Resume sections, order and length

MIT’s careers office tells students to stick to one page unless they have extensive experience or an advanced degree. Canada’s Job Bank allows up to two pages, and Google says it has no length requirement at all. Behind the different numbers is one rule: every section, and every line in it, has to earn its place for the reader you are writing to.

This lesson builds the skeleton of a tech resume: which sections it needs, their order for a student, an experienced engineer and a career switcher, what the contact block holds and what it leaves out, how long the whole page should be, and why standard headings help people and software alike.

A tech resume is built from a few core sections

The resume of Asha, the invented backend engineer this track follows, has six sections, and most tech resumes need the same ones. Each holds one kind of evidence:

Achievements, certifications, publications and volunteering get a section of their own only when they add evidence the core sections do not already hold. The UK’s National Careers Service lists the sections of a CV in much the same way: contact details, an introduction, education, work history and references. On the last one it sets a limit: no other person’s contact details belong on your CV, and it suggests saying that references are available on request instead. Canada’s Job Bank goes further and says to keep references on a separate sheet and give them only when asked, so the space is better spent on evidence.

Order the sections by your strongest evidence

The order of sections is not fixed; it follows what is strongest about you. The National Careers Service puts education after the introduction early in a career and suggests moving work history first once you have plenty of it. Within each section the order is reverse-chronologicalreverse-chronological order: Listing the most recent job, project or qualification first and earlier ones after it, the order most resumes and CVs use.: Europass, the EU’s CV format, says to “always list the most recent experience on the top”. Here are three skeletons built that way:

The student leads with the degree and the projects, because they are the evidence. The engineer leads with three years of results. The switcher’s case is the subtle one: the projects in the new field come first, but the dated history stays, so a reader can see what the projects add to. Hiding the dates behind a skills-first, or functional, layout sends a reader looking for what is missing; Europass asks you to explain long gaps instead, and that is MySmartCoPilot guidance too.

The contact block holds only what an employer needs

The National Careers Service lists what the contact blockcontact block: The lines at the top of a resume that say who you are and how to reach you: your name, city, phone, e-mail and links to your work. needs: your name, phone number, e-mail address and a link to a work profile such as LinkedIn. Add your city, so an employer knows where you are, and a link to your work, such as GitHub or a portfolio. A full street address adds nothing a first reader needs, so the city is enough (MySmartCoPilot guidance).

What it leaves out is set out just as plainly. The National Careers Service says not to include your age, your date of birth, whether you are married or your nationality; Canada’s Job Bank adds weight, height, religious preference and political views, and says never to include your Social Insurance Number; MIT’s careers office adds health. The program checks a contact block against those lists, before and after Asha’s edit:

# Checks a resume's contact block against the official guides this lesson cites: what it needs (a name, a phone
# number, an e-mail address and a link to your work profile, as the UK's National Careers Service lists them) and what
# it should leave out (age and date of birth, marital status and nationality in the UK guide; weight, height, religion
# and political views in Canada's Job Bank, which also says never to include your Social Insurance Number, so no
# identity number goes on a resume). Every person, address and number below is invented. Press Edit, paste your own
# contact block into MINE, and run it again.
import re

BEFORE = """\
Asha Verma
D/O Rajesh Verma
Flat 12, Example Residency, Example Road, Pune 411001
Date of birth: (a full date) · Marital status: Single · Religion: (her religion)
Phone: +91 01234 56789 · asha.verma@example.com
"""

AFTER = """\
Asha Verma · Backend engineer
Pune · +91 01234 56789 · asha.verma@example.com
linkedin.com/in/asha-verma-example · github.com/asha-verma-example
"""

MINE = ""  # your contact block, one line per line

# What to leave out, and the guide that says so.
LEAVE_OUT = [
    (r"date of birth|\bdob\b|\bage\b|\bborn\b", "date of birth or age (National Careers Service)"),
    (r"marital|married|single\b", "marital status (National Careers Service, Job Bank)"),
    (r"nationality|citizen of", "nationality (National Careers Service)"),
    (r"religion|caste|community", "religion (Job Bank)"),
    (r"height|weight", "height or weight (Job Bank)"),
    (r"\b[DSW]/O\b|father|mother|husband", "family details (no guide asks for them)"),
    (r"aadhaar|\bpan\b|passport no|social insurance|\bsin\b|\bssn\b", "an identity number (Job Bank: never your SIN)"),
    (r"\b\d{6}\b|flat|house no|lane|street", "a full postal address (the city is enough)"),
]
# What an employer needs, and how to recognise it.
NEEDS = [
    (r"[\w.+-]+@[\w-]+\.[\w.]+", "an e-mail address"),
    (r"\+?\d[\d ]{9,}\d", "a phone number"),
    (r"linkedin\.com/|github\.com/|https?://", "a link to your work"),
]


def check(name, block):
    print(f"{name}:")
    for line in block.strip().splitlines():
        problems = [why for pattern, why in LEAVE_OUT if re.search(pattern, line, re.IGNORECASE)]
        print(f"  {'leave out' if problems else 'keep':<10}{line}")
        for why in problems:
            print(f"  {'':<10}↳ {why}")
    missing = [what for pattern, what in NEEDS if not re.search(pattern, block, re.IGNORECASE)]
    print(f"  Needed and missing: {', '.join(missing) if missing else 'nothing'}")
    print()


check("Before", BEFORE)
check("After", AFTER)
if MINE.strip():
    check("Yours", MINE)

