What goes on each page
The first page leads with contact information, a focused professional summary, relevant skills and recent work. The second page continues experience and adds education, certifications and community involvement.
CareerOneStop recommends clean, consistent formatting and standard headings. This design avoids photos, decorative charts, logos and complicated columns.
- Name, city, phone, email and professional link
- Role-specific summary and skills
- Work history with measurable outcomes
- Education, certifications and relevant involvement
Use evidence instead of generic claims
Match the resume to the job posting and make the most relevant qualifications easy to find. Use counts, dollar values, percentages or time saved only when they are accurate and relevant.
Keep dates, capitalization, punctuation and spacing consistent. Remove examples that do not apply rather than leaving filler in the final file.
Check the file before sending
Use the file format the employer asks for. PDF keeps the page layout; Word (DOCX) allows further editing. Text does not move automatically between pages, so open the saved file and check the layout before sending.