What to Put on a Resume in 2024 (to Stand Out Amongst Job Seekers)

In a competitive job market, you’re going to want to create a resume that helps you stand out from hundreds of other applicants. What you put on a resume will help differentiate you from other job seekers while still giving hiring managers the details they need to make the decision to consider interviewing you easy. Of course, there’s a right way and a wrong way to build a resume. So, we’re going to include all the key details of what to put on a resume in this post while sharing tips to help you stand out with the same recommended, tried-and-true format that a resume needs to have.

What to Put on a Resume

Contact Information

Your contact information is typically placed in your resume header alongside your name. You’ll want to include your phone number, email address, and city and state/province. This is a standard practice and you do want to be reachable so you’ll want to include all of these details at the top. If you have your own website or portfolio, you might choose to add links to that at the top in your header or in another section of your resume, depending on your resume design. You’ll want to triple check for typos or mistakes in your contact information, otherwise the right opportunity might pass you by.

Links to your social media might also be relevant to include in your contact information (in particular LinkedIn for the average person). However, if you’re applying for social media roles or roles in which you’re required to be a public figure, you might share other social media profiles, such as YouTube or TikTok to showcase the type of content you create online. These additional links to portfolios or social media videos will help you stand out amongst other applicants as it showcases your more personal side and what you’re truly capable of. So, feel free to add these additional details to help elevate your resume beyond what people typically put on a resume.

Resume Summary

A resume summary is typically added to a resume to give a quick introduction to who you are, why you’re applying, and what you’ll do. Unlike a cover letter, there’s no informalities in this section. You’ll be objectively addressing who you are in this section. You can use a resume summary generator to come up with ideas or to use as a starting point for your own resume summary.

To make your resume summary stand out from other job seekers, tailor your resume summary to the job by pointing at how your previous experience makes you ultra qualified for this current role. For example, if you have worked at multiple startup companies as a software developer, you might mention that you’re a startup developer in your resume summary. Startup cultures are very different from corporate environments, there’s more chaos in a startup and a stronger work ethic is needed. So, in this example, showcasing your niche helps elevate you over the average job seeker. You need to find the common threads of your past experience and tie them to the role you’re applying for to create a resume summary that truly wows hiring managers and recruiters. So, when thinking about what to put in a resume, always tie in details back to this specific job.

Work History

What to put on a resume is often up to you, but a resume without work history sort of misses the point. In addition to the contact section, work history is probably the most important thing you’ll need to add to your resume. Your work history will include your three to five most recent jobs you’ve had. If you’re a new grad, you might include internships or part-time jobs as part of your work experience. Otherwise, if you’re a professional, you’ll add your most recent jobs in your industry. When changing industries or fields, you’ll need to show comparable roles with transferable skills to showcase that you can do that job.

On average, you should put about three or so bullet points per role you’ve worked at. You want to boil your work experience into your biggest overarching accomplishments that sum up your work ethic, your competence, and your ability to do a great job if hired for a role. Tie in what the job posting is looking for and your biggest accomplishments in those areas to help you land your next role. Measuring your success at your current job is crucial so have interesting data to add to your resume. If you’re currently employed but looking for your next role, look up the data points of your biggest accomplishments. For example, if you work in sales, how much revenue did you generate for the business from your work at that company. Take that data and turn it into a bullet point for your resume. Compiling data from your job should be done regularly so you can always add the numbers to your resume that position you as a world-class expert in your craft.

Education

When considering what to put on a resume, your education is probably something you don’t want to neglect. What you took in school often relates to the field you end up working in. It shows that you were taught the fundamentals in your industry, so it’s always good to include if you work in the same field as what you did in school. If you haven’t been in school for over ten years, there’s no need to include your education on your resume as your work history will be enough to showcase your experience and credentials. If you have certifications, you wouldn’t add that to your education but your certifications section of your resume. For example, you might need to be licensed or certified in something in order to land certain jobs, such as bartender, nurse, forklift driver, and so on. So adding those licenses you’ve earned to a certifications section will help you land a job in those types of roles.

Relevant Skills

You can’t create a resume without adding relevant job-related skills. If you’re thinking about what to put on a resume, adding a section called skills with a list of skills from a job posting can be really helpful at helping you pass ATS-filters and showcase your relevance to a role. You can use resume builders like Huntr to find relevant skills from job postings using the job description keyword finder to call out the skills in a job description that you should be importing to your resume. You can import these skills to your resume in a couple of clicks.

