What to Put on a Resume: Section by Section Guide (2026)

This guide is different. We break down every resume section in order of importance, show you exactly what each section should contain, and — for the first time — reveal how ATS software prioritizes each section when scoring your resume. Because knowing what to include on a resume is only half the equation. The other half is knowing what the machine is looking for.

1. Header & Contact Info — Name, professional title, phone, email, LinkedIn, city/state
2. Professional Summary — 3-4 line tailored overview mirroring the job description
3. Work Experience — Reverse-chronological roles with quantified, keyword-rich bullets
4. Skills Section — 8-12 hard skills pulled directly from the job description
5. Education — Degree, institution, graduation year, relevant honors
6. Certifications & Licenses — Industry credentials that validate expertise
7. Projects — Portfolio work or notable initiatives (especially for tech/creative roles)
8. Awards & Honors — Recognition that reinforces credibility (if space permits)

Before we dive into each section, here is something most resume content guides never tell you: ATS software does not weight all sections equally. According to Jobscan's 2025 analysis, keywords account for approximately 40% of your total ATS score — and the Skills section is the primary keyword harvest zone. Work Experience carries another 30%, while your Summary accounts for about 15%. Everything else — Education, Certifications, Projects, Awards — shares the remaining 15%.

This matters because most candidates spend 80% of their time perfecting their Work Experience bullets and almost no time on their Skills section — which is actually the highest-weighted section in ATS scoring. Here is the full breakdown.

This is the simplest section on your resume — and one of the easiest to get wrong. Your header should include your full name, professional title (matching the job you are applying for), phone number, professional email address, LinkedIn URL, and city/state. That is it.

The most critical technical detail: place your contact information in the document body, not in the header or footer region. Many ATS parsers cannot read content placed in document headers. A 2026 study found that 12% of applications are lost because contact details were in the header region — making the applicant effectively anonymous in the system.

What to include:

• Full name (not nicknames unless you go by them professionally)
• Professional title that matches the target role
• Phone number with voicemail set up
• Professional email (firstname.lastname@gmail.com, not cooldude99@hotmail.com)
• LinkedIn profile URL (customized, not the default random string)
• City and state (no full street address — recruiters do not need it)

What to skip: Full mailing address, photo, date of birth, marital status, nationality. None of these help. Several introduce bias. And 76% of recruiters will reject a resume with an unprofessional email address (CareerBuilder).

Your professional summary is the first substantive text a recruiter reads — and the first paragraph the ATS parses for keywords. It carries approximately 15% of your ATS keyword weight. In 3-4 lines, you need to communicate: who you are, what you do, and why you are right for this specific role.

The key word is specific. A summary that reads "Results-driven professional seeking new opportunities" is not a summary — it is noise. A summary that reads "Senior Data Engineer with 8 years building scalable ETL pipelines in AWS, specializing in the real-time processing architectures this role requires" is a targeted pitch that hits keywords and demonstrates fit in one sentence.

The formula: [Title] + [Years of experience] + [2-3 top skills from the JD] + [Most relevant quantified achievement]. Write a new summary for every application.

For a deep dive with templates and examples, see our Resume Summary Recipe guide.

This is the section that gets the most recruiter attention — 79.4% of hiring managers check Work Experience first (Novorésumé, 2025), and they spend roughly 60% of their total review time here. It also carries 30% of your ATS keyword weight. In short: this section can make or break your application.

Format each role consistently:

• Job title (matching the posting's language where honest)
• Company name + employment dates (Month Year – Month Year)
• 3-5 bullet points per role, starting with your most recent position
• Each bullet follows the formula: Action verb + what you did + quantified result

The order of your bullets matters more than most people realize. Recruiters spend 40% of their reading time on the first bullet under your most recent role. That bullet should be the achievement most relevant to the target job — not necessarily your most impressive overall accomplishment.

Resumes with quantified bullets receive 2.3 times more interview invitations (GoApply, 2024). Replace "managed projects" with "managed 8 concurrent projects totaling $4.2M, delivering 7 of 8 on time." For a complete quantification guide, see our How to Quantify Your Resume article.

Here is the section most candidates underinvest in — and it is the single most important section for ATS scoring. Keywords in your Skills section account for approximately 40% of your total ATS score (Jobscan, 2025). It is the algorithm's primary keyword harvest zone. And 99.7% of recruiters use keyword filters in their ATS (Jobscan State of the Job Search 2025).

How to build your skills section:

• Read the job description. Extract every hard skill, tool, certification, and technical term.
• List 8-12 of these skills, using the exact wording from the JD.
• Order them by prominence in the posting — the first 5 skills get 3 times the attention.
• Focus on hard skills: programming languages, tools, platforms, methodologies, certifications.
• Include soft skills only if the JD explicitly mentions them — and never more than 2-3.

