
• Education
• Soft Skills and Technical Skills
• Certifications and Professional Memberships
• Achievements and Awards
• Additional Sections (Community Involvement, Volunteering, etc.)
• Tailor Your Resume to The Job Description

1. What Contact Information Should Your Resume Have?

A great resume would contain the following contact information in the right order:

Full Name – The generally preferred format is Name, Last Name

Professional Title – Right under the name, you should include your professional title. This should always mirror the job position you are applying for.

Professional Email Address – Your email should be professional and not something you created back in primary school. Make an email specifically for your career and make it something along the lines of [name] [last name] @ email.com

Phone Number – If you are applying for a job outside your country, make sure to include your country code as well.

Social Media Handles – Below are some common social handles you could include that can help you get hired:

• LinkedIn: Many companies nowadays ask for a Linkedin profile when you apply for a job. Your chances of getting hired will be greater if you keep your LinkedIn profile just as up-to-date as your resume.
• Twitter: In very specific cases, you can also include your Twitter profile (if it’s somehow relevant to the job). Some marketing jobs ask for an existing social following.
• Quora: Quora questions and answers cover a wide range of business topics nowadays.
• Medium (e.g Freelancers, writers, bloggers, and entrepreneurs): A rich medium profile can help you showcase your writing skills and personality before even getting to the interview or trial task.

URL to your personal website/channels

Here are some typical examples of what you could include:

• Personal website – Include a link to your personal website if you have an established online presence.
• Personal blog – Only include this if it is relevant to the job you are applying for.
• URL to your personal portfolio – For web designers, illustrators, painters, photographers, etc.
• Youtube channel: Only include this if it is relevant to the job you are applying for.

Make sure to only put the relevant social media handles on your resume.

2. Resume Summary or Resume Objective

What do you put at the beginning of your resume after your contact information? Starting a resume with a summary or objective is a golden opportunity.

It takes an HR manager or recruiter around 6 seconds to decide whether your resume goes on the discard pile or not. That’s why you want to leave a good first impression.

When writing a resume, the best way to achieve that is by writing a killer resume summary or objective.

How to Write a Resume Summary

A resume summary is a 2-3 sentence summary of your entire professional career. If you have more than 2 years of work experience, you’d opt for the resume summary instead of an objective.

The core structure of a resume summary should contain the following information:

• Jobs and years of experience
• Relevant achievements and responsibilities
• What you are looking for. Your goal.

To make sure your resume summary is memorable, make sure to mention how your previous experience on motivation will be beneficial to the company you’re applying for. You should include the following information:

• What can you do for them?
• How will your previous experience fit in the company’s current environment?
• How can you help their company grow while pursuing your own personal goals simultaneously?

How to Write a Resume Objective

A resume objective is also max 2-3 sentences. Rather than describing your work experience, the resume objective focuses more on your motivation for applying for a specific job.

If you’re a professional with several years’ worth of work experience, you should always stick to the resume summary. You’re much more likely to sell yourself with your experience, rather than motivation.

If you’re one of the following, you might want to use a resume objective:

• Recent graduate with no work experience
• Entry-level candidates
• Professional going through a major career shift with no relevant preceding work experience
• Student looking for Internships or Scholarships
• Professional with a career gap

To make sure your resume summary is memorable, as with the resume objective, you want to make sure that it’s tailored for the position you’re applying for.

In addition, make sure to mention:

• Your skills / experiences that are relevant to the job you’re applying for
• Exact keywords from the listing to increase chances of passing through application tracking systems
• How you’re going to help the company achieve its goals

Writing a professional resume career summary isn’t easy, and it’s even harder when you’re trying to figure out how to write a resume objective.

The most important thing to keep in mind when writing both is that you no longer tell an employer what you want. You can actually boil it down to just a few words using our formula for resume titles.

3. Experience Section: How to Write Your Work Experience to Stand Out

Experience is the CORE section of your resume. It makes up the body of your resume. Here is where you get to “advertise” yourself by listing past responsibilities and achievements on a job.

Only add jobs that you had in the past ten or fifteen years or are relevant to the job for which you are applying. A list of relevant jobs in reverse-chronological order, starting with your current position.

How to Include Your Professional Experience on your Resume?

Here’s a three-step process of how to list your work experience so that you can make it stand out:

• Add Your Job Title: This should be right at the top of your resume.
• A short 1-2 sentence description explaining what the company does.
• Include 4-6 bullet points describing the core duties and activities you performed for the company: Each bullet point here should be a one-sentence description of a duty or activity. Try to add responsibilities that reflect the skills listed in the job description and are most relevant to the job for which you are applying. The hiring manager knows what your responsibilities are. What they want to know is how you drove results at the company and helped take it from point A to point B.

Describe your Achievements

After you list a responsibility, think if you achieved anything significant while carrying out that task. Did you increase sales or customer satisfaction? Did you complete a project ahead of time?

If you can add numbers or tangible details to illustrate the achievement, that’s even better. Numbers draw the eye of the recruiter to the achievement, and details help them imagine you achieving the same results for them.

Adding your achievements to your resume is one of the best things you can do for your experience section.

Should You Include Internships on Your Resume?

Yes, only if you have limited work experience. If you just graduated, chances are that an internship (or internships) is the only relevant experience you have. So, definitely mention it in your resume.

