How to write a resume

Market your skills and experience to employers

How to write a resume

Market your skills and experience to employers

A clear, tailored and professional resume is essential for any job application. It should aim to convince an employer that your qualifications, work experience and skillset make you a strong match for the job.

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What is a resume?

A resume, or curriculum vitae (CV), is a summary of your education, employment experience, skills and relevant aspects of your extracurricular activities. It’s also a marketing document to promote your suitability to a recruiter or prospective employer. The aim of a resume is to gain an invitation to an interview.

Your resume and cover letter may be your first contact with the employer, so it’s important to make a good first impression by presenting your qualifications, skills and achievements clearly, positively, and truthfully. You should always research your target organisation and adjust your resume to be individually tailored to each job vacancy.

Workshop: writing a resume or CV

Learn essential information to write an effective resume in a competitive job market, including:

targeting your applications
employers take on effective resumes

Formatting your resume

Resume template

The information below is an overview of the most common elements of an Australian resume. It is not intended as a one-size-fits-all template. The resume can also be structured in the way that best presents your skills and experience. For example, if you have extensive, relevant industry experience, you might find it preferable to place ‘Employment History’ before ‘Education’. Use this template as a starting point.

Use your name as the heading in large, bold lettering. There is no need to include the words ‘resume’ or ‘curriculum vitae’ anywhere in the heading.
Include contact phone number/s and your preferred email address. You can also add a residential address, however, this is optional. Employers will be using these details to contact you, so ensure your email address and voicemail greeting reflect your professionalism.
International students or permanent residents may benefit from indicating their visa status and work rights.
There is no need to add extra information such as a date of birth, photo or nationality.

This section describes the type and level of position you are seeking and the industry or area in which you would like to be employed. A well-targeted career objective makes you look focused and enthusiastic and helps the reader interpret the information that follows in the resume.
The objective should be brief and realistic with a focus on what you are able to offer, eg, ‘Seeking a research position within Environmental Sciences where my university studies in water management and my work experience in local government environmental management can be utilised.’

This section can be useful for drawing the recruiter’s attention to your key competencies.
Focus on skills that are relevant to the job by checking the selection criteria or keywords in the job advertisement.
Skills can be technical (eg, experience with a particular type of software or lab procedure), industry-specific (eg, classroom management for primary school teaching) or transferable (eg, team work, leadership, time management).
Offer evidence when you claim to have a particular transferable skill, eg, ‘Excellent written communication skills developed through activities ranging from writing complex technical reports during my science degree to press releases in my role as Publicity Officer for the Student Biological Society’.

Include your tertiary qualifications, and if recent, also your secondary qualifications. State the full name of the institution and the month and year you completed (or expect to complete) the qualification.
Start with your most recent qualification/studies and work backwards.
Other information you could include: your majors, your current grade or WAM, academic awards, merit scholarships, international exchanges, your thesis title and brief description (for research students) and any other relevant achievements.
Note that this is not the best place to list short courses or trade certificates unless they are relevant to the role.

Experience is a broad term that can refer to a range of practical activities. You may wish to list all of your practical experience under this heading or divide it into different categories. If you have a mix of industry relevant experience and less relevant work, you can divide the section into ‘Relevant Experience’ and ‘Other Experience’. This will ensure that the employer sees the most relevant information first. Some other possible headings are below.

This is one of the more common headings for listing experience.
Start with your most recent job and work backwards. Include your position title, the name of the organisation and the month and year you commenced and concluded the employment.
List your responsibilities and any outcomes or achievements. Quantify where possible, eg, ‘supervised 5 junior staff members’, ‘increased monthly sales by 12%’.
Be clear about the skills you have used or developed, particularly if you have not included a skills summary on your resume.

This section refers to unpaid work undertaken in the not-for-profit sector, community groups, NGOs or charitable organisations. Most employers will be interested in your voluntary work because it offers evidence of initiative and transferable skills.
Lay out your experience in a similar way to your employment – title, organisation, dates, duties, achievements/outcomes.

Here you can include student clubs and societies, sporting activities, mentoring, student representative roles and more. As with volunteering, most employers value extracurricular activities.

Again, lay out in the same way as your employment. Give enough detail for the employer to understand your contribution to the organisation/team/program and the skills you have used.

Relevant for applicants with research-based qualifications, or those seeking media/communications/writing roles.
List your papers and conferences in the formatting used by your industry or discipline area.
If applying for a non-research role, consider summarising and/or quantifying your publications or conferences, eg, published three research articles on the topic of XYZ in high impact journals, demonstrating excellent written communication skills.