Rebuild this section for every application. A skills section that is not tailored to the specific job description is actively hurting your ATS score. For a complete keyword strategy, see our Resume Keywords Field Guide.

Education carries about 8% of your ATS weight — not high, but enough to matter. And for entry-level candidates, it can be the deciding section. For experienced professionals, it is a quick checkbox: does this person have the required degree?

What to include:

• Degree type + major (e.g., "B.S. in Computer Science")
• Institution name
• Graduation year (or "Expected May 2027" if current student)
• GPA only if above 3.5 and you graduated within the last 2-3 years
• Relevant coursework only if you lack professional experience in the field
• Honors (cum laude, Dean's List) if they reinforce your candidacy

Where to place it: If you have fewer than 2 years of professional experience, Education goes above Work Experience. Otherwise, it goes below Skills. Entry-level candidates should lead with Education; everyone else leads with Experience.

Certifications carry about 5% of ATS weight — but their ROI is disproportionately high when they match the job description. If the posting requires "PMP certification" or "AWS Solutions Architect," having that credential on your resume is not just a keyword match — it is a hard requirement filter. Many ATS systems use certifications as binary pass/fail gates.

Format: Certification name + Issuing organization + Year obtained (or "In Progress"). List only credentials relevant to the target role. A marketing manager does not need to list their food handler's permit.

Projects carry low ATS weight (~2%) but high human impact — especially in tech, design, data science, and creative fields where portfolio work speaks louder than job titles. If you are a career changer, a recent graduate, or someone whose best work happened outside of traditional employment, this section is your opportunity.

Format each project: Project name + brief description (1-2 lines) + technologies used + measurable outcome if possible. Link to live demos, GitHub repos, or published work where applicable.

Awards carry less than 1% of ATS weight and are rarely decisive in recruiter screening. Include them only if they are genuinely impressive and relevant to the role — a "Salesperson of the Year" award is meaningful for a sales role; a college debate trophy is not.

If you are tight on space (one-page resume), this is the first section to cut.

One of the most common questions about resume sections order is: what goes first? The answer depends on where you are in your career. Here is how to organize your resume based on experience level.

The principle is simple: lead with your strongest section. For entry-level candidates, that is usually Education or Projects. For mid-career professionals, it is Experience. For senior leaders, it is Experience followed by a curated Skills section. In every case, the Summary comes right after the Header because it sets the context for everything below.

Knowing what to put on a resume is only half the equation. Knowing what to leave off is equally important — because every irrelevant line dilutes the keyword density that ATS is measuring and wastes the precious seconds recruiters spend reading.

What are the must-have sections on a resume?

Every resume needs five core sections: Header/Contact Information, Professional Summary, Work Experience, Skills, and Education. These are the sections ATS software expects to find, and they account for over 90% of your ATS keyword score. Certifications, Projects, and Awards are optional but valuable when relevant.

What order should resume sections be in?

For most professionals: Header, Summary, Work Experience, Skills, Education, then optional sections. Entry-level candidates should place Education before Experience. The key principle is to lead with your strongest section — whatever best demonstrates your fit for the role.

How many skills should I list on my resume?

List 8-12 hard skills pulled directly from the job description. The Skills section carries approximately 40% of your ATS keyword weight, making it the most impactful section for algorithmic scoring. Focus on technical skills, tools, and certifications — not generic soft skills like "team player."

Should I include an objective statement?

No. Objective statements like "Seeking a challenging position..." are outdated and add no value. Replace them with a Professional Summary: a 3-4 line paragraph that includes your title, years of experience, top skills from the job description, and your most relevant quantified achievement.

What should I skip on my resume?

Leave off: "References available upon request," full mailing address, photos, objective statements, irrelevant hobbies, high school education (if you have a degree), every job you have ever had (keep to 10-15 years), and salary expectations. Each of these wastes space without improving your ATS score or recruiter impression.

The difference between a resume that gets interviews and one that disappears is not magic — it is structure. Every section has a purpose. Every line should earn its place. And now you know exactly what the algorithm is looking for in each one.

Start with the high-impact sections: a tailored Summary that mirrors the JD, a Skills section built from the job description's keywords, and Work Experience bullets that lead with quantified achievements. Get those three right, and you have addressed 85% of your ATS score.

Then refine: place your sections in the right order for your experience level, cut everything that does not add value, and run an ATS check before you submit. That is the formula. It is not complicated. It just takes intentionality.