Before:
  keep      Asha Verma
  leave out D/O Rajesh Verma
            ↳ family details (no guide asks for them)
  leave out Flat 12, Example Residency, Example Road, Pune 411001
            ↳ a full postal address (the city is enough)
  leave out Date of birth: (a full date) · Marital status: Single · Religion: (her religion)
            ↳ date of birth or age (National Careers Service)
            ↳ marital status (National Careers Service, Job Bank)
            ↳ religion (Job Bank)
  keep      Phone: +91 01234 56789 · asha.verma@example.com
  Needed and missing: a link to your work

After:
  keep      Asha Verma · Backend engineer
  keep      Pune · +91 01234 56789 · asha.verma@example.com
  keep      linkedin.com/in/asha-verma-example · github.com/asha-verma-example
  Needed and missing: nothing

The edit dropped three lines, the family details, the full address and the personal attributes, moved the phone and the e-mail beside her city, and added a line with two links to her work. Press Edit and paste your own contact block into MINE to check it the same way.

One page or two: what the official guides say

The guides agree more than their numbers suggest. MIT’s careers office keeps a resume to one page except for people with extensive experience or an advanced degree, and describes resumes as typically one to two pages. Canada’s Job Bank says to limit a resume to two pages and to cut or minimise experience that is more than 15 years old. Google has no length requirement but says that being clear and succinct is key. And an employer’s own limit, or a placement office’s, comes before all of them.

None of the guides puts a number on “extensive experience”. This track uses five years or more of relevant experience as the line for a second page; that is MySmartCoPilot guidance. Answer three questions about yourself, and the table marks the length that fits:

In short: one page early in a career, two once your relevant experience is extensive or you hold an advanced degree, and always the employer’s limit when there is one. Two pages are a ceiling, not a target: in the Ladders study, the time recruiters spent on a second page depended strongly on how compelling the first page was.

Standard headings let people and parsers find each section

Greenhouse lists resumes “without clear sections” among the causes of a partial parse, and the best-performing resumes in the Ladders eye-tracking study had clearly marked section and title headers. A creative heading costs on both counts:

Use the same style for every heading and every entry, too. Greenhouse names “differing formats throughout each section” as a cause of partial parses, so one way of writing a job title line, and one way of writing dates, goes all the way down the page.

Practise: plan the sections and the length of four resumes

Turn the rules of this lesson into a function that plans a resume for any person: its sections in order and its number of pages. The sample tests plan the people of the skeletons above, and two more:

def plan(person):
    """Return (sections, pages) for a person: {"student", "years", "switching", "advanced_degree", "limit"}."""
    sections = ["Contact"]
    pages = 1
    # Replace this comment with the rules of the prompt.
    return sections, pages

from plan import plan

STUDENT = {"student": True, "years": 0, "switching": False, "advanced_degree": False, "limit": None}
ENGINEER = {"student": False, "years": 3, "switching": False, "advanced_degree": False, "limit": None}
SWITCHER = {"student": False, "years": 0, "switching": True, "advanced_degree": False, "limit": None}
SENIOR = {"student": False, "years": 7, "switching": False, "advanced_degree": False, "limit": 1}


def test_final_year_student():
    """puts education first for a final-year student, on one page"""
    assert plan(STUDENT) == (["Contact", "Education", "Projects", "Experience", "Skills"], 1)


def test_engineer_with_three_years():
    """leads with a summary and experience after three years, still on one page"""
    assert plan(ENGINEER) == (["Contact", "Summary", "Experience", "Projects", "Skills", "Education"], 1)


def test_career_switcher():
    """puts a switcher's projects in the new field before the dated history"""
    assert plan(SWITCHER) == (["Contact", "Summary", "Projects", "Experience", "Skills", "Education"], 1)


def test_employer_limit_wins():
    """keeps a senior engineer to the one page the employer allows"""
    sections, pages = plan(SENIOR)
    assert sections == ["Contact", "Summary", "Experience", "Projects", "Skills", "Education"]
    assert pages == 1


def test_two_pages_with_extensive_experience_or_a_degree():
    """allows two pages from five years in the field, or with an advanced degree"""
    assert plan(dict(SENIOR, limit=None))[1] == 2
    assert plan(dict(ENGINEER, advanced_degree=True))[1] == 2
    assert plan(dict(ENGINEER, years=4))[1] == 1


def test_new_graduate_without_a_job_yet():
    """puts education first for a graduate who has not worked in the field yet"""
    graduate = dict(STUDENT, student=False)
    assert plan(graduate) == (["Contact", "Education", "Projects", "Experience", "Skills"], 1)

Then work through the questions on sections, order, contact details, length and headings; your shakiest topic is asked about first:

Interview questions

Warm-up (fresher to mid-level): How do you decide the order of the sections on your resume?

By where my strongest evidence for the job is. The contact block always comes first. Early in a career that is usually education and projects, so they come next; with a few years of relevant work, experience moves up, as the UK’s National Careers Service suggests. Someone moving into a new field leads with the projects that prove the new skill but keeps the dated history below them. Inside every section the order is reverse-chronological, newest first. And if an employer or a placement office asks for a particular order or length, its rule wins.

Two questions of this module’s bank take the decisions further:

Key takeaways

• A tech resume needs a contact block, experience, projects, skills and education, with a summary when it helps and extra sections only when they add evidence.
• Order the sections by your strongest evidence for the job, and everything inside them newest first; switchers lead with projects but keep the dated history.
• The contact block holds your name, city, phone, e-mail and links, and leaves out age, date of birth, marital status, nationality, religion, family details and identity numbers.
• One page early in a career and two at most with extensive experience or an advanced degree, unless the employer sets its own limit.
• Standard headings and one consistent style help people and parsers find each section.