What skills should you put on a resume? When thinking about this question, ask yourself, “What skills are mentioned in the job description for the role I’m applying to? What skills are common in my industry? What tools do I regularly use for work? What are the best soft skills people look for in an ideal hire? What trends or changes have been taking place in the industry and which skills can be derived from them?” By thinking through these questions and adding relevant skills that cater to them, you’ll come out as the whole package for that recruiter or hiring manager. For example, a marketer might include skills, such as AI or data analysis when thinking about trends, especially in the layoff era because companies are all about analyzing data to ensure high performance and AI content and graphics are commonly used in marketing these days.

Volunteer Work

When you’re thinking about what to put on a resume, consider adding some volunteer work. Students will likely put volunteer work, such as clubs or organizations in their school to showcase something in place of their lack of work experience in an industry. But volunteer work could also be good to add for professionals. For example, if you’re in a philanthropy group, helped fundraise for a cause, or have done charity work that leans into your skill set, such as a board position for a charity, listing volunteer work on your resume can help position you as a helper while also showing you as qualified for a specific task.

People who do volunteer work are often seen as kind people who want to do good in their communities. This can help give people a favorable impression of you before even meeting you. It can pique someone’s interest in you, “Oh, you do philanthropy in your community? I didn’t know how easy it was to join an organization like that. Can you tell me more about how you got started in that?” It makes an easy segway for a conversation starter for people who are interested in the same thing. Doing volunteer work and listing it in your resume can highlight that you have great soft skills without directly stating that.

Awards

If you want to stand out during the job search, awards are something you can put on a resume to help elevate your qualifications. If you’re a student, you can add scholarships, academic achievements, athletic awards, or community service awards. If you’re a professional with industry experience, you can add awards from your professional society organizations that you’ve won, honors in the media, business awards, employee of the month, military awards, or industry awards. If you’re thinking about what awards to add to your resume, you can Google “Awards ‘job title’” and apply for awards in those categories if you’ve done incredible work in an industry. They might not get added to your resume today, but for future iterations of your resume you’ll be able to add some of these awards to help you stand out online for being an accomplished professional.

Publications

If you’ve been featured in articles by the media or if you’re a writer who’s written for top publications, you could add a publications section to your resume. An entrepreneur who’s built successful businesses looking for a full-time gig as a CEO might add articles written about themselves in top business magazines to showcase their online reputation. A writer who’s written for top blogs or websites might choose to create a list of publications they’ve written for. You can make this section linkable by including links to articles or your author page to help people easily find your content.

A publications section isn’t standard for what to put on a resume. Only those who’ve generated publicity for themselves will be featured in media articles about themselves. So, if you want to include this section to your resume, it’ll help you stand out. Remember, you don’t need to be a high-powered executive or writer to have articles written about you. Even a marketer who ran a successful campaign might have their marketing campaign featured by the media. Or an engineer who built a novel product could have their creation featured by the media. As long as you’re written about in connection to the work you did you can add this section to your resume. Plus, it’s always helpful to pitch niche industry blogs or websites to share your work with them and talk about your process to position you as an industry expert.

Relevant Hobbies and Interests

If you’re thinking about adding supplemental details to your resume to pad it out, hobbies and interests are what to put on a resume to make it look detailed. Hobbies and interests showcase that you have quirks and personality traits that are interesting. You’re not just an average teacher or carpenter, you’re a well-rounded person with cool things you do for fun outside of work. Adding hobbies and interests to your resume can help start a conversation with a hiring manager if you both have similar interests. When choosing hobbies and interests, aim to include relevant ones. For example, if you work in tech, you might include some of your technical hobbies and interests. Some put things like running or playing video games, but this is less relevant unless you’re applying for jobs in those industries. There needs to be alignment between the hobby and your craft or your industry.

Time to build your resume

Now that you know what to put on a resume, it’s time to get working on one. If you’re looking for an easy-to-use resume builder with stunning resume templates, consider using Huntr to create a resume today. You’ll be able to access AI suggestions, a resume grader, and more to help you create a resume that truly stands out during your job search. To build your resume, sign up for Huntr today.