But if you have already worked for a few years, you can completely get rid of internships from your resume. Though, if you had a high-profile internship in a widely recognizable organization that’s relevant to the job to which you’re applying, you can include it.

4. How to List Education on a Resume

Another essential part of your resume is the Education section. Here, you describe your academic career with any relevant achievements. Your education section can either come after your experience section, or you can add it before if you’ve recently graduated.

What should you include in Education section?

A list of your degrees and schools: Your education section is also written in reverse-chronological order, with your most recent degree appearing first. If you have higher degrees, you do not need to add the high school you attended.

• A description of your course of study.

You don’t have to add a description of what you studied, but you can if you’re a fresh graduate, want to emphasize it, or find particularly relevant to the job.

• Any honors and awards you received.

A typical entry in your education section should include your type of degree, your major, the name of your university, and any honors and awards you received.

5. Skills You Should Put on a Resume to Make You Stand Out

Skills are the most important thing to include on your resume. Your skills section is a list of your best skills.

All you have to do is mention the right skills in your resume. By the right skills, we mean the skills asked for in the “requirements” or “qualifications” section of the job you are applying for.

To figure out what they are looking for the position you’re applying for, simply go through the listing of the job advert description.

Hard skills are the technical skills you pick at university or work. They can be measured, and are usually directly related to the tasks you complete at work. While hard skills are learned technical skills, soft skills are your personal attributes.

Below are few desirable skills that will look good on any resume, and if you have them they should definitely go on your resume:

• Communication (Written and Verbal)
• Leadership
• Planning and Strategic Thinking
• Analytical Thinking and Research
• Teamwork or Collaborative Work

Universal Skills: It’s a good idea to also put some universal skills on your resume. Universal skills are skills that fit in the description or requirements of most career fields. It can be both soft and hard skills.

Some soft universal skills are leadership, teamwork, and analytical thinking.

Ms Word, Excel, PowerPoint, writing skills, etc.. are typical hard universal skills.

Regardless of the job you are applying for, these are the skills that will come in handy at some point.

6. Certifications and Awards

Do you have any certifications or awards that are relevant to your field or career? Make sure to put them on your resume!

7. Additional Sections

(i) Hobbies and Interests

Adding a hobbies and interests section to your resume is a very good idea, especially if you’ve got extra space. The hobbies and interests section can help you convey a little bit of personality.

(ii) Volunteering Experience

Hiring managers tend to prefer candidates who have some volunteering experience. This means that the employee is the type to spend their own free time on a worthy goal.

If the volunteering experience is somehow related to your career, you can include it in the work experience section. Otherwise, you can create a separate section for it.

(iii) Publications

If you’re a professional writer (i.e. journalist, researcher, scholar, etc.), you’d benefit from including your publications on the resume.

Maybe you have several blog posts published online, or a publication or two in an academic journal. Whichever the case is, you can include them in your resume and make sure to mention the link.

Certain professionals who are have opted for a resume vs a CV might still find it relevant to add sections that highlight their publications or attendance at conferences.

8. Tailor Your Resume To a Job Description

It’s essential that any information you’ve mentioned on your resume is relevant to the job. The skills and experience listed in the job description are what recruiters look for when they initially scan your resume.

Make sure to add keywords from the job description throughout your resume. It’s a good idea to add most of the skills verbatim. Put them in your experience or your skills section.

When a hiring manager sees words from the job description, they will know that your resume is relevant and that you have the skill set they want in a potential candidate.

READ: How to Tailor Resume to Job Description

Things You Should Not Include on a Good Resume

Let look at a brief list of what you should not include on a good resume.

In the Contact Information:

• Date of Birth – Age should not matter to a hiring manager.
• Your exact address, especially if you are not applying for a local job.
• An unprofessional email address (Use email like this name.lastname@gmail.com)
• Personal information like your sex or marital status.
• A photograph (especially in the US and the UK). You should research the company you want to apply to if you are thinking of adding an image of yourself to see if it would be acceptable.

In the Introduction:

• Do not include a resume objective if you are a professional with a lot of work experience. Instead, go for a resume summary.
• Salary requirements.

In the Experience and Education Sections:

• Jobs that aren’t even remotely relevant to the position you are applying for.
• Jobs you only had for a very brief period of time.
• Any illegal jobs
• Your GPA (if it’s lower than 3.5)
• Your high school degree (if you have a university degree)
• The entire list of all the courses you attended in college

In Your Skills and Hobbies Sections:

• Irrelevant skills that don’t translate to the job.
• Odd hobbies.
• Controversial hobbies that relate to politics, religion, or sex. If the recruiter is not on the same page as you, this can hurt your chances at connecting with them.
• Fluff words, especially adjectives and tired verbs.

A great cover letter that matches your resume will give you an advantage over other candidates. READ: How to Write a Cover Letter for a Resume/CV

In Summary – What to Put on a Resume

This guide have covered all the important sections & contents you need to put on a resume. To summarize everything we’ve learned:

• The core contents of a resume include: contact information, resume summary / resume objective, work experience, education and skills.
• The optional sections are: certifications & awards, languages, hobbies & interests, volunteering experience, publications, and projects.
• Make sure to make your work experience section shine by talking about results & achievements, instead of dull responsibilities
• Lastly, make sure you tailor your resume to each different job you apply for.

Success!