You can include other relevant sections in your resume if you have a particular set of experiences that you would like to bring to the employer’s attention. Choose a clear heading that describes your experience and ensure that all points in the section are relevant to the heading. It is important that the section is closely related to the job to which you are applying. Some examples include:

‘Leadership’ – for students with experience in student leadership such as mentoring, executive roles in clubs/societies, student politics, or other leadership roles.
‘Community Involvement’ – for students who are active in charity or not for profit work, volunteering, advocacy or other community development activities.
‘Exhibitions’ – for students seeking work in the visual arts.

This should always be the last entry on your resume. List 2 or 3 referees who can comment on your work-based skills. If you prefer not to list them on your resume, simply write ‘Available on request’. This will allow you to check in and warn your referees before they are called. Always seek a referee’s permission before you list them in your resume and give them information about the job.
Choose the person who will give you the best reference, ideally, a previous work/volunteer supervisor, manager or an academic.
Include their name, job title, current organisation, contact details, and their relationship to you, eg, ‘Thesis supervisor’, ‘Current manager’, if the relationship is not clear from their job title.

Is your resume:

Targeted and relevant to the role and industry/type of employer?
Demonstrating the transferability of your experience and skills to the role?
Presenting your information in an accessible format that best promotes what you have to offer?
Clear & concise?
Professionally formatted with good grammar and spelling?
Making the best first impression possible?

Submit your resume for instant feedback on CV360.

Checking your resume

Student sitting on green lounge with laptop.

CV360 helps you optimise your resume for humans and machines and is a free service for all enrolled students at the University of Sydney. It provides the opportunity for all students to access immediate feedback on their resumes in a flexible and timely manner.

CV360 is an online tool providing instant, automated feedback on your resume with suggestions based on the features commonly assessed by Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). An ATS is the technology currently used by many employers and recruiters to screen resumes both in and out of selection processes.

CV360 provides feedback on your resume’s:

file type
presentation
structure
content
skills
language

For further information read our CV360 guide.

Upload your resume (ideally in Word or plain text format) onto CV360

CV360 feedback starts with a summary profile, gleaned from across your resume content, which provides a useful insight into how you are coming across in nutshell form in your resume eg:

“Joe Student’s experience appears to be strongly concentrated in Employability Skills (mostly Critical Thinking & Problem Solving) and slightly concentrated in Common End-user Software (mostly Core Office). Joe Student’s experience appears to be entry level, with 18 months of experience.”

CV360 then reports on 58 different checks across the six categories (file type, presentation, structure, content, language and skills) to give your resume a score out 100. The aim is to move your score from the “red zone” (<85%) to the “green zone” (85+%).

To do this you have the option of editing your resume based on the generated feedback, then re-submitting your resume on CV360 for a re-score. The system will encourage you to keep re-submitting until you reach a perfect score.

CV360 will rate you as either having “passed” or “failed” a check in each of the 6 categories and explain what the system was looking for with each check.

You have the option to “dismiss” comments on the CV360 feedback screen where you know the advice is not relevant to your circumstances. Every time you dismiss a “failed” result, your score will increase. The aim is not necessarily to score 100% but to take on board the feedback and decide if it’s appropriate to apply in your circumstance, so your resume might be fine with an 87% result, for example.

You can re-submit a resume as many times as you wish/need. CV360 keeps a record of your score progression over each edit. You can also submit as many file versions of your resume as you like, for example, if you have different resumes tailored for different purposes.

It is important to bear in mind that CV360 is using general principles and guidelines to assess your resume. Its focus is on helping you to optimise your resume’s impact in an online recruitment process where a robot (ie: ATS) will assess your credentials before a human does. This means plain text and plain formatting features are required. You may still want to have a more visual presentation of your resume, if that is well regarded by your target industry, for example in design and creative professions. Keep that version for direct applications via email or to offer in person at interview, not for ATS mediated portals. Who Uses ATSs and how can you spot them? gives tips on how to recognise an ATS platform.

Also be aware that despite the predominance of ATSs in today’s recruiting environment, there is still no one right way to write a resume. For example, some employers will stipulate a one page resume, others are happy to receive three or more pages if your work history and achievements are considerable and relevant to the job. For example, a higher degree research student could potentially have a one page resume for an industry role but a 5 page resume for an academic position. CV360 will base its assessment on a general industry standard. If in doubt, there is always room for you to research expectations in your target industry. As with any online tool, use your judgement when applying the advice from CV360.

Upload your resume

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